Signs

I'm not a big believer in signs -- in things that magically appear to guide us down the proper path. I think enchanting things exist everywhere, and we only notice them when we're ready to see them, when something has changed in our head or our heart. Maybe that change frightens us, so it's easier to find a symbol and call it a sign so we don't have to bear responsibility for the choices we make.  Maybe it's easier to believe in the sign than to truly believe in ourselves.

Last Sunday was gray.  Daylight savings time had come and gone, and I'd worked every day for the last six weeks.  Resigned to the situation, I quietly rose before the rest of the household to use my "fall back" hour to write an article as the light began to creep through the blinds. Outside the kitchen window, the squirrels were already chasing each other between the hemlock and the ash, and a hummingbird winged through the thinning branches in search of breakfast.

As the day wore on, filled mostly with mundane Sunday chores, I discovered that despite the clouds, the afternoon air felt practically like summer. This caused all work to cease abruptly, and I headed out to the back deck with my books, pens and chair. The deck needed sweeping, but I just sat and let my mind wander as the tiny migrating finches knocked the berries off the trees, leaving them strewn around along with curled yellow apple leaves and colorful dogwood splashes.

All of a sudden that little morning hummingbird flew right up to my face and just stopped still with it's wings whirring. It hovered there as though it had something important to say, then zipped away over the trees. And I realized at once that inside my crazy deadline-driven world of late, the rhythm of my days had been altered, so that the things I usually do in order to stumble across chance moments of surprise and delight like this, had been completely erased. And I simply hadn't noticed.

So on Wednesday, I arrived home early after a long lunch with a friend. Instead of firing up my computer, and getting back to my deadlines, I slid on my tennis shoes and headed to the wildlife refuge, where I'm always sure to find that rhythm of enchantment that sustains me. Once there, I kicked the giant maple leaves all the way down the path through the woods, despite the stern admonishment from my walking partner that my noise would chase the wildlife away.

Inside the woods, my favorite secret owl, missing all summer long, sat napping, camouflaged on his dark cedar branch. And on the ground, I found two fragile yet beautifully spotted little puff balls under the young oak trees that took me back to summers on my grandparents' farm, where giant orbs, larger than our hands would fall, and we'd delight in viciously stomping them open right there in the rocky field. The heron flew over. The sky turned pink. My hands were cold. It was wonderful.