Waterfalls can be humbling....

You have read about them, seen them on TV, studied them in Geography, but to see them in reality truly blows you away.. I am talking about the Niagara Falls - which is rightly called one of the 7 wonders of the world.

I was on a family vacation in Canada for week this summer and the Falls were obviously on our To-Do list. As we drove by them to find the parking lot, it seemed like there was a huge crevice on the earth's surface and gallons and gallons of milk were falling into a huge cauldron, but honestly, my first reaction was...huh!!.. so this is what the Niagara is all about.. a large waterfall.. cool, ok.. to be totally candid, I wasn't blown away one bit. I even recall telling Neel, they don't look all that they are made out to be.. he said.. wait till you get closer.. and my God he was right...

Like every other visitor to the Falls, we took the Maid of the Mist Boat ride and started getting closer and closer to the US Falls and then made our way to the Canadian side.. the enormity hits when you cannot take a single picture where the entire falls can fit in one frame.. it hits you more when the spray and the mist seem like a torrential sea storm and it finally got me by the gut, when I stood under one of the tunnels that is under the falls and all I saw was sheets and sheets of opaque white stuff falling from the skies. It was very hard to believe that what I was awestruck by was nothing but an amalgamation of millions of tiny water droplets...


If daylight offered breathtaking views from the bridge and the boat, the night was yet to unfold for the greatest show on earth. Soon after the evening drizzle stopped and the starts began to light up the purple twilight sky, suddenly the maginificence of the falls took on a whole new meaning. The floodlights from the Canadian side of the falls lit up both the US and Canadian Falls in the colors of the rainbow. Not only did the gushing water take on shimmering shades of cool aqua, brilliant fushcia, deep purple, and the ever passionate red, but the spray and the mist that rose from the water reflected the light into what can only be described as a simulation of the Aurora Borealis that I had longed to see in Alaska.

I stood there enraptured by this beautiful sythesis of nature and science and kept taking pictures, till I realized, I would never be able to capture this beauty in a memory card. I put my camera aside and decided to let my heart do the assimilation. The rush, roar, spray and lights have an interestingly calming effect on the mind and it is as if the world stands still around you as you try to fathom the greatness of this spectacle... One cannot help come back to the question.. are these in reality just tiny water droplets...?

As we go about out lives, pursuing our little egos, sometimes, experiences like this put things in perspective and humbles you in ways that probably cannot be expressed in a blog.. but in essensce, instills a calmness that hopefully guides one towards meaningful destinations in an even more meaningful manner...

When a visitor left us...

It probably happened a week ago, but we finally noticed it yesterday.. our little hummingbird which my husband and I affectionately referred to as our "Hummer" was lying limp in her nest with only her beak showing.. It seemed really still. There were 2 bigger birds next to the nest and yet there was no movement from the little one.. She was gone.

She had been a visitor to our home for the last 5 years. Hummer had built a little nest the first year it found solace between some wires along our porch ceiling which helped with christmas lights. We didn't disturb the wires after that and each year she came back and grew her nest a little bit and then laid a few eggs.. fed her babies and then they all flew away just as the fall winds got chilly. Every spring like clock work she came back and repeated the cycle.. this went on for 5 years..

This year she was late in coming back.. Neel and I wondered why.. she returned only in the middle of May.. we wondered if this was a different bird, probably an offspring and so took time to find its way to its mom's home.. We read somewhere, hummingbirds don't live for more than 3 - 4 years.. and so we secretly hoped that the visitor this year was still our little Hummer.

After we found her limp and lifeless yesterday, our initial reaction was that some of the bigger birds had probably killed her, but later we felt, it was our Hummer who had come home to her final resting place. She was never meant to be a pet, but it was like she had adopted Neel and I. Everytime we stepped into the porch she was flutter all over the place, as if acknowledging us, thanking us for her home.

She stopped having the nectar water we kept for her and instead would indulge in the fresh nectar from the hanging flower baskets in the porch. We were always impressed with how health conscious she was !!! She was a natural alarm system for any strangers who rang our doorbell. Our Pizza Delivery Guy once remarked, you guys don't need a home alarm, your bird knows who the strangers are ..

We will miss you little one... hope some day your children and grandchildren, find their way back to our porch. You were our first pet in this home, and no one will take your place. Our porch will always remind us of you and the times we spent watching you flutter and hum and brighten many a dull summer day...