The art of pause

The sun has been up about five minutes, and I am tackling routines by rote, like you do when your body is still trying to convince your mind that getting out of bed was an act of self-sabotage. Open the blinds. Brew the tea. Feed the cats. Wait, singular. Just the one cat. Out of habit, my sleepy gaze drifts to where the other two used to eat.

I wonder when I’ll forget to do that.

I see the bluebird while emptying the dish drainer. She lands on a metal plant hanger, the kind shaped like a shepherd’s crook that you stab into the earth. Ironic. Ours holds the brass ship’s lantern we used when we lived aboard. The lamp is the classiest part of our MacGyvered fire circle, and we’re good with that. Anyway, the bloody mosquitoes have made fireside evenings torturous, so there’s been a pause in the action out there lately. A pile of twigs has probably given up on ever getting lit. The chairs are without their colorful cushions, and a couple of table legs have sunk slightly below ground level. The effect is languorous, like a retirement home for lawn furniture. Maybe that’s why the bright blue feathers are so captivating.

The bird flies off. I pour myself a cup of tea.

I’m adding water to a container of flowers when a rumpus behind the dormant fire ring draws my eyes back outside. I can’t identify what’s caused the commotion until I find the binoculars. Squirrels. Wait, singular. Just the one squirrel. I expect to see a partner in crime pop out from behind a tree, but no, it’s a solo act. This fellow clearly got up way before I did. He is exceptionally awake and, it would seem, caffeinated.

I take a seat.

Bumping up the hustle that first captured my attention, a bushy tailed Gene Kelly busts a move that looks more like a feline startle response than a squirrel frolic. Rocketing vertically about 18 inches, he spins mid-air, sticks the landing, then shoots forward. Hand-over-handing his way up the freestanding rack that holds our hammock, he surfs across the roping before dropping underneath to hang upside down, his back feet rotating 180° (it’s true!) as he grips the wooden spreader. He launches himself to our slackline, runs a quarter of its length and turns a few loop-de-loops before hauling ass in a spiral, up a tree. I watch him performing aerial acrobatics in branches that seem impossibly skinny for his chonk, until he finally disappears into the canopy.

I’ve been laughing out loud.

Down below, noshing on yard plants, a trio of rabbits - two mature, one juvenile - are unmoved by this show. Maybe they already saw it on Broadway. Compared to the previous chaos, these three are meditative. Chew. Focus only on the chewing. If the squirrel enters your thoughts, acknowledge the interruption and bring your attention back to chewing. For creatures associated with speed, the bunnies are impressively methodical. Through the binoculars, I can see the veins in their backlit ears, and I think I see their noses going side to side almost as often as they go up and down.

The cat, who has finished her breakfast, appears at my feet. I open the sliding door, and she settles in on the deck, pointing her face in the direction of the morning’s program. She’s old now, content to watch from a distance. The wild ones must sense it.

I’m still sitting, pausing to absorb the wonder of it all.

Once, three cats too often had their way with the natural order of the backyard ecosystem.  This kitchen, where I spend much of my time working from home, is the same one my children scurried through before school not so many years ago. For a while, I left this space to work in another one up the road. Those days, the morning’s sweet scenes might have played through without an audience, or might never have happened at all. And, that was before-before, when the helter-skelter of a rogue virus was the among the fears of only a few.

It occurs to me that my life is a microcosm. The planetary composition of living beings is fluid and every shift, perceptible or not, comes with the capacity to transform outcomes, to alter equilibrium, throwing it off or bringing it back in line. It’s impossible to know which part of the process is unfolding, the teeter or the totter. That moment when eyes meet in the middle is collaborative, delicate, and fleeting.

This, I think, is what evolution feels like in real time.   

~Elizabeth