artistry | The Direction of Intention

More Than A Little Hippie [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 25, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

If conformity is what you seek, you need look no further than the Texas republicans – or republicans from any corner of the union. However, their lock-step compliance has nothing to do with the rule of law or adherence to standards or traditions – or any other conservative value; it has everything to do with obeisance to one bully-man. They bow low. Although they swagger and loudly proclaim their cowboy culture of independence, in action, they grovel in abject subservience.

Stephen Miller called protesters in Washington DC “aging hippies” and suggested that they go home and take a nap. It made me laugh; those aging hippies, exercising their first amendment right to protest, were refusing to grovel in the face of an authoritarian takeover. Unlike the swaggering-yet-toothless republicans, the aging hippies are resisting the militarized takeover of their city by the dictator-wanna-be. Those aging hippies are upholding a longstanding American tradition of protesting; they demonstrate to protect our freedoms from a lawless leader. They are standing up with courage and dignity.

Dignity and courage: two values – among many – that the toady republicans have apparently abdicated.

You know the world is upside-down when the cowboy-hat-wearing-guys-in-traditional-suits mewl and betray every single bedrock value that this nation holds dear, while the aging hippies stand tall and take to the streets to protect democracy. When the once unconventional hippies stand as the last firewall of democracy against those who claim to be conservative yet crumble and pule while working to make fascism the convention of the land.

There’s more than a little hippie in the original fighting spirit of this nation. By Stephen Miller’s definition, George Washington was a hippie. Abraham Lincoln was a hippie. Frederick Douglass was a hippie. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a hippie. Every soldier who has ever fought for our democracy was a hippie. Every person who marched for civil rights was a hippie. Martin Luther King Jr. was a hippie.

A message to Stephen Miller and his fellow whining republican sycophants: no one – especially we hippies – and there millions of us – are about to go home and take a nap.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HIPPIES

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Filed under: Edges, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: Abraham Lincoln, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Frederick Douglass, freedom, George Washington, hippie, independence, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, martin luther king, protest, Stephen Miller, story, studio melange, the melange, tradition, values | 4 Comments »

Do Small Somethings [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on August 23, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve heard it said that there are two kinds of Christianity. The first places the emphasis on love and inclusion. The second places the emphasis on rules and exclusion. These two roads lead to wildly different worship-realities; two radically different world views.

Little things add up. Tens of millions of people getting up everyday determined to do small acts of kindness adds up to a damn powerful something.

It is also true that tens of millions of people getting up everyday determined to do small acts of cruelty also adds up to a damn powerful something. The sentiment cuts both ways.

Heather Cox Richardson suggested that we, the believers of love and inclusion, the woke, need to take back the narrative from the white supremacist christian nationalists currently flooding our airways, poisoning our brainwaves, and soiling our social media with incessant acts of cruelty.

Protesting cruelty is an act of kindness. Donating food to a food bank is an act of kindness. Calling your representatives and demanding that they serve you, the constituent, rather than the whims of a single man, is an act of kindness. Emphasizing love and kindness without apology – each and every day – is an act of strength.

Love and inclusion need not be soft. Kindness in the face of cruelty is not weakness; it is to stand up for what you believe. Calling out every single lie is not aggression, it is a commitment to truth. Small acts matter. Open doors for people. Literally and metaphorically.

Team cruelty is unapologetically standing up for what it believes. Each lie, each breach of the constitution, each broken promise, each gerrymander, each bully maneuver is a goosestep toward a damn powerful something. It’s called fascism.

If you believe that love is stronger than hate, that kindness is an act more powerful than cruelty, it is way past time to start stacking up the little things. Each and every day. Donate to the homeless shelter. Pick up the phone and call your representatives. Take to the streets with your neighbors and say, “Enough.” Join the tens of millions of others doing small somethings to create a damn powerful something: it’s called Democracy. It’s called love. It’s called inclusion. WE. The People.

*the quote in our cartoon is from John Pavlovitz

read Kerri’s blogpost about SMALL THINGS

Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, Christianity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, exclusion, inclusion, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, love, story, strength, studio melange, the melange, truth | 1 Comment »

The Only Question [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on August 22, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Breck the aspen tree is no longer a sapling. Since May she has grown a few feet taller. Her trunk is now the sturdy stock of a mature tree. Her bark is taking on the whitish hue of mature aspens. We stand at her base, crane our necks looking up, and marvel. In a few short months we have watched her come-of-age.

In a contentious time, an age of the disappearance of justice and the rise of a criminal, Breck is a reminder for us of all that is good. When we need a dose of sanity, when we need a reminder that nature takes little notice of human folly, we sit with Breck. We allow ourselves to be soothed by the comforting shimmer of her quaking leaves.

Joseph Campbell wrote The Hero With A Thousand Faces in 1949. I almost spit my coffee this morning when I read, “The tyrant is proud and therein resides his doom. He is proud because he thinks of his strength as his own; thus, he is in the clown role, as a mistaker of shadow for substance; it is his destiny to be tricked.”

I know it is a mistake to conflate myth with biography, yet, have you ever read a more perfect description of our authoritarian wanna-be?

Myth meets the historical moment. The tyrant is a clown. He is a mistaker of shadow for substance. He thinks his strength is his own. His destiny is to be tricked. Campbell also wrote that, in the mythic cycle, the tyrant, “usurps to themselves the goods of their neighbors, arise, and are the cause of widespread misery. They have to be suppressed.”

Usurping to himself the goods of his neighbors? Check.

The cause of widespread misery? Check.

In mythology, the tyrant is the harbinger of the hero’s rise (note: the hero need not be a male). “The great figure of the moment (the tyrant) exists only to be broken…The ogre-tyrant is champion of the prodigious fact; the hero the champion of creative life.”

The word “prodigious” in this sentence = unnatural, grotesque.

Locked in a shadowy lie-about-the-past with a monstrous clown? Or, progressing forward toward actual possibilities? We are a nation quaking to come-of age.

The tyrant exists only to be broken – and it makes sense in mythology and in the patterns of history. Breck can only grow in one direction. The same is true of us. The only question is how much damage will the tyrant do before we-the-people, the actual hero in our tale, awaken, open our eyes and rise?

watershed,(noun): an event or period marking a turning point in a course of action or state of affairs.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about BRECK

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Filed under: Heroes, KS Friday, Metaphor, Pattern | Tagged: artistry, clown, cycle, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, harbinger, Hero, Joseph Campbell, justice, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, myth, mythic cycle, mythology, pattern, story, studio melange, substance, the melange, tyrant, watershed | Leave a comment »

The Very Least [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 21, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Positive cultural change today (as it has always been) is about leveraging your life where you are: by doing small, possible, measurable daily acts of decency, of protest, of advocacy, of collaboration.” ~ John Pavlovitz, The Beautiful Mess, 2.27.25

Red dianthus symbolizes deep love and affection. We’ve ringed our deck with pots of dianthus. It seems like such a small thing yet every time we step onto the deck, we smile. They invoke our affection. They magnify our deep love.

Symbols might seem like a small thing but they reach to the very core of our being. Who in the USA can see a bald eagle and not be taken by the majesty of the symbol? Who in the world can see a swastika and not be horrified by what it represents?

Language is constructed of symbols. We line our streets with universal symbols: stop, walk, yield, green-means-go. We think in symbols. We dream in symbols. We are naive to ignore or underestimate the power of symbols.

The Texas Democrats breaking quorum was a symbolic act. They understand that single-party-rule, as is now being legislated in Texas, is authoritarianism. Their symbolic act has sent a ripple of courage through an otherwise paralyzed Democratic party.

Yesterday I wrote that in the midst of our national horror, each and every day, we ask ourselves, “What can we do?” If I could I would go to the Texas legislature and stand with the Democrats who are now essentially being held hostage. I wish every lover of democracy could show up this morning on the floor of the Texas legislature and say with their presence, “We will not stand for this.” I wish every lover of democracy could show up on the floor of the nation’s legislature with the same message. Enough.

Protests are symbolic acts. So is delivering donations to a food pantry. John Pavlovitz reminded us this morning that the answer to our question, “What can we do?” need not be grand. In fact, we need only look around our community and, as Ann used to tell me, “Find a need and fill it.” Offering a helping hand is a symbolic act.

Calling out the national guard without reason is a symbolic act. Signing meaningless executive orders to do away with mail-in-voting is a symbolic act. Both are in direct opposition to these symbols: The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, The Statue of Liberty, The Liberty Bell, The Boston Tea Party…the vote in free and fair elections.

Our vote is now all that stands between us and the loss of our democracy. By-the-way, that has always been true.

Our vote is under assault by a president and republican congress. They are rigging the system to eliminate democracy in favor of one party rule. They assault nothing less than our foundational symbolic action. The Right to Vote.

Our vote, until now, has been the sacred central symbol – the single symbolic act – of our experiment in democracy: rule of, by, and for the people. According to our symbol, our leaders serve at our pleasure. We choose them. If we do not like their actions, we vote them out.

Until now.

Voting seems like such a small thing. Yet, it is everything.

What can we do? Protect your right and mine, protect the right of every citizen without regard of color or gender, to vote in free and fair elections. It is no small act of decency to protect the single, central action, the primary symbol of our democracy, the one thing that you can DO that actually makes the whole country great: protect your right to vote. And then, when the day comes, exercise your right, perform your symbolic act. Vote. It is the very least – and the utmost – you can do.

read Kerri’s blogpost on DIANTHUS

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Language, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, authoritarianism, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, helping hand, John Pavlovitz, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, symbol, symbols, Texas Democrats, the melange, vote | Leave a comment »

Beautiful. Perhaps.[David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 20, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” ~ Leo Tolstoy

We have watched Barney-the-piano change over these many years. As he ages and falls apart we discuss how he has become more beautiful. It is a sentiment that we do not allow for ourselves as we have also aged and changed over these many years.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” ~ James Baldwin

There are days that I do not recognize myself. I look in the mirror and see my grandfather. I look in my heart and am surprised by what I see. In these past months I have discovered my intolerance and I am proud of my intolerance. I have discovered my hard lines of belief. I do not believe that masked men should be plucking people off the streets. I do not believe we should scrub history to make white supremacy palatable. Now, when I look in my heart, I know exactly what I believe. And I like what I see.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” ~ Nelson Mandela

I recently wrote a play about this nation’s resistance to education. Educated people ask questions. Educated people are not easily drowned in propaganda. Educated people do not fear learning that they are wrong because the point of education has nothing to do with right or wrong answers and everything to do with expanding hearts and minds. Minds that expand reach toward the unknown. Minds that close stagnate in the safety of what is known. Entropy, the gradual decline to disorder.

“Change is the only constant.” ~ Heraclitus

Barney is beautiful. He has been home to chipmunks. He is a resting spot for squirrels. Birds revel where he once sported keys. He has dropped all illusions of grandeur and each day reveals his true nature. He makes progress toward earth. He does not resist his natural path. That is the secret of his beauty.

“Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.” ~ Maya Angelou

Master Marsh once told me that when caught himself complaining about something that he had three choices. Shut up (stop complaining). Do something about it. Or leave. In the current reality of our nation I am not able shut up. In fact, I feel it is necessary to raise the volume. That is what I am doing. We write and write and write. We ask ourselves every day, “What more can we do?”

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” ~ Albert Einstein

In their advanced age both Maya Angelou and Albert Einstein arrived at the same conclusion. They agree with Leo Tolstoy: to be better on this earth, we need to change our thinking. We need to think about changing ourselves. Looking at our nation (ourselves) doesn’t it beg the obvious questions: What are we thinking? Are we capable of changing our thinking?

Perhaps, as we dissolve, as we crumble like Barney, we will discover at the core of our national story the rot of exclusion. Then, perhaps, we can face our dysfunction, root it out, and change our thinking. Perhaps we can become the inclusive home that our nature – and our founding ideals – intended us to be. Beautiful. Perhaps.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BARNEY

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Perspective, Possibility | Tagged: albert einstein, artistry, beauty, change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, education, Heraclitus, James Baldwin, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Leo Tolstoy, maya angelou, natural path, Nelson Mandela, story, studio melange, the melange, truth | 3 Comments »

The Imaginary Top [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 19, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

This gorgeous flower that derives its name from the Greek kosmos was lying on the sidewalk. The recent incessant heat and rain and humidity had wrestled it to the ground. It was down but not defeated.

Cosmos. Another name for the vast universe and its intrinsic order. Lately on our little planet the order of the universe seems to have lost its mooring. Actually, the flora and fauna seem to still be hitched to natural cycles and patterns, it’s we-the-human-beings that have slipped away from the dock of reason.

She knelt on the ground to take the picture. “They are beautiful,” she said. From a distance it must have looked like she was bowing to the cosmos. The image and word play tickled me. I thought, “We human-beings would do ourselves a favor if we were humble and occasionally bowed to the Cosmos.” We definitely occupy a place in the order, but rather than seeing ourselves as interconnected, we invent hierarchies and place ourselves at the pinnacle of importance. We give ourselves the blue ribbon. A few more years of thousand-year storms might wake us up but I doubt it. We like believing we are at the top. We like believing that there actually is a top to be occupied – and therein lies our dis-ease. Believing that we are at the top permits the delusion that we are somehow disconnected from the rest of the Cosmos. It gives us permission to believe that everything is a resource for our use and pleasure.

That, and, as they say, hierarchies beget hierarchies. We imagine an order to the vast Cosmos in which there are winners and losers. We turn our hierarchies on each other.

Of course, we are capable of imagining a different type of order. It’s why we have stories of messiahs and buddhas. They are meant to point the way out of our delusion and toward the actual order of the Cosmos. No hierarchy. Non-separation. Illumination and brother’s keeper. A return to the garden to discover the Tree of Everlasting Life otherwise known as unity. Those wacky sages are meant to help us see beyond our illusion, beyond our bloody scramble for the imaginary top.

After the flower photo op, we were careful to step over the cosmos-on-the-sidewalk. The cosmos were a good reminder in this time of madness run amok: reason, ethic, moral compass, compassion, service, kindness…may be down, but they are certainly not defeated. In the end, they are what give order to our cosmos

read Kerri’s blogpost about COSMOS

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Filed under: Awakening, Language, Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, compassion, cosmos, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ethic, hierarchy, illumination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, order, reason, sages, service, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Definitions [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 18, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’m a big fan of secondary definitions. Not only does the word addle mean to confuse, it also means to make an egg rotten. In my mind the two definitions are connected: addle a brain too long and it will rot.

A case in point: while forwarding our smack-dab cartoon on Saturday I happened upon a disturbing comment thread. Members of the maga-cult were abusing a woman who dared to defend the plight of immigrants.

2. Abuse (verb): treat (a person) with cruelty or violence.

The harangue included demands that the woman “get her facts” straight, which I found particularly obscene since the maga-abusers were astonishingly-fact-free while the woman was rooted in reality. The maga-big sticks included two easily debunked claims: 1) The Biden administration paid millions of social security dollars to “illegals*”, and 2) the “illegals” were bleeding the system without paying into the system.

This took less than a minute to fact check: Can undocumented immigrants collect social security? No.

Are undocumented immigrants eligible for Medicaid? No. (bonus fact: Is misinformation rampant? Yes).

And, here’s the kicker for anyone who cares to live in a world of easily checked facts: Undocumented immigrants paid more in taxes than Amazon, GM, IBM, and Netflix combined.

I recognize – as I believe we are all coming to recognize – that the maga-mind is particularly resistant to any bit of data or fact that contradicts their fever-fantasy. Their adamant defense of the indefensible has little to do with truth or fact or historical accuracy or hard science – they hold fast to their absolute right to muddled minds because it gives them license to abuse. They mimic their dear leader. The bully-impulse is the bond that unites them.

*Take, for instance, the fox-generated-and-now-widely-maga-touted-term “illegals”:

Illegals (plural noun. derogatory. north american): a person present in a country without official authorization.

In the fascist handbook it is a hard and fast rule to first dehumanize a group of people before subjecting them to inhumane abuse. For instance, making people wear yellow stars before herding them into train cars and disappearing them into concentration camps or – as is currently happening – calling people illegals en route to suspending their (and our) constitutionally protected right to due process – so that masked agents of the government can pluck people off the streets and disappear them into…concentration camps.

inhumane (adjective): without compassion for misery or suffering; cruel.

I hope we can all agree that the sadistic treatment of other people is barbaric. Well…if you are maga, your mind is so addled that your moral compass no longer functions, as is evidenced in daily celebrating ruthless savagery – like ICE – while claiming to be ethical, christian, and upstanding.

Addle a brain too long and more than the mind will rot.

read Kerri’s blogpost about ADDLE

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Filed under: Language, Perspective | Tagged: abuse, addle, artistry, data, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dehumanize, fact check, facts, fascist, ice, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, MAGA, muddle, rot, science, story, studio melange, the melange | 2 Comments »

Why Not? [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on August 16, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Our escape fantasies include a six month thru-hike on the Pacific Crest Trail and/or lengthy excursions to pretty-and-unpopulated places, living life in the tiniest trailer.

Since we like to make dreams come true and fantasies a reality, we’re actively gathering information on backpacks and gear. I’m interested in going ultralight since Kerri imagines that I will be carrying most of the gear on the 2,650 mile PCT.

Yesterday we needed a break so we went to a camper and RV lot and walked through several small, lightweight trailers. We learned about aluminum construction and lithium batteries. We stoked the fire in our gypsy souls.

Watercolors and ukuleles are easily transported whether in an ultralight backpack or in a tiny, tiny trailer. Artists on the go. Cameras and Ipads and apple pencils.

As our nation spirals ever downward into the dark sewer of authoritarianism, entertaining our escape fantasies seem more and more like coping mechanisms – every day pushing us ever closer to making the fantasy a reality. At this point, why not?

read Kerri’s blogpost about ESCAPE!

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, backpacking, coping mechanism, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dream, escape fantasy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, PCT, RV, story, studio melange, the melange, thru-hike, tiny trailer | 1 Comment »

Popcorn Trail [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on August 15, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Late at night, standing on the platform awaiting the train to take us home, the moon and clouds gave us a spectacular show. I knew that the moon was a waxing gibbous and realized that, although I’d known and used the word since I was young, I had no idea what the word “gibbous” actually meant. It sounds like something related to gibbons, small apes that swing through trees. Is the moon gibbous because it swings through the sky? No! The moon is gibbous because it is greater than a semi-circle yet less than a circle. Gibbous describes the shape! Bulbous. Convex. Protruding.

Yesterday I unrolled many small canvases and pinned them to the wall in my studio. They are like a small flame I’ve kept for alive for over 35 years. They refer back to a large odd shaped canvas I stapled to the deck of my apartment on a sunny day, overlooking Hollywood. I had a very limited paint supply, a few cans of paint used for animation (computer animation was not yet possible so artists painted images on cells with acrylic paints), grey, blue, and white. I had a small jar of cadmium red. I taped a few housepainting brushes to long sticks and made myself a promise to “have fun and not think too much.” And I did. I had fun. I didn’t think too much. I played. In those few short hours, I painted the single piece that would influence my work for the rest of my life. I knew it was special. It was pure. It sold before I could adequately document it (remember the age before the ease of digital cameras?). It sold before I had the opportunity to install it in a gallery and show it.

I call the many small canvases my “narrative paintings”. They are a popcorn trail that I dropped as I wandered into the forest of my artistry. Some of the pieces are studied and lifeless. Some are playful and shallow. Some are raw and heart-full. I tacked them all to the wall to guide me back to the original impulse, that moment of artistic purity.

I am gibbous though, at this age, I am no longer waxing. I am greater than a semi-circle but have not yet completed my full life circle. In my time on earth I have been what Kerri calls a “strider”, someone trying-too-hard to climb the ladder of success. I have pursued my artistry like it was a wild animal, setting traps to capture what I could not easily understand. I have finally learned, or have lived long enough to realize, that I am and have always been what I chase. No traps necessary.

I follow the popcorn trail back to what I experienced that day in Los Angeles: the simple joy of being alive. A conscious moment enthusiastically expressed through a little grey, blue and white paint, punctuated with some surprise cadmium red.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE MOON AND CLOUDS

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Metaphor | Tagged: appreciation, artistry, cycles, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, gibbous, journey, joy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, life circle, life journey, narrative, play, purity, pursuit, story, studio melange, success, the melange | 1 Comment »

Hummingbird Hope [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 14, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Hummingbirds bring to mind my great aunt Dorothy. Outside the door of her tiny mountain home, precariously perched – and tilting slightly – on the hill above the Central City Opera House, she maintained a festival of brightly colored hummingbird feeders. She was a no-nonsense woman who cooked her meals on a cast iron wood burning stove. She loved her hummingbirds.

I felt Dorothy hanging out with me when I planted the cardinal flower in the huge rusty-ancient-fire-pit that we placed near the hummingbird feeder to help attract more hummingbirds. Kerri loves her hummingbirds.

For weeks the cardinal flower was flowerless. It did a fine Jack-and-the-Beanstalk imitation, growing tall, reaching for the sky. “Where are the blossoms?” she asked. I shrugged. This was my first cardinal flower so I was clueless. I was, however, mightily impressed that it had grown taller than me.

Hummingbirds, like us, are not fans of very hot and incessantly humid weather so they abandoned our region and sought fairer climes. Their absence has been palpable. There were so many zipping about earlier in the summer that their disappearance is magnified.

Unusually, because of the heat-smoke-and-humidity-combo-platter, we’ve mostly been inside, staying close to “the cold box”. We’ve abandoned our usual outdoor living and make only quick forays into the yard to water plants, pull weeds, and harvest basil or jalapeño peppers. As the weeks passed we’d mostly forgotten about the flowerless cardinal plant. We stopped refreshing the hummingbird feeder.

The first pop of color nearly knocked us over. The red was electric against the viridian ivy slowly covering our neighbor’s garage. Within a few days, despite the persistent heat and humidity, a single hardy hummingbird visited and drank deeply from the blossoms. Kerri quickly whipped up a new batch of sugar water and refilled the feeder.

We’ve not yet seen another. I imagine the lone hummingbird was a scout for the hummingbird clan and reported that although it found a brilliant cardinal plant and a fresh batch of sugar water, the conditions remained unfavorable. The smokey heavy air was not ideal for flight.

And so we wait.

Dorothy used to stand at her kitchen door, watching the hummingbird feeders in her tiny mountain yard. “They give me hope,” she’d say.

We watch our feeder and towering cardinal plant from the kitchen window. “Do you think they’ll come back?” she asks.

“Of course,” I say. “We can only hope.”