Last night Miranda (3) and I were walking in the dark to her ballet class three blocks from our house. It was a beautiful warm night. The moon was a thin crescent in the sky, the treet was slick and shining with rain and the sidewalks were maple-matted all the way. But these are things that I didn't really notice as I left the house. I was unhappily walking my daughter to her one and only tuition-paid activity and dreading having to make small talk wit the other moms. I was thinking about how I should have done the laundry that day so I had something less disgusting and Simon-slimed to wear in public, while trying to remember if tomorrow was garbage day and hoping I had time to get the kitchen cleaned when I got home in order to get to bed early because I felt another cold coming on... at least I hoped it was a cold...
And then I heard a little sound from beside me.
"Those clouds look so in-ter-nesting"
"Can you say that again Miranda?" I wasn't sure what word she was trying to say.
"Internesting. You know that Mommy? The clouds are internesting to me."
"Oh... Interesting? Yes, I guess they are interesting"
The clouds were in long whispy strands, coloured blues and pinks across the moon and stars.
"I like the interesting cloud on the moon, Mommy. Because its pink and I like pink."
"Yes, that is a very pretty cloud"
Silence for a moment.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, Miranda?"
"Let's just be quiet and listen to the beautiful sounds now."
"okay"
And we did. For the rest of the walk we took in the night. And I heard sounds I'm sure I hadn't registered in years. The thousands of different sounds leaves make, for instance, when they come in contact with feet, bicycles, the wind.
No one teaches presence like a child.
