Hummingirl Jane

| LOCATION: …relocated |

I told the universe, “I’m DONE.”

And I meant it. I had had an unexpected and painful parting of ways with a new love interest who was also an old friend. My 3-year relationship before that had ended only a few months earlier like the last air of hope leaving a slowly deflating balloon.

Then, a few days ago, I was out running in the July evening in my neighborhood when I paused to take a phone call from a client. As I spoke with her walking down a street I never take, I paused for a minute, standing in the road.

Focused on my phone call, my gaze moved unthinkingly down to the pavement around my feet–and I was caught! By what?– My brain registered tiny eyes looking up at me from a tiny body. A hummingbird!

I excused myself from my client and bent down, carefully reaching out to her. She didn’t flinch. I softly picked her up in my palm. She continued to gaze at me, her delicate body breathing the fast regular hummingbird pace.

Almost intuitively, I realized she’d been absorbing the heat from the concrete as the evening grew cool. Finding her that way, she seemed stuck, somehow. I gently closed my hand around her to hold in her warmth.

I immediately looked to the neighborhood. What would I do with her? That lightning quick calculation that I had to pause my life to renegotiate everything for her in the next few hours–the next 24 hours… and how long after?… To see to her care. I knew I wouldn’t just deposit her in a tree and hope for the best.

But I didn’t know what to do.

“Well she needs to eat, Carmell,” I said to myself. “Hummingbird metabolisms require constant food.” In a surreal shift of reality, I walked across the street and into the yard of an arts and crafts style home with beautifully manicured gardens hoping to find someone home who might help me.

Along the drive were golden trumpet vines in full bloom and I thought to stop. I held my tiny soft bundle up to a buttery yellow trumpet flower and silently gasped. Her little tongue extended faster than my eye could track, snaking into the depths of the flower and drinking, pulling back into her long thin beak, extending again and again.

I never thought of a hummingbird’s beak as ‘a beak.’ A beak seems like a much more substantial, possibly-dangerous-to-humans kind of appendage and this was so damn delicate!

She sat, a tiny raja on my palm as I lifted her from flower to flower to drink the nectar. I watched her in awe. “Oh my god, I’m holding a hummingbird as she feeds FROM FLOWERS?!?!!…” I mean, really! Five minutes ago, I was discussing training possibilities with a client for her team, getting my run in, and heading back home to an evening of work at my desk.

Now I was in a garden, holding a juvenile hummingbird, remapping my foreseeable hours and days to support the little life sitting in my hand, bright black eyes silently observing me.

 

I fed her sugar-water every hour through the evening and late into the night. She perched on my finger under the warm lamplight as I sat at my desk. I’d dip my finger into the ziplock of sugar-water and hold it in front of her waiting beak. Her impossibly long thin tongue continued to lick out and suck the nourishment from my finger.

I was captivated. Captive.

I named her Hummingirl Jane.

She sat on my desk that night for hours, looking up at me with clear dark eyes and utter trust. No creature I’ve rescued has looked at me like that.

.

I left her under the heat lamp for a few hours sleep, getting up to feed her and check on her. The next morning I carried her in her clean cardboard restaurant take-away box, into the bedroom as I was getting ready. She suddenly took flight! And my ceiling fan was on!! I panicked, turning off the fan and luckily catching her without injury. Apparently she could fly.

This was simultaneously relieving–and a nerve-wracking new development in her care.

My little companion, that day. Feeding her calmly as I sat in video sessions with clients; her sitting contentedly on my left index finger as I wrote client notes with my right hand. She preferred being perched there, little head darting back and forth, taking everything in.

My heart couldn’t help falling.


>

I had located Wasatch Exotic Pet Care. They would take her and give her the proper proteins a juvenile hummingbird needs, before handing her to Wildlife Rehab who would make sure she safely re-entered her migratory pattern, her free life…

I drove her there, that afternoon; beautiful tiny Hummingirl Jane.

For less than 24 hours, my whole world had changed… And my whole world changed in less than 24 hours.

When I picked her up, I didn’t know what to do, what she would require, how long I would be committing to… I had a choice then. And I carried her home.

At the counter in Wasatch Exotic Pet, I held her perched on my finger for longer and longer as she looked trustingly into my eyes. Even the vet techs commented on her total attention with me. My heart actually ached to let her go. It seems ridiculous, maybe. Except it’s true.

Her empty box sat on the car seat next to me as I drove home. And then life–as it was. But not me as I was. We don’t know how long some magic will continue with us. And we’ll never be able to calculate how we will be changed forever after.

Sometimes, Life relocates us.

I say, Let go. Be relocated. Be soft and captivated and lost and unknowing. Just… be there.

Meaning of Life

| LOCATION: At the counter in the Kitchen of My Life, asking “What’s for dinner?” |

When people talk about answering the question of why they’re here, it always sounds like we expect it to be one thing.

Like, “I’m here to have dinner. Once I decide on, prepare, and eat that meal, it’s done and that’s all there is. I just want it to be “the RIGHT meal.” We put off grocery shopping or trying new foods, eating the same boring things every day or even fasting until we can decide on that One. Right. Meal.

A friend said to me today, “You seem to really know why you’re here. I’m so glad you figured that out!” with the implication that he was still searching and uncertain. I laughed. No matter how clear I get about why I choose to be here, I’m always still asking.

If we’re really honest, I think we always are.

I want to taste as many simple or gourmet, ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ meals as I can fit into this crazy go on the planet. And to share them with a lot of people.

There’s a purpose in there somewhere. 😉

Adventures Are Not For the Faint of Heart

| LOCATION: On a cliff terrace facing the night storm over the Mediterranean, Vernazza, Italy |

I sat out on the quay today writing in the sun, for hours. I knew the storm was coming. The town was only half open–half alive, as though it knew to prepare for something the rest of us were foreigners to. My stomach was in knots–would I be able to show up?

I’d made 3 different backup plans for wifi for my session tonight. The clouds were alternately ominous and majestic as they ran breathless over the top of our little village. As the sun fell, the storms threw the sunset into sharp beauty. And still we all waited, the sky growing dark.

Shops were closing early. I bought wifi time at the only wifi cafe for my mastermind group tonight. And as the cafe closed up, I sat down on the cobbled street outside the door, under an awning, and logged in. The rain started, thunder and wind, as our group came online.

“Where are you?” I panned the webcam down the lonely dark street with lamps lit. “Is that Italy?!” Yes. A small village with NO cars–I can touch the houses on both sides of the streets when I stretch out my arms.

We had an incredible session as the rain pelted sideways and I had to wipe it from my screen. The faithful church bells called the hour, the half hour and the new hour. Looking at me strangely, people scrambled last minute to dry, lit homes behind shuttered windows. My focus was on the seven people on my screen.

I was numb from cold and sitting on cobblestone for nearly 2 hours when I (very) slowly stood up, packed up, and went in search of a last open cafe for a hot drink.

The storm had taken a small intermission.

After being severely warned of power outages, I was thankful to find I had electricity when I arrived at my terraced room on the cliff over the ocean.

I stand alone now in the dark doorway wrapped in a blanket and watching the Mediterranean rage below me as the rain whips across me unrepentently.
……………

And I leave on the early train tomorrow for Florence to prepare myself there for clients, then meeting up with friends I will stay with that I made on my trip 2 years ago.

Immediately, Wednesday morning, I fly to Madrid. The Prado awaits–a dream of many years.

A young woman with her friend on the quay this afternoon, traveling as students, said, “Traveling is really hard. You think you’re going to have this phenomenal time–and you do–but it takes so much to do it. More than you expect or think.” I smiled sympathetically as she said it.

I could relate.

Exquisite moments. Amidst lots of angst and effort and anxiety about where I will sleep tomorrow night… It’s the struggle that makes the journey powerful. It’s the effort to show up and experience everything we can, that opens wide the inner transformation.

Vacation is a reprieve from the daily routine. Traveling literally moves us from where we are to somewhere new–from the person we were to the person we become.

We meet the unexpected. We put ourselves over and over right into the center of the unknown and ask boldly or timidly for what comes next… But we ask.

I love to weave the magical spell with pictures and words of all I am experiencing. And it is all that! And so much more… But the webs that bring the magic together, often quickly dismissed or overlooked, are the struggle and the questioning–the anxiety and stress inherent in not staying in one place longer than a few days, not knowing where we will sleep tomorrow. Trusting life with the next step.

Something incredible will be there.

Fake Outrage

| LOCATION: Tulie ~ French Bakery off of 9th, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA |

How will you feel in 30 years about the stuff you’re posting/commenting now? 🙂

Have any of you suffered from Fake Outrage*?

Years ago in my 20s I had an epiphany one night as I came home from work, made dinner and sat down in front of the TV to watch my favorite shows.
I had absolutely nothing that I valued to show for the time I sat there each night.

I thought, “This is my life! But there’s no ‘fun’ or creativity or true inspiration happening for this time I’m spending.

And I stopped watching.

Just like that. And I started figuring out each night what I wanted to do with this time that was my life.

I had conversations–good ones. I spent time with people. I read. I headed out the door. I took my dog out to run more. I saw sunsets. I got rid of cable, eventually got rid of my TV, and in this… I felt my life return to me.

I tell this story to illustrate a new point. Not so many years back, I found a new addiction that gave me nothing I valued in place of the time I spent. And worse, I was pulling myself into arguments that hinged on my being right or being agreed with rather than on real connection, understanding and personal enrichment.

This addiction was Fake Outrage*. My drug?

The comment threads on social media.

And it was bad.

I started on MySpace (remember that?) and moved to FB. And before long, I realized how awful I felt every time I chose to be sucked into a No-Win debate that devoured hours and hours of my life that I would never get back and left me feeling empty, angry, vindicated (that’s the ego right there, that is…), or self-righteous.

What a waste.

You see, Fake Outrage is where we choose to upset ourselves in a forum in which nothing we do can have actual impact. We invest our energy and time for no real return. We relinquish accountability to instead feed our egos (even our well-intentioned egos 😉

I immediately disentangled. I pulled my fingers out of the sticky, messy, addicting dough and cleaned up. I would catch myself getting hooked by a thread or a comment.

Sometimes I still begin typing a reply and realize where it’s heading for me. I delete it. Or I change what I say to reflect my truth of common human dignity and respect for people. And before I hit “Post” …..

I LET GO.

It is amazing that my social media experience is so positive when I hear so many bemoaning how negative theirs can be. But it’s also not surprising.

There are two sayings that have been especially crucial and necessary for me:

“We receive according to what we Allow, what we Stop, and what we Encourage.”

“Small minds talk about others.
Mediocre minds talk about events.
Great minds talk about ideas.”

Let’s raise the bar for ourselves, and consequently for those we influence by engaging in positive support and ideas. Let’s put all that energy into actual service to the causes that work for what we value, and not dead-end negative entertainment online.

Would we rather go to bed at night feeling right––or wronged? Or would we rather go to bed feeling Connected, expressing the best inside of us, lifting others and believing and expecting the best from all of us?

Would we rather feel like we’ve made a real difference?

*Fake Outrage, the term, comes from The Minimalists on this blog that I HIGHLY recommend 🙂

http://www.theminimalists.com/outrage/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theminimalists%2FHztx+%28The+Minimalists%29

Do I Want to Be Right or Be Understood

| LOCATION: On the train heading home to Salt Lake City, Utah USA |

“Life has a way of putting us into the places we don’t respect.”

This came a decade ago from one of my clients.

One of the most difficult things we face in relationships is the breakdown in communication when our feelings are hurt and we want to be heard. As we argue our point to the other person’s arguing theirs, the divide between us deepens, hurt feelings get worse and worse.

I have thought a lot about this. My art and my work are communication. I am passionate about it. But while I may communicate easily with nearly everyone I encounter, life has unerringly put me in a few places that I did not respect.

And I’ll be honest, at moments it’s made me utterly crazy.

A couple weeks ago I was talking to a friend having a communications struggle with a partner, and I wrote a note to myself. “Is it more important for you to be right, or to be understood?”

I thought I knew what that meant. But in an entirely different situation I found myself looking at that question in a new light.

Do we try to be understood as a way of being right?

Passionate communicator and connector that I am, I realized that yes, in fact, I have used my efforts to be understood as a way of asserting my blamelessness. Asserting blamelessness means that someone is to blame, and if it’s not me then it must be the other person. How awful this must feel to the other person. Creating a tacitly hostile situation, we digress in any number of ways, losing the confidence and connection of both people. It sucks.
It takes a giant leap to choose respect for ourselves in those moments of hurt, to take a deep breath, step back and say, “I love you. I respect you. And I want to understand you.”

Then listen.