One of the worst things about summer is that my hummingbirds go away. It's better for them, of course, since there are real flowers everywhere and all the bugs they can eat, and that's healthier for them. This summer the crows nested just across from our bedroom window and we watched them have and raise three little baby crows. Still at the end of every summer I get worried that they won't come back.

Mythologically, hummingbirds are supposed to be good luck, bringers of healing, good luck, and joy. The Aztec priests carried a staff decorated with hummingbird feathers that they used to suck the evil out of anyone struck by a curse. Almost everyone across the Americas has a story about hummingbirds as the spirit of people who have passed away.

Anyway, they started showing back up last week. In the beginning it's always the younger ones first, who probably don't know where all the late-season secrets are. In a few weeks they'll all be here, flashing back and forth. The older ones aren't afraid of us at all and it's possible to sit at the window and watch them from a foot away. They could be good luck, and even if they're not they're good luck anyway.

We put aside some of our dignity, carving off pieces, knowing that they might be needed later. It's always in the shortest supply when you need it the most, like very good cheese or tissues at a wedding. I would keep it bottled in jars and hidden all over the neighborhood, if I could. I am always worried that my dignity is going to drain out of me and pool around my feet just when I need it the most--we have a pretty tenuous relationship most days, anyway.

I was reading about flea circuses the other day, about how when they started with real fleas the ringmasters would hitch the fleas to their contraptions with microscopically small gold wire or thread, or glue tiny things to their tiny legs, and set them out to perform. It looked like wizardry but was really just garden variety cruelty. How high can a flea jump? Only as high as you'll let it.

Anyway, if you can find a flea circus these days it's usually built of motors and magnets with maybe a few token fleas hopping around, and these trade-offs seem obvious. Still you would think I'd have noticed when those thin gold wires appeared, when I tried to jump and slammed right back down. I thought I was driving this chariot, but it turns out this chariot is driving me. We're moments away from going out of style as it is, and only history will tell if any of this is magic or not.

Yesterday, walking home from work, just past the window that sometimes has kittens but so inconsistently that it's maddening, there was a box of flowers. You could smell it before you reached it, which was disconcerting itself in a part of the neighborhood that almost always smells like urine and spoiled produce. Inside it was packed with five or six mixed bouquets, wilting slightly, with no one nearby who seemed like they would be in charge of this box of flowers.

I stopped and contemplated it for a minute, sheepishly. What was it there for? Would someone noticed if I took a bunch? Were they there for taking? There are always a handful of other people walking one way or another on the sidewalk, and none of them seemed interested in this box of flowers. As usual, I wondered briefly if I was imagining them.

I left them all there, ultimately. Possibly free flowers don't counteract possibly stolen flowers, and I'm just not willing to take that chance with my agreement with the universe. Anyway, it was nice enough just to visit them.