Stillness and Quietude

[intertext]

One thing I'm learning through all this is how to rest and how to be still for longer periods of time that I am normally accustomed to. I am not exactly restless, but I usually like to be doing something and that at speed. Perforce now I move slowly and spend long periods of time still and quiet. This afternoon I stood for a long time in the garden, mostly because I was tired and didn't want to venture up or down the slope I was standing on. This paid off, however, because a flock of bushtits landed on the sweetpeas about two feet away from where I was standing and started nibbling something - probably aphids - on the blossoms. I've never seen them so close up before, and was able to see clearly their sharp, slightly fanatical little faces. Then the hummer zoomed in and out, poking its beak into the comfrey blossoms. Then I managed to make my way up the slope to where I have an Adirondack chair overlooking the garden, under Constance Spry, where now there is a perennial sweet pea intertwining. While I was sitting quietly there, the hummer came and fed from the perennial sweet pea - interesting that it ignored the cultivated smelly ones, but seemed intensely interested in the "wild" one - and perched on a stem, again about two or three feet away from me. I watched it for about ten minutes - blissful.