Today I saw a hummingbird. I have mentioned in earlier posts that we have in Vancouver resident Anna's hummingbirds who winter here after spending the summer in the mountains. I heard him singing in his thin wheezy splendour from a tree growing out of the cliff of Ferguson Point in Stanley Park. He was too far away and the light was too dull to show the iridescent red of his head. I have been seeing these tiny birds everywhere since I identified the first one two weeks ago. This must be a kind of serendipity. It happens often enough, oftener than many of us would imagine. I have long believed that there is an entire unseen reality that underlines and guides and connects us. We are so addicted to logic and rationalism that I think most of us have grown up with very dulled senses to these spiritual or transcendental realities.
This is our first rainy day in a couple of weeks. This has been an unusually dry winter. It does rain at times but not with the daily monotony that usually marks a typical winter in Vancouver. I was really happy to look out the window this morning and see that the water on the roof of the garbage room had melted and the surrounding pavement shining gently in the wet rain. It has been warmer today, up to six degrees. The promised snow we were all dreading did not come. Just rain, and rain that is likely to continue throughout the week. We need rain because there is very little back up water to keep the reservoirs full over the summer and just a little less than oxygen, to survive we need water.
It isn't that I don't like sunshine. I love sunshine. The brilliant jewel like radiance of everything under the sun is such that it can leave me limp and helpless in a melting puddle of joy. And the sky, all these lovely subtle and brilliant shades of blue. I cannot have enough of it. But we need the rain and the softened and darker colours of the day become soothing and restful to the eye and the smell of rain and pure oxygen drenched air is a tonic like no other. Especially while walking by the water's edge.
Today is Family Day, our second since last year when the February Stat was first inaugurated. Even though I don't have a family I can still celebrate it. I spent part of the day walking on the seawall and then into the forest of Stanley Park, followed by a little grocery shopping and nearly an hour in a coffee shop to work on a drawing. I must have put in at least a seven mile hike. At home I sorted through some of my clothing, finding three shirts to throw out and rediscovering other shirts and a pair of pants that fit me again since I started losing weight. I will continue to make a project out of sorting and cleaning out my closet, then I will proceed to other parts of the apartment. I am preparing to move. I was given first notice Friday but I wasn't ready so I had to turn down the vacancy that was being offered in the Pendrellis, the senior's building that my church owns next door. Now that I know that I am high on the wait list I will be occupying myself over the next several months going through all my belongings, getting rid of what I no longer need and bagging and boxing such things that I likely will not need right away. I want to be ready for this move.
I spent a half hour on the phone afterward visiting with my step-cousin who is bravely facing and battling cancer that could well be terminal. She is bouncing back quite to the surprise of all the medical people and I suspect she is not ready to leave us yet. After painting a little I prepared dinner, cabbage unrolled, using a large tin of crushed tomatoes instead of fresh tomatoes and it is surprisingly delicious. Later I wrote an email to my friend Ana in San Sebastian, Spain, all in Spanish. I am quite deliciously tired from all the physical and domestic activity today. Even though I am alone I don't feel alone. I am part of a huge great community and we are together, in the seen and in the unseen. I have long believed that we are all connected no matter how different, distant or antagonistic we might be. Our family extends well belong the claims of flesh blood and DNA. Happy Family Day.
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