What’s with the hummingbird?
So, the hummingbird in my logo. What’s up with that?
At some point when I was young, I learned about the concept of a “calling” or what some people call a passion or a central truth. Whatever it was called, it was singular, powerful, all-consuming. It loomed large in my mind. People who hear the call to live a specific purpose seemed more special. A calling was something magical, and I was waiting to hear it - like waiting for my letter from Hogwarts. Was I supposed to be a doctor? A human rights lawyer? A teacher? A fashion designer? I explored all of these things, but I wasn’t sure what my calling would look like when it finally arrived.
Spoiler alert: it never arrived. I started to feel ashamed of it. I wasn’t being called to save the world in any “meaningful” way. What did that mean to my value in this world? I’ve recently talked with friends who’ve also felt the same way. One said that she had a sense of feeling that she’d failed in some way because she didn’t receive the call either. So what happens to people who don’t hear the call? Are we set adrift?
A few years ago, my husband had an injury that required changing the dressing every few days. We were directed to the VON (Victorian Order of Nurses) where the nurse asked me if I’d like to learn how to tend to his injury so we could take care of it at home. I paused, and she must have seen the horrified look on my face, because she threw me a greater lifeline than she could know. She said, “don’t worry, sweetheart. Not everyone is called to this work.” I immediately thanked her, set up a follow up appointment for him, and we headed home. Looking back, I wish I could thank her for that short, wonderful permission slip she handed me. A release valve went off, and I no longer felt the pain/panic/disappointment of not having a calling. But I didn’t have a word for it yet.
More recently, I was flipping through podcasts that were not true-crime related (one of my guilty pleasures) to mix it up a little bit. I saw an Oprah Super Soul Conversation called Elizabeth Gilbert: The Curiosity-Driven Life. I was thinking of picking up her book, Big Magic and hit play. It’s a great 29-minute listen, and she introduced me to a word that has stuck with me, inspired me, and described me.
Gilbert has talked about passion for many years, and after one of those talks, she saw a post an audience member left for her on Facebook. The woman tells her that she’s never felt worse in her life than she did after listening to her talk - she didn’t have a passion. Gilbert summarized the post like this:
The thing about me is that I’m kind of interested in a lot of stuff at the same time, and then I get into it, and then I realize I’m not really that into it, and then I get interested in something else. And my interests change by the season, and I almost feel like I can’t always keep up with all the interests that I have, and I never really know what to commit to. And by this point in my life, the age that I’m at, I am starting to feel so deeply embarrassed about this, because I feel like I should have this sorted out by now. I should know by now what my purpose is, what my passion is, and I don’t know what it is, and I feel like a failure, and I’m starting to feel like a freak, but there’s something really essential that’s missing from my DNA…
After her initial dismay, Gilbert introduces the concept of the hummingbird. And I had my word. I’m a hummingbird. I fly around, checking out different trees, flowers, collecting ideas, learning things, and always trying, always curious. This year, I’ve picked up the ukulele, swimming lessons, macrame, minimalism. In the past I’ve tried pottery, poetry, painting, Spanish, Italian, (briefly) German, (even briefly-er) Russian. Sometimes I’m using my hands, sometimes my brain. Sometimes it’s a project, sometimes it’s a lifestyle. Some things stick (fitness), and some things don’t (tarot cards). But I always keep moving around. And I kinda like it.
Gilbert highlights 2 things that hummingbirds bring to the world:
“They create incredibly rich, complex lives for themselves.”
“They also end up cross-pollinating the world. That is the service that you do. You bring an idea from here to over here where you learn something else, and you leave it and then you take it here to the next thing you do so that your perspective ends up keeping the entire culture aerated and mixed up and open to the new and fresh…”
HOW GREAT IS THAT?! If you’re one of those people concerned about moving too quickly from interest to interest or if you fear that you’ll never find your calling, fear no more! What you’re doing is important work. So be curious, explore, try, try again, and know that it’s all good stuff.
Can you relate? What interests you? What creative projects have you tried? What’s stuck and what have you dropped like a dirty sock?