Over the weekend, I sat quietly on the balcony and watched as a little hummingbird tried to land on a metal rod that the hummingbird feeder was suspended from. The imitation twig rod is about a half-inch in diameter, and I think it’s made of black iron. It’s attached to a hinge that’s bolted to a vertical support beam, and it reaches upward at approximately a 60-degree diagonal angle from the post and from the top is a loop that the feeder is hung on. The little hummingbird, probably thinking it’s landing on a tree limb, tried to stop on the rod but couldn’t stop flapping its wings because he couldn’t stabilize himself on the rod; he kept sliding down. So he’d flap and struggle to go up a bit, and as soon as its skinny little feet landed on the rod, he’d start sliding downward toward the hinge. He tried and tried for maybe 30 seconds, flapping and shuffling his feet trying to move upwards, but always sliding back, until he gave up and flitted off to investigate the feeder itself.

I think my mood as of late has been like the hummingbird. Left alone, I slip downwards. I need constant flapping and struggling to stay in the same place, otherwise the natural law of gravity, or perhaps Newton’s law of motion, would take over. It’s tiring, especially when the flapping isn’t solely up to me. It’s crazy how something small could totally make my mood. If only they knew how easy and effortless it is.