The Hummingbird
Flashing Red and Green
Listen to this Story
Sparkly Things
My mother loves hummingbirds. She has little paintings of them, cut crystal ones, stained glass ones, wall paper with hummingbirds, beaded ones, and all sorts of things covered with hummingbirds.
Hummingbirds feed by drinking sweet nectar from flowers, zipping from beautiful thing to beautiful thing getting a quick fix to maintain their perpetual motion. Flitting through the air in every direction, their wings moving so fast they are nearly invisible, their feathers iridescent, flashing green and red, like a gem.
This spring I planned a visit with her and my daughters. We were discussing plans to do, walk through the botanical gardens, have some tea, etc.
Then the letter arrived.
Unwelcoming News
Two weeks before we were scheduled to leave, I received a certified letter from her attorney threatening a restraining order if I went to see her. To say it was shocking and painful would be a grievous understandment.
Never in my life have I or would I harm my mother in any way. There are no grounds and it would easily be denied in a court of law.
Ever since the letter’s arrival it has felt like walking through the mist during the new moon.
I went to see her anyway.
When I arrived, she asked me who I was. I told her, “Your daughter, Jennifer”. Then it clicked. This from the woman who gave me life and saved it twice. It was only 10 months before, I had last seen her.
“Some of my old memories feel trapped in amber in my brain, lucid and burning, while others are like the wing beat of a hummingbird, an intangible, ephemeral blur.” – Mira Bartok
The Hummingbird
Purchase a limited addition print of The Arena, about hummingbirds and my mother, Suzanne Alexander, both mysterious creatures, flitting from thing to thing.
