Hammers and Hydrangeas

Productivity.  A word that has long enjoyed favored status in U.S. culture. Americans are always trying to do more work in less time so we can… do even more work. We purchase time-saving apps and appliances and then fill the promised free-time that closed the deal with new projects and expectations.

As the saying goes, when you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail. Of course, that assume you stop the work of pounding away occasionally to look around.

I aspire to a zen “be here now” life but most days I miss the mark by a wide margin. Instead, I hammer down each nail on my to-do list, usually thinking about the next task or the one after that before completing the current one (and often ending up with a swollen thumb as a result). Yesterday was no exception.

Until, suddenly, it was.

Exiting my car with shopping bag handles queued up along my forearms I charged down the sidewalk, mental blinders on, jaw set. Still, I did notice the row of tall limelight hydrangeas that hug my red brick building slouching beneath their load of heavy, fragrant, pale chartreuse blooms buzzing with activity.  “Honey bees,” I assumed distractedly, since a nearby restaurant keeps several hives, and continued on without breaking my stride.

Then I was blinded by the light of a sunbeam reflecting off an iridescent copper-green carapace.

I stopped in my tracks, oblivious to the increasing numbness in my hands, and watched one green June beetle (Cotinis nitida), then several more, stumble drunkenly around and through the blossoms. Glancing at other blooms I saw all kinds of colorful insects had shown up for the banquet, including other beetles and bees, butterflies, moths, flies, spiders, and wasps.  The realization that I was, yet again, missing my life for the sake productivity hit me over the head like a ball-peen.

Time to take a deep breath and smell the hydrangeas. I rushed inside, left my groceries in a heap on the kitchen table, hurried back downstairs, out the door…

and…

             slowed…

                                 waaaaay…

                                                          down.

I spent the next hour losing track of time while I conducted an informal census of bug life in the flower gardens around my building and neighborhood. My goal was enjoyment, not identification. Eyes wide open and really seeing.

How easy it is to forget that being unproductive is sometimes the most important work of all.

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© 2015 Next-Door Nature—no reprints without written permission from the author (I’d love for you to share my work  but please ask). Green June beetle photo by the author (CCL).  Thanks to these photographers for making their work available on Flickr through a Creative Commons license: Jon K.;  Bill Bumgarner; Shellie Gonzalez; Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren; doni19; Vincent Parsons; Photoguyinmo Swatzell; Dave Thomas; and USFWSmidwest.