Spring is my favourite time of the year. My languorous body is rejuvenated by the energy springing forth all around me.
I live on an acre lot outside the city and the wooded areas are still completely natural. Every day, my toddler son (munchkin) and I walk up our driveway to the mailbox and back down through the trees. A brisk walker could accomplish it in 4 or 5 minutes but we take 15 to 30 minutes. Munchkin stops to examine and grab a handful of clay here and there dirtying his hands and giggling at my half-hearted disapproval. I take joy in every new petal opened on a patch of bluets and may flowers (above). Munchkin stops to eye a grackle cackling in the trees. I revel in the appearance of a new bud on a willow shrub that I've walked by every day. Munchkin stares agape as a school bus rumbles by on the road. I gauge the progress of the three robins building nests under our garage eaves.
Writing this, I perceive a divergence of focus between munchkin and myself. I am transfixed by all the new life emerging in the aftermath of a long Canadian winter. On the other hand, to munchkin everything is new, including the traffic and the dirt I ignore. A child's curiosity can open your eyes and make even the most mundane pile of dirt fascinating in its own way. Granted, I will still spend most of my time admiring the nodding yellow and blue smiles of bluets (right) rather than the gravel on our driveway.
I live on an acre lot outside the city and the wooded areas are still completely natural. Every day, my toddler son (munchkin) and I walk up our driveway to the mailbox and back down through the trees. A brisk walker could accomplish it in 4 or 5 minutes but we take 15 to 30 minutes. Munchkin stops to examine and grab a handful of clay here and there dirtying his hands and giggling at my half-hearted disapproval. I take joy in every new petal opened on a patch of bluets and may flowers (above). Munchkin stops to eye a grackle cackling in the trees. I revel in the appearance of a new bud on a willow shrub that I've walked by every day. Munchkin stares agape as a school bus rumbles by on the road. I gauge the progress of the three robins building nests under our garage eaves.
Writing this, I perceive a divergence of focus between munchkin and myself. I am transfixed by all the new life emerging in the aftermath of a long Canadian winter. On the other hand, to munchkin everything is new, including the traffic and the dirt I ignore. A child's curiosity can open your eyes and make even the most mundane pile of dirt fascinating in its own way. Granted, I will still spend most of my time admiring the nodding yellow and blue smiles of bluets (right) rather than the gravel on our driveway.
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