19 Feb In Awe of Their Awe
I’m sitting at the kitchen table to write this week’s blog and outside the window there’s a cloud that looks exactly like a floppy-eared rabbit.
My first instinct is to turn and call out to the girls, “Come quick. Look at this.”
But I turn back toward my computer, remembering they are at school. This is what happens whenever I notice something I know they would love. The first bundle of daffodils that appears at Trader Joe’s in the spring. A dog with an unfortunate haircut trotting past. A soft pink flower opening from a thorned cactus. A rainbow suspended in sprinkler mist. Something in me lifts. And even when they aren’t with me, I can see their faces lighting up. We would pause. We would talk about whether the dog has any idea about his bangs. We would wonder how something so delicate grows from something so guarded. We would stand there long enough for the rainbow to fade back into clear sky.
For so long, I thought I was the one showing them the way. Doing my best to teach them how to be human and how to be kind, and reminding them that both are possible at the same time.
But they have also been teaching me. They have been shaping my heart toward wonder.
They have taught me how to notice. How to look up at the sky and down at the sidewalk. How to let an ordinary afternoon feel bright. How to let the world interrupt you with something small and lovely. And standing beside them, following where they point, I’m in awe of their awe, learning all that I can.
Even when they aren’t next to me, I carry that way of seeing.
I think decades from now, I will still be looking up to see the rabbit-shaped cloud and bending toward the ladybug crawling through the sidewalk crack to admire its spots. Because they taught me how to see.
And on the days I’m lucky enough to have them right beside me, we’ll notice it together.