Quoth the redstart

I was sitting by the big picture window listening to the Cleveland Indians game while coloring a picture of a peacock (because that's how I roll) when a movement caught my eye and I looked up to see a small bird sitting on a branch of the potted fig tree out on the porch and peering in at me. Nondescript coloring except for brilliant yellow flashes on the tail--a female American redstart, a bird I've seen about twice in my life and then only in the deep woods, and if its expression could speak it would say, "Take a chill pill, dude."

It's true that I've been a little stressed out, what with the rapidly diminishing summer break, the impending onslaught of grandchildren, and the recent death of one of my husband's indomitable aunts. (If your garage band is called The Indomitable Aunts, what's your theme song?) So lately I've been trying to relax a little more intentionally (hence the coloring book), but it's not easy. You know you're in trouble when "relax" becomes an urgent item on your to-do list.

This evening I thought I'd take a relaxing saunter up our hill to see if the milkweed is attracting butterflies, and sure enough it is. I didn't see any of the big, showy butterflies that make for such dramatic photos, but plenty of tiny butterflies were drinking deeply of the butterfly weed, sometimes three or four orange-and-black butterflies on a single burst of orange blossoms. They were so drunk on nectar that they didn't seem to mind my snap-snap-snapping of photos, and I was so drunk on beauty that I didn't even notice that I'd accidentally changed an important setting on my camera until I came back and found that I'd taken photos of all those gorgeous colors in black and white. 

Did I turn right around to go back up the hill and try again? No I did not, mostly because I'd already changed out of my poison-ivy-laden tramping clothes and I didn't want to change clothes again. At first I wanted to kick myself, because what's the point of photos that don't show all that brilliant color? But the point, of course, was not to get more butterfly photos but to get outside my overcrowded brain and wade into beauty. Which I did, color or no color.

So I guess I can cross "relax" off my to-do list for today, but I'll try to relax twice as hard tomorrow.