Yesterday, the day after Earth Day, I had Fooey to thank for strong-arming me into volunteering for her class’s field trip to a nearby nature centre, which we’ve never visited before. And so I was outside on a warm and windy April afternoon, fully appreciating this beautiful planet we live on. My favourite part was netting a small fish and a water-bug in the swampy pond, and examining their interactions inside our group’s glass jar. It looked like the fish might eat the bug, but then the bug climbed onto the fish’s back for a ride. “Maybe the bug is going to eat the fish!” That was about as scientific as our little group got, which was, admittedly, not very, but the sun was warm and there was mud on our hands.

This morning on the walk to the school bus, CJ and I discovered the wet ground was absolutely crawling with snails in their shells (slugs?). You had to look to see them, and then you couldn’t stop seeing them. How quickly we turned into explorers, examining how the snails moved, the different colours of the shells, how tiny some were. We moved some off the sidewalk, out of the way of crunching feet.

This has been a slow month, quiet, the drip, drip, drip of waiting. I am not, as you probably already know, the most patient person on the planet. I do not fall easily into relaxation. I feel compelled to busy myself. I tend to measure a day’s success in the variety of tasks accomplished, words written, miles run. I’m a lucky woman to have my children to pull me closer to the ground, out into the woods, fishing creatures from a swampy pond, getting my hands dirty, dragging me away from the idea of accomplishment and into the messiness of wonder. And I see that the world is full of stories unfolding, each in its own time and rhythm. What am I here for, after all? It can’t be all about the accomplishments and goals.