Goldfinches

I am blissfully alone for a week, unable to go camping with our friends and my husband. (migraine monster) I decided to create my own retreat and have spent many hours in my back yard listening to the water flow down the hill and just watching. I've noticed the hummingbirds, and a cute lizard which hangs out on the rocks by the water. The birds are back at my feeders and this morning I noticed a goldfinch.

Ahh..Mary Oliver..sweet Mary Oliver who feeds my spirit. She too noticed the Goldfinches and has a poem entitled "Goldfinches". I love this part:

every year

and every year

the hatchlings wake in the swaying branches,

in the silver baskets,

and love the world.

Is is necessary to say more?

Have you heard them singing in the wind, above the final fields?

Have you ever been so happy in your life?

This summer I discovered just how hard it is to love the world and be happy when you are struggling with pain and searching for hope. To be happy like those goldfinches, or even that lizard or the hummingbirds, now that would be cool.

Migraines make you desperate. So desperate that you will try anything. And so I finally tried an anti-seizure medication for a month. It make me crazy and miserable, hopeless, depressed, dizzy and get this, gave me headaches! Those pills are now in the trash. I feel like I am in recovery now..still struggling with dizziness. But..my hope has returned just like the birds.

I have noticed t hat even the hummingbirds at my feeder rest. When it gets hot the birds and lizard retreat to a cool spot. There is a lesson there.

Pearl Buck got it right when she said" "Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness."

Today I am content and grateful for tall the small joys in my life.