It was a quiet weekend and everything seemed to be just recovering from last week’s hurricane. Not that it did any damage here; it didn’t. It was just that everything seemed a bit more soaked than normal.
In fact, I commented to Inna yesterday how it seemed that the hurricane was never even here. Florida is a lot of things but intimidated by hurricanes, it is not. People just get back up and at it as soon as things start to restore.
I wasn’t in a great place in my head this week, so the only camera grab I did was to wander around the yard a little and capture a few of the things that were happening there.
Everest followed me around for a while, wondering what I was up to and even stopping long enough to allow me to talk one pic of her.
The most significant of my finds was probably this gorgeous red-breasted hawk that landed for a moment high in the trees above and screamed until I found her. It was so difficult to even find her among the lush trees but her screaming eventually narrowed my focus and I found her about fifty feet overhead.
But not everything was significant, as my attention was drawn to foliage and even a tiny parasol mushroom that was giving its all under a leaf, in its short little life.
The reminders of Mrs Brisby’s visit a few years back were there again; as the ginger pinecones gave recurring annual evidence as to where she spent some of her nights. And while looking at them, Inna pointed out the small movement of a tiny frog that reacted to my intrusion of his peaceful moment.
Anyway, I added some pics at the end of this blog. The two of the teenie frog are just phone pics so don’t expect anything special.
Either way, I hope you enjoy.
The thought that formed over my meandering and the day that followed was in relation to how significance depends on how we view it. You see, some of us, plant and animals, assume significance based on our stature or beauty. Perhaps even our color, like the ginger pinecones that stand out against their lush green surrounds.
And sometimes, significance is given to us by others based on an action that we do or fail to do.
But the truth is that the only real significance we have is momentary at best and a function of who were are being significant to. Beyond that, kings and celebrities find that their significance dies with them or very soon after.
For my part, I have come to realize that I am a nobody. I am sure I had a significance to someone somewhere at some time, but the sad reality is that such significance has long since waned and I find myself unable to affect even the most important things in my life or worst still in those that I love.
I have been plagued of late with failures, most of which are my own, and the dominance of failure in your life is a sure tell of how insignificant you have become.
Conversely success occasionally brings a light of relevance to our lives and makes us feel like we are something. But it rarely stays very long. I think most of the time, we are engaged in a struggle; one which mortality ensures that we lose in the very end.
I remember as a young man, I thought walking on water came easy and felt infallible in my views and actions. But life has a way of springing leaks in your feet and reminding you that in truth you are quite a distance away from perfection.
Being imperfect is only human and so that aspect of who I am doesn’t bother me as I once thought it might.
But being a nobody is a bother and it is a tough pill to swallow. It undermines your pride and feeling of self-worth. For my part, I am trying to find relevance among the creatures that I help here in my yard.
I am not sure to what degree they see me as a somebody and in truth I may just be the nobody that provides food and shelter for their little lives here with me.
Perhaps being that nobody is ok, then.
I will take it.
Just a thought …
