The Corner of My Eye

The Corner of My Eye

This summer I’m obsessed with a creature that I usually only see out of the corner of my eye. Fast, furious, almost mythical, it shows itself randomly. I may wait for days and then it arrives and leaves so quickly that I’m never really sure that I saw it at all. A hummingbird.

This little bit chipped off in brilliance, as the poet D.H. Lawrence called them. He imagined them as they,

Raced down the avenues, before anything had a soul,
While life was a heave of Matter, half inanimate,
Whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems…..

He writes of them as huge prehistoric monsters that eventually became the tiny bits of jeweled feathers that they are today.

I blame my friend Nancy for this new love. She has always had a red feeder attached to her porch window that attracts hummers. For years I’ve wanted one as well, but I never took the time. Then last year we hung a pink-purple fuchsia outside our porch and watched amazed as a tiny bird hummed through its flowers. We never saw another one, so this year I was determined to buy a feeder.

I wandered around the huge store wondering which one to buy--- the intricate brass one? The multilevel bird-apartment building? The simple red plastic feeder that cost the least? Luckily I found a salesperson who told me that hummingbirds cared only for the color red and the nectar in the feeder. She discouraged me from buying the “special” hummingbird food, telling me to mix up my own sugar water and sent me happily home.

Steve and I filled our feeder, hung it outside next to the fuchsia, and foolishly sat down to wait. But hummingbirds come on their own schedule and waiting does nothing to encourage them along. We waited in vain. For days.

According to Wikkipedia, hummingbirds are,

among the smallest of birds, most measuring in the 3–5 inch range. They can hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings 12–90 times per second. They are also the only group of birds able to fly backwards. Their name derives from the characteristic hum made by their rapid wing beats. They can fly at speeds exceeding 15 miles per second.

With the exception of insects, hummingbirds while in flight have the highest metabolism of all animals, a necessity in order to support the rapid beating of their wings. Their heart rate can reach as high as 1,260 beats per minute. They also consume more than their own weight in nectar each day, and to do so they must visit hundreds of flowers daily. Hummingbirds are continuously hours away from starving to death, and are able to store just enough energy to survive overnight.

Our feeder hasn’t been the riotous hummingbird success I had hoped for. Nancy tells me that they probably come when I’m not looking. I try to be patient as I peer out of my kitchen window searching for them as I might a long lost lover. Then suddenly one arrives and I stand holding my breath afraid to scare him off with any sudden noise. If I’m lucky he will visit the feeder and the fuchsia and then back to the feeder before speeding away. Once I saw two of them and I thought I’d die from happiness. Lisa actually heard the hum of their wings one afternoon when she sat on the steps to the porch. Lucky woman.

When we were at the Notchland Inn we saw myriads of hummingbirds come to their windows all day long and into the evening. I would forget to eat my dinner so enthralled was I with their constant dance. Though I realized that the inn attracted them because of their many feeders and expanse of gardens, still I was jealous of their surfeit. But then I realized that either I had to plant and care for a garden of my own or be satisfied with the few hummers that visited. Perhaps I’ll plant a few more of the flowers that they love and learn to accept the few that come, with joy.

All summer long I’ve been thinking that these birds remind me of something else in my life but I couldn’t think what until my mind wandered the other day. My other obsession this summer has been the students who will be starting classes in my GED school this September. I’ve attended meetings, gone to conferences, exchanged e-mails, and wondered all summer long how to attract them to school and more importantly, how to keep them there. That’s when I realized that they shared my hummingbirds’ attitude, outlook, flower-to-flower life.

My students--all energy and motion and flash, searching from place to place, school to school to find what they want—somewhere safe to return and remain to get what they need. They talk quickly and earnestly, rarely stopping, trying to convince me and themselves that they’ll do it this time, succeed where they’ve failed so often, stay still long enough to survive through the night and the next day. The predators are always there, violence and poverty, sapping their strength and resolve. And all I can do is hang out feeders and plant a bit of garden and be quiet so as not to startle them or frighten them away--always watching them from the corner of my eye.