i am home again, after two weeks as a mother’s helper for my ten month old twin nephews. oh, do i miss them. they are sweet & silly & lively & wonderful.

fortunately for me, i came home to more small nephews & nieces.

one of the things i love about children is how they delight in the world around them.

i went for a walk this evening with my two year old nephew and three year old niece. we threw small rocks in the swamp, threw larger rocks in the water, looked at the patterns in the dirt, shouted hello & goodbye to the sun & the sunset & the giant round moon, climbed up & down both big & small hills, marveled at a soft fuzzy thing we found in the road (a bud from a tree), tried to catch a person in a fluorescent yellow jacket on a bike (or a scooter, we never got close enough to tell), watched a person get into a truck, and stomped in imaginary mud puddles.

my ten month old nephews were endlessly fascinated by door knobs & the handles on the dresser & the chain on the door.

can you see why i love spending time with children? they live wonder.

this oak tree is in a neighbor’s front yard. i was walking down the road one day in autumn and the leaves caught my eye. in the afternoon light, they resembled spring blossoms. it looked like the tree had skipped right over winter and landed in spring.

(i so admire the hardiness of oak trees. they manage to keep many of their leaves through the icy gusts of winter and the brown leaves lend a tiny spot of color to the winter landscape.)

lately, more so than ever, my speech is halting. i’ve always been able to express myself better in writing than in speech, but this is different. when i try to speak, either i don’t have the words, or i use the wrong words, or the words won’t come to the surface.

a wise friend suggested that i am learning to live from my heart, that this occurs because our hearts are wordless.

perhaps this is so. there are moments when i have a sense of just how large i really am. it’s as if my eyes are turned inward and i can see that the space inside me is immense + limitless.

it would make sense that i am wordless there. no vocabulary, however large it may be, can convey the richness of the infinite. it is a place beyond language.

this is partly why i created 30 days of wonder. we can’t always get to wordlessness through words, but maybe we can get there through images.

nature knows immense. nature knows vast. nature knows infinite. just look at blades of grass or autumn leaves or drops of rain or grains of sand.

atlas and i were on an adventure this weekend when these red leaves called to me. they stood tall above the golden weeds, a single branch of red, in front of a very blue lake. i had to wade through the weeds to get to them.

when i saw this photo, i knew why they had summoned me. they were not autumn leaves, but a dragonfly, and the dragonfly wanted to be witnessed.

(they could also be a fairy or a butterfly or a bird in flight, but i saw the dragonfly first.)

this swamp is right in front of my parents’ house. i looked at it multiple times a day, every single day i was home, from the summer before third grade until the summer after college. (that’s fourteen years, give or take. i subtracted a year for a semester abroad + a summer internship + a fall co-op assignment.)

last year, i noticed that the swamp has layers of green and gold in autumn. it’s so beautiful! all those years spent across from it. how did i miss this?

it makes me wonder what else i’m not noticing. because i suspect the essence of this is true of everything.

i love treasure hunting. in my case, that treasure is often feathers.

last year, a friend mentioned that she was gifted an owl feather. for a second, i imagined how fun it would be to find one. months later, i was hiking with the pup at a nearby state park – 2000 miles away from my friend and her feather – when i glanced down and saw the most beautiful feather.

after a thorough review of the feather atlas, i determined that the feather belonged to a great horned owl. so, my wish-in-passing came true. i found an owl feather! i am still over-the-moon delighted by this.

i created a vignette with my owl feather and my other michigan treasures.

there is a shed antler, found by my dad years ago and given to me when i found it in a box in the basement, exclaimed over it, and asked for it. (atlas doesn’t care about antlers in the store, but he is fascinated by this antler.)

there is a circle of birch bark, found by me in the woods. (it’s around my favorite candle, which i bought in portland and which smells like a candy cane. exactly like a candy cane. i can sniff it for hours.)

and there is a heart in a walnut shell, found by me in my grandparents’ yard when i was raking this spring.

i thought nothing could top my owl feather.

until i found this.

i was sitting in the passenger seat, on my way to a camp in jacobsville with a sister, when a feather on a gravel road caught my eye as we drove by.

when i exclaimed over the size of the feather, my sister turned around and we drove back over the road slowly, looking for it. it wasn’t there. sadly, i told her she could turn around. but when she did, i saw the feather up ahead, and this time i jumped out and grabbed it.

after another thorough review of the feather atlas, i determined that this feather belonged to a wild turkey. coincidentally, two wild turkeys had crossed the road in front of us en route to jacobsville.

next, i would like to find a cardinal feather.

i saw a cardinal – in rhode island – so i think the feather must be on its way.

do you keep an eye out for treasures?

what are yours?

my mother asked me to take care of her rose bushes for a bit.

i have never liked roses, their scent or their appearance, even after years in the rose city. still, i was happy to help. (it was a chance to play gardener.)

after a morning walk with the pup, i found the trimming shears, took off my sandals, and settled in among the roses.

as i trimmed the dead and dying roses so the plant would flower again, i couldn’t help but marvel at them.

the flowers were varying shades of pink: pale pink to deep rose. the petals were soft to the touch.

the roses that were past their prime had a brown tint around the edge and the entire flower seemed loose and floppy. when i brushed against a dying rose, its petals fell to the ground like a gentle spring shower.

the air around the rose bush vibrated with the buzz of yellow & black bumblebees. we worked together, their bodies and my fingers circling each other in a simple dance.

from time to time, i paused in my work because my flower was already occupied.

i’d watch the bumblebee move slowly and clumsily around the yellow pollen. when it was done, it would lift off and fly over to a new flower while i snipped the stem of the rose it had already tasted, just below the petals.

as the rose fell at my feet, i’d wonder if the bumblebee noticed it was gone.

an hour later, the soles of my feet were black, the earth was carpeted in pink, and i was in love with roses.

later that afternoon, i read a line in the book the shack that seemed to explain everything.

“so many believe that it is love that grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it. love is just the skin of knowing.”

i now know roses as the wonder that they are, and i am delighted to have made their acquaintance.

every spring, during all the years i was away from michigan, my thoughts turned toward lilacs.

i remembered the purple lilacs by the back door, the white lilacs behind the house, and the pale violet lilacs around the neighborhood.

i remembered the lilac bouquets in the middle of the kitchen table. they were usually in a white hourglass vase with a red & yellow flower on it.

i remembered my youthful desire for a wedding bouquet of lilacs. (though i wasn’t entirely sure how to reconcile a spring flower with a fall wedding.)

i remembered the scent. it was sweet but not cloying, floral but not heady or overpowering.

to me, lilacs were spring.

when i moved to portland, i fell in love with tulips.

i loved the rainbow of colors, the waxy green leaves, the soft wide petals.

i loved their arrival – early in the year, when the grey + rain threatened to overtake me.

i loved the way the flowers drooped, slowly, over the edge of the vase, as if they were too heavy for their stems.

i loved the way the petals dropped, slowly, one by one.

even as i reveled in the tulips, i never forgot the lilacs.

to me, tulips looked like spring, but lilacs smelled like spring, and every year i missed them.

this spring, lilacs were not in my memory, but in my life.

i watched lilacs blow in the wind while wandering around the neighborhood with the pup.

i gathered lilac bouquets for the kitchen table and my bedroom and my grandparents’ house.

i watched the birds come and go from the bird feeder nestled in the lilac bush by the kitchen window.

i buried my nose in the blossoms, and closed my eyes in pleasure.

in the scent of lilacs, my past and present said hello.

it is spring.

yes, it is spring.

oh, how i wish i could wave a magic wand and fill you with wonder. it is one of my favorite qualities.

wonder is a cousin to magic and enchantment but, for some reason, it is easier to remember that wonder can be found in the ordinary, not just the extraordinary, even though that is true of all of them.

wonder includes elements of beauty, appreciation, presence & amazement.

when i am full of wonder, i feel like i am seeing [whatever it is i am seeing] the way it was meant to be seen, the way it really truly is.

when i am full of wonder, i am anchored fully in the moment.

while on a walk the other day, i kept falling into wonder, so i thought i would share some of the ways i find it.

listen to the grass.

have you ever stopped and listened to the wet grass? if you stand next to or in the grass when it’s wet – maybe after a rain, or when the morning dew is heavy on the grass, or right after the sprinklers have gone off – and you listen closely, you will hear a rustling sound. it sounds like the grass is whispering, murmuring to you.

i like to imagine that the grass is calling, “run! play! come join us!”

watch the bees buzzing among the flowers.

have you ever really stopped to notice the bumblebees in a flower patch? when you watch round fuzzy bumblebees flitting from flower to flower, even if you’ve seen the flowers many times before, it can feel like you’re seeing them anew. the bumblebees take such joy in the flowers that it’s contagious.

i like to imagine what it might feel like to find myself in the heart of a flower, surrounded by vibrant color.

notice creatures in flight.

have you ever watched tiny birds at play? they make giant circles in the air, and swoop down until they’re barely brushing the ground and back up again, over and over and over. it looks like they’re dancing, often in unison. or butterflies? you can see their tiny but mighty wings flapping back and forth. it looks like they are sauntering along, with no need or desire to hurry. or dragonflies? they whizzzzzz by and their colorful body shimmers and sparkles in the sunlight.

to me, birds and bumblebees and dragonflies epitomize the joy and freedom of flight.

name something: maybe a tree, a bird, or a spider.

there is something about the act of naming that creates a warm connection. every time you see the object you named, you experience the joyful surprise and delight of seeing a familiar friend again.

i have three regular pairs of bird visitors: harold & kumar (bluebirds), harold & maude (blue jays), and harry & sally (doves). i can’t tell you how happy it makes me when they pop in for a visit and some birdseed.

find a regular walk.

there is something about a regular walk that helps you notice the way nature changes with each season. there is also something about a regular walk that helps you notice how quickly nature can change. a bush seems to grow over a foot overnight. the same with a patch of blackberry brambles. blossoms emerge, flowers open, dandelions change from yellow petals to white puffs, petals drop, leaves fall.

it might be harder in a city, but i suspect it’s still doable.

listen to your heart.

(i got this idea from a martha beck book. it is probably an advanced practice, mostly because it might take a while to hear it and because allowing yourself to connect with your heart in this way might bring up deep feelings.)

close your eyes, sit quietly, focus on your heart, and try to feel it beating. sometimes it helps if you hold your breath for a second. (my heart sounds more like a ba-dump ba-dump, rather than the thump thump i was expecting.) when you can feel it beating, imagine blood rushing throughout your body on the beat and flowing back into the heart on the pause.

there is something about this practice that really connects you with the wonder and miracle of life.

here’s to wonder!

may you find it in your today.

and if you feel moved to share, i would love to hear about things that fill you with wonder.

a post script.

this is one of the best ways i can describe the essence of both the story club and hope floats.

i am sinking into the memory of recent moments of beauty.

the warmth of sunshine on my skin. the feeling of spaciousness. a spoonful of marscapone & pine nut gelato. the happy sigh of the pup as i tuck the blanket around him. a flash of blue as a bluebird flies past me. the sky at twilight. the warm yellow light on the trees during golden hour. a hug from a friend. laughter. the feeling of possibility. a sparkling and dancing river. puppies. walls of windows. the sound of rain on the roof. the chill crisp morning air. settling into my body. the tweet-tweeeeeeeeet-tweet of a bird outside my window. the feeling of belonging. the deep throaty call of the owl. coming across a secret staircase in a hilly neighborhood. getting a glimpse of my inner space as a very old belief clears and seeing it as vast and endless and expansive. the bright green color and fresh taste of steamed broccoli.

i’d love it if you shared some of your moments of beauty in the comments!