Writing, despair, hummingbirds, and goldfinches

Musings before resting:

Naps

Something Rachel said to Mike Ross on Suits last night has stuck: “You need to decide if you love me more than you hate what I did.”

I have to decide if I love the results more than I hate having to nap frequently to get them.

I hate the naps, but I hate feeling lost and unable to think MORE.

Yes, I hate having to nap. Yes, I hate that my brain doesn’t work most of the time.

Sub-optimal solutions

But I have solutions, and I keep resisting USING them: don’t eat carbs. Get a nap every 2.5 hours. Block the internet. Get help.

Yes, I hate that getting started is so darned hard. But if I do, I keep going, and stuff gets done.

Yes, I hate that I keep getting more and more behind; but I can make a dent in these things.

God is giving me things to help, and I need to take them. It will never be GOOD. But it can be BETTER.

Green and gold signs

I see a bright yellow male goldfinch on the coneflowers, eating the seeds. The motion attracts me and I pick up the binoculars, and there are three more, another bright male, and two dun females, happily sitting on the drying stalks, pulling the seeds out of the cone and gorging. It is supposed to be their favorite food – and I have provided it for this moment, by planting perennials so many years ago. All is well, God is in His world, at everything is under control, if I will but trust in Him.

Hummingbirds at the feeder reassure me: they must follow a trail of flowers from South America (Central America) to here, finding food at every stop on the way, somehow managing enough fuel to make it through each day, with no way of storing many extra calories on their tiny bodies.

The male goldfinches fight each other a bit over control of a prime feeding area – they must have enough for the moment to find the energy to be distracted. they are bigger than the hummingbirds – but not much, to sit on the head without bending the dried stalk.

The male hummingbirds, probably this year’s juveniles from the tiny bit of red at their throats, buzz and dive at each other for control of the feeder – and then both vanish. Like toddlers, they want the same toy only as long as the ‘other’ wants it.

Proof of life fights despair

The very existence of the tiny birds tips me away from despair.

Thanks, Lord. I needed that.

Despair is the unforgivable sin, because it says things are so bad even God can’t help them. Which is patently absurd, but can burden me in the dark hours when it seems all I have are the same old problems, again, and again, and every day I get farther behind, and more burdened.

That kind of thinking scares me.

I cleared my little piece of writing desk, something I haven’t been able to do in days. That means something. If I can’t even clear the desk, the brain is truly fogged.

A heavier, bigger gray birdie – female goldfinch? – is standing on the stalks, reaching around to the far side on the coneflower heads for the seeds that might have been left behind. Gleaning. It makes me think of women everywhere, waiting their turn, quietly gathering the leftovers the dominant yellow males have left in their frenzied attacks.

Patient, second or last in line. She is not allowed to compete with the bright yellow testosterone-fueled males. She will eat – or the species will not survive – but she is working harder, acrobatically stretching, taking what she can find from what’s left, never getting the prime easy-to-reach seeds.

It reminds me of Tiptree’s The women men don’t see.

You could look at it as God providing for ALL his creatures; I look at it as males going in first, taking more than a fair share, spoiling what’s left.

Maybe I should have been a man.

It has suited the Lord my God to make me what I am. I will not question His judgment or His methods. But I’m allowed wistfulness.

And it means I’m ready for that nap.

What turns you away from despair in the dark nights?

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