August 24, 2009, journal entry

Six miles.

~

About three miles into my run, after visiting the kingly oaks in Lincoln Park, straight up the hill in the back of the park I ran in an effort to practice recovery. Above the park is an undulating concrete “track,” its loop measuring .54 miles around a marshy pond with pine trees, shoulder height grasses, stands of cattails, and yellow and purple wild flowers. Aspen poise on one side of the garden while their leaves quiver and twitter in the breeze. Enchanted by a huge bumblebee flitting about a purple loosestrife, I veered from the path where grasses push their blades through jagged cracks for one of my exploratory detours.

I love plump bumblebees. They are so different from the predatory yellow jackets and aggressive hornets who quickly sense the sweetness of wine or the scent of candy on a child’s hand. I especially like how bumblebees prance among the blooms in lavender fields and how a gentle push with my foot on the lavender stem moves them unagitated to the next plant, their flight mimicking the colorful butterflies who also congregate among the lavender in their smoothly erratic path.

So off the path I walked, towards the pond to the vascular blossoms and much to my delight, I realized that what I saw was not a bumblebee but was, in fact, a hummingbird! Its lacey wings beat rapidly, like the pulse in a larger bird’s throat. I was simply enthralled, enchanted as though a spell had been cast upon me. (Perhaps one had!) For fifteen minutes I stood quietly and watched, hoping that my own breathing, deep from running, would not cast her away. She flit from tube-like flower to deep-throated blossom taking the sugary nectar from bright colors, much like a bumblebee who hovers in the air with her quick up and down strokes, her gauzy wings like veil-fabric fluttering in wind.

I stood still, hoping she would come close to me as the butterflies who landed on my shoulder in Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Science’s live butterfly exhibit where I spent three glorious hours. I wasn’t wearing the bright flowery colors of my sundresses, their fabric soft and sensually pleasing with the smoothness of satin like the gossamer fibers of silk, but I hoped that the remnants of yesterday’s Clinique “Happy” perfume that I wear remained on my skin, enough to convince this hummingbird that I was of the tribe of wildflowers. And she DID come close to me, so close that she became my breath, inhaled and exhaled from my mouth, a blossoming cloud soon to evanesce into morning’s chilled mist of autumn.

My Inner-Being/Spirit buoyed, I continued to stand still, thinking of how her wings beat steady, strong, and swift as the heart in the body of a runner. I wanted to be like her, how in moving from flower to flower, she became the stopper of time, pausing in the moment to drink the nectar before her. To take in the beauty of the moment. To GIVE beauty in the moment.

She eventually flew off though I lingered, hoping to see her again, to catch one more glimpse of her agile playfulness before moving on in my run. Among the trees in the bright blue sky, the sun dropped light into the pond, dancing, shimmering, glittery.

~

The many different kinds of birds I have seen in the past few days, like varieties of wildflowers, their overall shape similar but the Spirit within varying! Again, as I drove alone along the scenic river route to Sandpoint, Idaho, yesterday, I saw the majestic platform nests of the huge hawk atop utility poles, and I know I will soon see wild turkey in my chilled morning autumn runs. I have reveled in robins, and the sparrows who frolick in sprinklers and their pools of water, and today, I witnessed this beautiful hummingbird engaged in her important work.

~

I continued my run, stride by stride, taking in the Air from the top of my lungs to the depths of their roots. Okay, I haven’t even picked up, much less looked at my half-marathon training schedule, and I haven’t even selected a fall race, but I feel strong and ready.

And it’s not like I don’t have a plan for tomorrow’s run. I’m gonna stop by this pond again. I hope I see the hummingbird again, like the coyote pup I saw twice a few weeks ago, the place I want to get back to…

GL, 8/24/2009. Prevail.