The solar-powered rainbow-maker throws moving confetti around the dark kitchen. Peals of laughter from the garden below, someone else’s kids, not mine. One striped cat on the windowsill is following the rainbows. Inside the apartment is still cool, the reverse of when the subway is still hot after the weather outside has chilled. My band-aided thumb makes typing clumsy, but I continue. Radio on, William Tyler covering Kraftwerk playing low. The pencil cactus is growing a whole new center.
Today I pretended to be a hummingbird. I kept my eyes closed as instructed. I tried to make a figure eight with my wingarms. It wasn’t easy, but I kept at it. Then, we were told to move about the room as our animal. I moved fast, darting here, there, up on a ledge, then back down to the ground to pretend hover. Then we were told to add a sound that our animal might make, to communicate with one another. I found myself mid-flight in front of a friend who promptly let out a loud wild squawk that demolished any semblance of my birdpersona and rendered me incapacitated by laughter and giggles. I kept my wingarms moving though, even as he continued to yelp with careless abandon throughout the room. I flew and flew until I landed safely where I began. Later, we were tasked with making one another laugh and we did it. And then we did it again. And again.
I don’t have much time before the children are home, mere minutes probably. There is no time for me to edit before I hit publish. Today, two friends shared some of their gorgeousness with the world. The inimitable
started a shiny new Substack and the sweetest wrote about helping hands. Both made me cry while I read them, one on 42nd Street, one in the waiting room of a doctor’s office.The children are here now. My time is up.
[publish]
smokebush and hummingbirds forever and ever, amen.