Finding the Joy in the Junk

I'm the only one in the whole complex of some 200-plus apartments with plants on the patio. It makes me feel different from the norm. An outsider. An oddity. My need to garden on the concrete could be a flashback to my college days of pothos and pony tail palms. It is a way to stay connected to my land and home in Eureka Springs. Here I tend morning glories and herbs, tomatoes and geraniums, and a night blooming serius I hope will come out some full moon.

Yes, I miss my home in Eureka Springs and the constant parade of deer across my lawn. I miss the fox who hunts in the hollow and uses my land as his shortcut. I miss the birds singing in the morning and the owls and coyotes making their noise at night. I miss the trees.

When I look out from my patio here in Bentonville I see lots of blank balconies; people tucked inside their 900-feet of comfort and privacy, unaware and unconcerned about their neighbor across the way. They are as untouched by my existence as I am by theirs.

In the cool of the morning I sip coffee from behind tall umbrella trees and flowering cacti and contemplate what the day holds for this entrepreneur. Life in this saddle is hard. It's always an uphill climb. It's a hat rack holding a dozen hats I must wear at any given time. Some I wear well, others not so much.

I've worked for myself most my adult life to enjoy either feast or famine, but the entrepreneurial spirit drives me as surely as gravity holds us in orbit around the sun.

On some mornings I find myself questioning my motives and my sanity. Sometimes I question my talents, my timing, my luck. Today as I peered out, I spied a visitor to my balcony. I've never had more than the occasional bee stop by. But today– a humming bird. A spirit some native American cultures call "joy." Here a tiny little creature in a great big world was drawn to my oasis by a pot of red nasturtiums. Here, if only for a hummingbird moment, to tap it for what it would bear.

He was gone as quickly as he arrived, on wings that move so fast you can't see them. And in that instant I knew how tiny I am in this universe and yet how my being here matters. I realized being different is necessary for some of us. And necessary to others, too. Of all the air space that hummingbird covers, he chose my space.

It was a brief bit of joy. A reminder that all the clutter of our busy lives is mostly just junk. It's space junk floating in our minds, caught in the orbit of our thoughts. A reminder that whatever we do and however we do it, our true task is finding the joy in all the junk.