Morning, Spring, Wonder

Esme saw these 'fairy house' spiderwebs covered in dew this morning as we stepped out to walk to the school bus.  She said they looked like moon flowers, and that it was so pretty, like a picture.  I remembered years past when I would examine such things in wonder, too - and wished she didn't have to hurry away before barely getting a good look.  It is rarer now that we stop and really look at what Nature has given us, and watch it as it develops.

Although I am running now most of the time, I do try to stop and dip back into the wonder of it all.  Esme helps - as she is so observant and in her own natural state of Wonder at the world.  Mark helps, too - it is an endearing quality that he sees the same in kittens, plants.. in Esme as she has grown - things to stand back and say 'Catch this moment, before it's gone, because it is one of the Fundamental qualities of the Universe' passing us by.. always on the run.  Birth, Regeneration, Growth, Connection and Reflection, Reawakening from long sleep...

The dew drops on the spiderwebs made them stand out in the last of the moonlight and the beginning of the sunrise.

And I am reminded of the times I spent at NDSU, taking my hours between classes examining and sketching the same campus plants as they came forth to Spring after Winter slumber.  I watched leaves unfurl and flowers open, and in those things, time progress in a way it has again and again, observed or unobserved... and I felt something that still hearkens me back to it after all of these years.

It's one of the reasons I can't entirely give up going out to the garden and trying to make things happen there.. but knowing that I will miss things as life sweeps me up in its schedules also makes me stay away sometimes when I would really like to be out there - I get weary in my soul when the things start to die or the bugs take over...

Maybe I will take my sketchbook out a bit more this year, and capture whatever it is that can be seen - is offered, that day.  Or the camera.  I also wonder sometimes if I had taken more time to slow down, like the plant drawing, in college - if I would have been happier and done better overall... I look back and realize I spent so much time worrying and full of anxiety that I could have thrown that energy into more study and work if I had only found ways to calm down more.  Study and work that I would have enjoyed.. not the things that were making me anxious, eating up not only their own scheduled time but the moments in between.  I wouldn't change anything except my attitude - if I knew then what I know now - because I would not give up Mark or Esme for anything and it all led up to where and who I am now.. but the feeling of 'Gulliver' being tied to a thousand strings was very real then and I would go back and snip a few of them now if I could to alleviate the tension I felt then.

And I also remind myself that right now is Spring, that nothing in the past changes but the present and the future are here and flowing around me like water in a brook.  I feel more 'at home' with myself and my surroundings lately than I have in a very long time.  Moreso when I can take a few minutes to reflect and not just trying to make it to someplace on time to wait the hours to leave on time etc...

Waxing philosophical.. enjoy the pictures.

Mark mounted his loop antenna today, and found this sleeping frog on the post on the porch.  He thought it was a big slug at first!