Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There
With a blanket spread out on May’s green grass, my husband and I are finally idle. Balanced in between Friday and Sunday, in between household chores and calls to take care the body, we extract the essence of the moment. As the breeze pollinates me with the scent of spring flowers, he tells me about a beautiful dream he had. In it he sees his dead father. Tears well up in his eyes. “Oh, the sad mystery,” I say. “There’s such a bittersweet beauty to anything that makes us remember our soul.”
I stroke his black crow hair and hover over him like a hummingbird, writing in my notebook, as he drifts off to sleep. I resist the urge to get busy working in the garden. So I listen. Every sound is amplified, the whish of wind, the flap of notebook paper, the shrill trill, chirp, and tweet of birds. The birds are busy for me.
“Doing nothing expands time. It’s all right here, now,” I write in my notebook. ~ 5/19/07
May 22nd, 2007 10:30 am
Colleen, that’s the most beautiful short story I’ve read in a LONG time!
May 22nd, 2007 10:52 am
Thank you, Janet. I’m so glad that the articulation of those moments came across. Time spent that way is so renewing and realigning for us. It was another porch vacation that extended to the yard.
May 22nd, 2007 4:24 pm
i can’t seem to remember anything about that dream now, but at least i have a felt sense of that moment again now via your way of recording and archiving and poeticizing such lived moments of this amazing mystery. so blessed we are to live in it together. i do remember you hovering hummingly xoxo
May 22nd, 2007 5:18 pm
Beautiful, simply beautiful. Your writing is so vivid, so clear. Makes me feel that I was there too.
Thanks for stopping by – am so glad your site is active again!
May 22nd, 2007 8:22 pm
Wow…that sounds wonderfula nd what a couple of gret quotes. Would you be gracious enough to let me use that first one as a writing prompt?
May 22nd, 2007 8:27 pm
Go for it, Leah. I actually first heard the line from my friend and fellow Floyd folk poet, Will Bason.
May 22nd, 2007 11:21 pm
You’ve captured the essence of a simple yet beautiful time lapse…and I love the title!!!
May 23rd, 2007 5:52 am
I LOVE this post Colleen! And it is not a coincidence that I posted my Hummingbird Pictures…Do take a look! You are such a poet, my dear.
May 23rd, 2007 9:27 am
Sounds like a fabulous way to spend life.
May 23rd, 2007 10:24 am
SO very true…nicely put Colleen. It is good to slow ourselves down once in a while!
May 23rd, 2007 11:26 am
I love this:
“Doing nothing expands time. It’s all right here,”
So true. I have been so busy I have not had time to visit. I miss coming here. Your blog helps me to remember to breathe.
May 23rd, 2007 4:00 pm
I was having trouble articulating why I loved this post so much, and then I saw Joe’s comment, and nodded to myself. Yep, that’s why.
Beautifully articulated, all the way around, from memory to verse.
May 24th, 2007 2:37 am
word for word truth
you unfolded each with
tender grace.
How you stir the soul sweetly.
May 24th, 2007 8:33 am
Such a beautiful picture you painted here. I felt peaceful just reading it.
Susan
May 26th, 2007 2:39 am
what a wonderful state of being. This beautiful, calming post drew me in well before I noticed its title – perfect. Thanks for continuing to visit my blog and for your comments.