I Give Up

I’ve been spending more time at the cabin lately, as the days of summer dwindle. In a little more than a month, the aspen leaves will start changing. As always, summer goes by too swiftly up here. Already the creek water is low, and the leaves of the flowers are withering, as the rainy weather of early summer has turned into hot and dry days.

Still, this corner of the world, surrounded by nature, is precious. When I start to feel that I don’t deserve such a heavenly place, I tell myself (and anyone who cares to listen) that I get a lot of work done at the cabin. There are fewer distractions to keep me from my editing and writing work.

But who am I kidding? How can I get work done when the hummingbirds are jostling each other right outside my window, their wings flashing in the sunlight and their small heads bent over the nectar, with their long beaks sucking hungrily from the feeder?

How can I get work done when the morning sunlight pours through the purple lupine and yellow daisies in the yard? When the tips of the grasses are caught by the first rays of the sun? When the warm breezes curl throughout the cabin, bringing in the sounds of chipmunks, house wrens and crows and enticing me away from my computer and out the cabin door into this vast and breathing landscape?

How can I look at my computer screen while billowy white clouds are sailing across the sky? How can I concentrate on Spanish history when the aspen leaves are trembling, as if life itself were surging through the trees?

Comments

[shoney]

Love the photo of the hummingbirds. It made me so happy a few days ago to see a humming bird fly over my head....missing the Rockies.

[Sally Hanson]

I bet all the things you mentioned enrich your soul and sure make good cabin journals and the rest of us happy! But your right it kinda trumps everything else.

[Jennifer]

How, indeed? But imagine what a miserable life you'd lead if Spanish history was all there was to it … (Nothing against Spanish history, of course!) Such lovely, visceral descriptions! Happily anticipating your photos and descriptions of the aspens turning.

[Brent Zeinert]

Summer, a lovely and colorful season.

[Julene Bair]

Gorgeous writing, thoughts, and pictures. An exquisite little essay.