They place feet on floorboards, again. The human wakes slowly, searching for coffee, alerted to the exploding color of the bottlebrush trees outside their window. And within it, they hear the mechanical winding sound of a hummingbird: summoning its mate or snatching tiny bugs from the air; its tongue like lightning, its plump body soft on the branch, its wings stretching before rowing their way, at impossible speed, into liftoff. This is the morning for the human, before there is full consciousness of the self with eyelids fully open, there is awareness of surroundings. The human looks for these signs of life: these signs of safety in the wildness. They are not yet immersed in the mundanity from which they will be forced to make poetry today, but are fully awake to the world as it would be without them. The human adult embraces the tiny human. Or tinier. The small one grows by the day, and soon the adult human will not be able to lift him anymore, so they do pilates to strengthen their core: a feeble attempt at holding back the sea of time. A tender gesture to stay close as long as they can regardless of how quickly the small human outgrows pants or learns to do things for himself like make sandwiches and ride bicycles and notice the mechanical winding of the hummingbird for himself.
Author's Note:
My self-care is deeply rooted in subverting capitalism’s expectations and definitions of me. My practice aims to dismantle the idea that my worth is attached to my productivity and that my value is based on me being convenient to others. I find myself resourced deeply through quiet time and solitude in nature. I chose my home, in part, for its proximity to redwoods, hills, biodiversity, and the sea. In my chosen biome, there is endless inspiration and spiritual replenishment available to me. My favorite routine is probably drinking coffee while going for walks in my neighborhood with my husband.
Christy Tending (she/they) the author of High Priestess of the Apocalypse and Creative Nonfiction Editor with Sundog Lit. Their work has been published in Longreads, The Rumpus, and Electric Literature, among many others, and received a notable mention in Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023. They live in Oakland, California with their family. You can learn more about their work at www.christytending.com or follow Christy on Twitter @christytending.
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