2006-05-08 - 7:08 AM

the first time i really remember noticing hummingbirds was when i was married to number 2 husband and living up in the mountains in a cabin. they were everywhere up there. soon i bought a feeder for the deck and they would come all day long during the summer. sometimes they would just hover a foot away from my face if i was still. almost like they wanted to get a close look at me too. i was pretty isolated up there, as you might be aware thats one of the red flags of an abuser. i didn't know it at the time. sometimes i would wish i was a hummingbird so i could fly away. eventually i did fly away. i moved my son and i to town and we lived in a small one bedroom apartment. a year later i married number 3 husband and moved down the pass out of the mountains.

I was married to him for 12 years . i spent a lot of that time in illness. sometimes being close to death. it seemed i was always in some sort of recovery period. trying to gain back strength. trying to hang onto life. in the middle of all that at the darkest hour i find my husband cheating on me. there was love there but it was not an easy love. not a joyful love. happy moments yes.. but real joy ..just an illusion i never knew i was missing.
a few months after my husband died i went to a creative workshop. mostly trying to find answers, trying to find my way back from that dark place of grief. we did this play exercise where we laid on our backs on the floor throwing these colored baloons up in the air. tossing them back and forth between us. after a while she said to just pick one and hold it. then we popped them and inside was a small slip of paper with the name of an animal on it. mine was a hummingbird. we read in an indian medicine book about what each animal represented. as i read mine i just broke down and cried. i really had no joy , had not had any joy for a long long time. i knew i needed that little creature in my life more than anything at that moment.

i have a beautiful stained glass hummingbird that hangs over my computer while i write. i put out feeders every year and they are very dear to me.

their lesson is to see joy in small things. every day things. your childs smile. the feel of her soft cheeks under a kiss. the sunset pink sliding down behind purple mountains. after death being so close .. life feels more precious. those are the things hummingbirds bring to me.

really for the first time since i was a child i feel real joy at being alive. the past few days i would even say i feel giddy with life.. happiness. i don't even know what to do with "giddy joy". so im just shivering and letting it out in my art. i wonder is it the art that brings the joy or is it the joy that brings the art..

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