The Slow Life

After I’ve been away from home a bit, I like to take my time sinking back into it’s rhythm.  I try not to dash about too much, lest I destroy the natural peace that’s waiting.

While I never turn on the radio or the television, I do tend to crank up the air-conditioning and turn on the ceiling fans; then I sit, to hear what I can hear. 

I look to see what needs putting back in place and what might have “moved” while I was gone.  Things like that happen in this house.  But that’s another story. 

This morning I was up early.  For my sanity, I had discontinued the morning newspaper so my routine was already in flux.   I was standing in the dining room, not quite sure what to do with myself when I heard the chirp.  It was the cardinal who spies on me through the large dining room window and chirps for his breakfast.   Their sweet whistles are often one of the first sounds of the morning.

Both male and female Cardinals sing. The song is a loud string of clear two-parted whistles, often speeding up and ending in a slow trill. Males in particular may sing throughout the year, though the peak of singing is in spring and early summer.  Today it is all about the chirp.  The one you’ll hear most commonly is a loud, sharp chip. Most often they make this call when warning off intruders to their territory, when predators are near, as females approach their nests, and by both sexes as they carry food to the nest.  Around the Little House, they make it as soon as they see my shock of white hair. 

Happy for the reminder, I scooped a bowl of black oil sun flower seeds and headed out the back door.  That’s when I felt it, when I caught a breeze.

On a good day, I catch an easterly breeze that cools the long side of the house and makes you forget its July.  The morning sun isn’t high enough to fill the shadows yet and the channel created by the fence and the house makes for a perfect wind tunnel.    

How had I forgotten about this, has it been that long since I was out here.  When did I let newspapers and devices crowd out this time?  Honestly, I think it has been over six years since I sat “down on the side.”  Coffee in hand I sit and look at my world from a different point of view. 

Fragrances mingle; there is that of rain soaked moss between the bricks of the patio and lilies blooming in the yard.  A single smell can call up long-forgotten memories and powerful emotional responses in an instant.  This sweet and loamy mix transports me to my grandmother’s home and the ground beneath the tree swing in the back.  I am just about to journey there when a sudden glimpse of a dancing rainbow catches my eye. 

I looked about trying to locate the source when I recall hanging prisms from the tree limb and the trellis just outside of my kitchen window.  Sure enough there they were, neglected and a bit dirty from their long winter’s exposure, yet they still danced and cast their inner light about, a beautiful reminder of resilience. 

Living the slow life is good.