Summer Evening

I used to spend my quieter summer moments with the hummingbird. It would always arrive when I least expected it but always at that perfect moment of calm. I could never photograph it, which at first frustrated me to no end, but I came to realize that to capture its beauty in one single image would be utterly impossible and would taint the feeling of mystery and wonder it brought to me.
One particular evening it seemed to taunt me as a dream that can’t quite be remembered. It was the beginning of a heat wave and two previous days in the sun didn’t help my humor when the temperature rose above 90ºF. I would perhaps have been alright had my mother not excitedly chosen this particular day to get hay. Easy choice for her considering she had been resting in Maine for the Fourth of July weekend but I, I had been taking care of all of the horses and I was exhausted before we even began to load the 200 plus bales. As it was I disappeared into the house after we’d emptied our first truck load. I was burning and unable to breathe in the hot air and she left me to rest as she went to get the next load with my aunt.
After nearly drowning myself in lemonade and stumbling through the house looking for a book to distract me from my dizzy state, I went out onto the porch to read and let the breeze cool me off. It was still warmer than in the house but not by much. We’d never had air conditioning. I wanted fresh air and the wind nearly made the temperature difference.
I lay down drenched with sweat and the sweet smell of freshly cut hay. I pulled at the strands of hay still clinging to my clothing and let them drop onto the grey, weathered wood beneath the reclining chair supporting me. I began to read a short story about an eccentric street kid who wanted to set bicycles free. When I got to the end when the boy was mistakenly shot by a cop I began to hear a soft drone in the back of my mind, like an echo of my heartbeat coming to life. As I read the last lines and felt the slight tug in my chest that comes with any depressingly realistic story, my gaze went to the sunset and my mind took a breath. That’s when the hummingbird came.
I was vulnerable in my weakness of both body and emotion. It appeared as a mirage slipping into my peripheral vision as an embodiment of all that I needed in that moment. Calm. Beauty. Breath. Its colors captured the fading light of the sun. Its eyes reflected the shadows. Its feathers made the wind. I was frozen for a moment in its glamour and then an innately human desire made me nearly leap up. Where was the camera? I had to get the camera. Sensing my wish to capture it the hummingbird took one final look at me and disappeared behind a tangle of flowers that hung over the deck railing.
I slowly got up, feeling only slightly less affected by heat stroke and went inside to grab my camera. I took it back out with me and had it rest by my side in case the hummingbird again appeared. Of course it didn’t. The sun began to sink and I heard my mother driving in with the last load of hay. I forced myself up and went to help her unload into the hayloft. This time hunger was added to the list of hay day symptoms. In the fashion of a normal summer day I’d had an oatmeal cookie and lemonade lunch and no dinner yet. My mother took the truck to my aunt’s to give her the remaining hay as I again went to cool off on the porch, forgetting the camera.
I had picked up my book but was too tired to really read it. The hummingbird returned and fed on the delicate pink flowers dangling from the railing. Its elusive form hovered in the cooler air and sung a rhythm of the earth’s heartbeat. I didn’t want a camera. I didn’t need one. After all, how can one truly capture the mystery of a memory? The hummingbird laughed at me. I looked at it in the twilight and smiled.