Rest in the Valley of the Mountains

We have been at our cabin two mornings already before I realize I haven’t made any hummingbird food. I wash up breakfast dishes before turning to make breakfast for the feathered friends as well. One cup sugar, 4 cups water into a pot and I put it on to boil over the propane stove. I pull down the tall glass feeder with the red plastic flowers and feel instant nostalgia. 

Everything at this cabin is in fact a relic from my childhood. Nothing has changed in the 40 years since these log walls first welcomed my family home. Climbing up the mountains on the dirt road feels like a passage through a time machine. Delicate silver leaves on aspen trees in the high plains shimmer with glee as you first approach, reminding me of the tree from Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, who, when so excited to see the boy return, "shook with joy." The stream welcomes you next by the road, cheering and laughing, running alongside the car guiding the way. As you climb in elevation, the trees grow more dense, slowly closing in on you, tighter and tighter until the mountain ranges on either side of the cabin squeeze in like a hug to a prodigal child. There in the valley of these two mountains sits our cabin, our home, our resting place. The same as it was before, today, and likely long into the future. In fact, the only evidence of the passage of time is the rising and falling sun causing the tall pine tree shadows to move like hands on a clock. There is no available contact with the interconnected world as we are used to, no electricity to extend the day, barely a neighbor other than the very nosey chipmunks. When you come to the cabin, time stands still, in a very welcome way. 

Once the sugar dissolves into the water, I set it outside to cool before adding to the feeder. 

"Just wait," my brother says, as I hang the feeder under the roof eaves overlooking our deck. "The birds are going to go nuts."

It doesn’t happen right away. I sit on the deck finishing my coffee waiting for them to arrive. But word hasn’t yet spread announcing the bar open for business. Just before we leave for our morning hike, I hear the familiar hum of wings, see one brightly colored flitting bird swooop, hover for a second at the red plastic flower, and then quickly buzz away. He’s calling all his friends to happy hour, I thought.

By mid afternoon, I settle onto the rickety metal lawn chairs on our deck, a book in hand, prepared to make the most of the couple hours of quiet in the otherwise busy vacation with young children. This time is always sacred on any given day in or outside of vacation. It is the only few minutes I have to catch up on work, writing, house upkeep, thinking. This last part is most significant as I feel this is all I have been doing lately. Thinking about school, thinking about a pandemic, thinking about racisim, thinking about parenting, and then thinking about how I can write about school or a pandemic or racism or parenting. 

But before the thinking starts, they show up. Three, four, five, six hummingbirds at a time, bobbing in and out, back and forth, buzzing and humming and chirping. There is a clear dominant bird and I begin to take sides, cheering for the quieter more delicate birds getting their fill of the sweet nectar when he is not looking.

I don’t know how long this goes on, my eyes on the birds, their feasting a show for the eyes. I am mesmerized. For countless minutes, my mind does not wonder or wander, it does not stretch or strain, it simply remains steady and present, just me and the birds. There is a moment when the thinking begins "what is this telling me? What can I learn? How can I apply this?" This is the dangerous side effect of being a writer in the world. Everything is a story, one that must be told.

But sitting in stillness, I wonder, what if the story here is simply that I was here. I watched, I listened, I rested. The birds made me pause. They prompted me to rest. That is why we come after all. That is why this magical place in the valley of the mountains remains as constant as it does—as an ever available rest for it’s weary wayward visitors. 

A week after we arrived, we back track down the mountain, past the stream, through the plains, off the dirt road, and back into the world. Time does not stand still out here. As the cell phones detect a signal, I do too. I feel changed. Is it peace? Acceptance? Wonder? It’s hard to put words to it. But maybe I don’t need to. Sometimes rest is just, that.

P.S. It isn’t lost on me that I said I wasn’t going to make any story of those hummingbirds, and here I went. What is it they say? Once a writer always a writer? 

Image created by @phoenixfeatherscalligraphy for C+C, 2020

This post was written as part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to read the next post in this series "Rest—A Photo Essay.”
PS. Are you signed up for the Raise & Shine Letter ? The next one comes out soon with many new books, and other muses, that caught my attention while on our restful vacation.