Building a sense of place and taking time

While Joel's ADD slowness can sometime make me crazy, it also prepared me for parenthood.  Tl learn how to live with people who had a lack of attention and ability to get really absorbed in something.  This makes Joel a really good dad and reminds me to slow down.

We spent many of the past years walking the same city block as a full experience. Sometimes taking 30 minutes or more.  While we aren't in the woods, we can take the time to recognize the living things and space around us.  We can enjoy the rocks, the tree that usually has birds on it, the old man who smokes his pipe, the puddles.  We took this time to seep the children in the nuances of their space and tried to teach them to enjoy it because it is our street.

This led to chilly walks to look at grandmother moon while balancing on rocks, sizzling nights people watching and a lot of picking up little bit of things to be treasured in pockets.

We wanted our children to have calm lives and to give them space to explore.  There are times when the walk is a rush, but whenever we can, we make it something more.  To take the time to point out the changing life of the rose, to see the people come and go, to enjoy the cats lounging in the sun.  To enjoy the stairs because they are nice.  To find beauty in what is around.  To see the meditation in ordinary life.  To jump on the leave pile and see the colour contrast between the porch they have fallen on and the leaves themselves.

We did this for our own reasons after watching so many people rush through everything and I wouldn't have stayed married to Joel if I could not slow down, but this was also good, because as slow as we went, it was still too much for S to process.  As familiar as her spaces were to her, she was still scared.  I wonder how much worse that would have been if we had been more busy?

I also find now a remembered pleasure in those slow days.  Each part of that street has a memory.  Each stop a homage to an earlier time.  I really wish I could give the girls a wild natural outside.  I miss that for me and them, but that connection to place, to even know that is something you can do, they have that and maybe one day they can find themselves a wild place to practice these things.