Listening

"Close your eyes....what do you hear?"

We sit on the damp ground, our eyes closed to the autumn sun, the temporary blindness igniting our other senses; I feel the wind as much as I hear it, and it smells like fall.

"I hear a cardinal!"

"Yes, and finches, too—they're the quiet bubbly ones."

"You mean the ones that sound like this?" (enter cacophony of strange toddler vocalizations)

"Well, sort of. What else do you hear?"

"Mmmmmm....the wind, and the leaves."

"The wind in the leaves?"

"No, I hear the leaves falling... See mommy? Did you hear that?"

He's right. There is a lot that I haven't heard, haven't thought of, haven't paid attention to in many, many years, if ever I did, and now it all seems so obvious and invigorating, as brought to my attention by a three year old. Out here in the clearing, the woods devoid of their summer color and life, I can clearly hear the sound of leaves falling, hitting branches on the way down and coming to rest against the forest floor with an undignified fump.

We spent an hour or so late this morning hiking around the woods and clearing near our house. This is a favorite pastime of ours, and every different season brings its own joys there. Today we spent most of that time talking about fall—a conversation that led to talking about the five senses. By the time we got home we had a list of the many ways in which we can sense the season of fall using all five senses. We also had a bag filled with the many things we couldn't bring ourselves to leave behind, so we made a mural. Paste is a beautiful thing, though not nearly as beautiful as the mental processes of a three year old esuriently consuming the world around him.