JULY 14, 2009

Condensation is beading down the sides of the water glass in front of me, down the pitcher at the corner of my desk. It's too humid a day for me to be stuffed in here, considering little bean is home from school for the summer. 

She saved a hummingbird the other day. 

It was trapped on the inside of a windowpane in the greenhouse, able to see the sun but not reach it. Cobwebs had collected, and trapped the bird's wings together, but she didn't know it at the time. She brought it sugar water, tried to reach it with a spatula to help it down, but after a while flapping its wings, it stilled. She was almost crying, then, muttering under her breath as she finally nudged the poor bird onto a book, and then onto a flat service. It didn't move except for a twitch of its legs for a long time, until she saw the cobwebs cluttering its wings. She prodded gently, pulling away the webs, and with a snap like an umbrella it launched itself into the air, buzzing like a bat out of hell. 

She cried into my jacket for a long time after that, but when she finally looked up at me it wasn't fear anymore, or sorrow — she was proud, and fiercely. She hadn't given up, and that bird was flying again. 

Children are smart, in ways grown-ups forget how to be. She'll likely never see that exact bird again, but every time I see a hummingbird I'll think of that one, and for as long as she remembers that afternoon she will too. She'll never expect anything in return from it — she helped it because it was right, at least in her book.

In my book, too. 

I've begun a letter to the Mercimel Enclave, and another to an old Parage I know down in Yellowstone. I don't think anything meaningful will come of it, but maybe I can begin to understand a bit better now that I'm asking the right questions. 

The questions — why do we keep so far apart from one another? Why do we leave each clan to fend for themselves? Why are we content to watch each other die like this? 

I haven't spoken to Henry Wells in years, but if I knew where to find him, I'd write him, too. I think he'd understand most of all what keeps us apart — it's his kind that was meant to make sure we're all good to each other, after all, to a certain extend. Or at least to keep the coffers clean for the next generation. But I can't think too much about that now; whatever has become of the Sanglent is the least of my worries.

The divide between us all is as clear as the tension at my dinner table, between my son-in-law and my daughter. Reminds me of my days back in Stoke, futilely arguing at the pub about the meaning of life with people who can't see beyond the mundane in front of them. Can we really not all get along enough to come together, those of us who have the blessing of such sight, to fix some problems long past due? 

Little bean's calling me out to the garden to go play pirates. I have a feeling she's going to make me swab something again.