STILL NOTICING: Nature Makes Everything OK
- Monarch butterfly caterpillars EVERYWHERE! I was feeling a little anal about not cutting a single, solitary milkweed plant if I could help it, because every single one has babies on it! YES! If you are feeling like you wanna help save monarchs from extinction, growing just a few milkweed plants makes a big difference! None get wasted by these critters. Not to mention, tons of other species depend on milkweed so INDULGE! Get anal! Haha!
- The specific tell-tale maples along my road are starting to broadcast their early messages of fall to come. Just a few yellow leaves on the bottoms here and there. It’s amazing that I can turn to the same trees every year for this information.
- My barn toads have special spots where they like to sit. I love that they love their office hours. I feel names for them coming on…
- My piano keys will not spring back up because Chet the cat keeps bringing mice in the house for the kittens and letting them go. Where do they go? Into my piano. Fucking Chet.
- Mimi and “The Kid”, my resident hummingbirds, have been puffing up and kicking a lot of ass the past few weeks. There is a new couple on the block, Popeye and Olive, and they too want a crack at the jewel-red feeders on my front porch. The aerobatic feats of daredevilry have been as astonishing to hear as they are to watch. They fight so single-mindedly I worry I’m going to wind up with one of them embedded in my eye socket. They have an incredible kinesthetic ability to miss objects but I feel the wings buzz right next to my face as they go hurling by and I think I may have a little future PTSD? Wincing toward the future? I may also look a little crazy ducking at what does not seem to be there from a bystanders perspective.
- Cows are bellowing over the hill, there is an intermittent breeze, and an upside-down dog is snoring full volume. Horses are making their heavy swishing noises and the world doesn’t seem so bad.
I once was hanging a humming bird feeder while standing on a ladder in a bikini top and a rufous female came over and tried to suck nectar out of my belly button!!! I kept pulling back (those beaks look SHARP) and almost fell off the ladder!
I think the course of just "paying attention" and "noticing" has produced a reaction that seems to be the closest to pure joy in Ms Case's muse that I'm aware of. And, that's a good thing. Here in the high desert of California, I am noticing a lot of growth of new Century Plants popping up through the rocks, stones and pebbles that make up my landscaping. A bit of rain, and the desert returns a bit of something...