A VERY RAMBLING MIND - IS MINE!

Can you believe it is only 5 months until Christmas?  Hard to believe when we are smack dab in the middle of a hot summer, days of extreme temperatures and humidity.  Days when we are also smack dab in the middle of gardening season, watching tiny pumpkins coming on long vines, watching tomatoes on the vine turning from green to yellow, and then turning some more to deep red.  Days of watching robins speeding through the yard, and bees working tirelessly on plants and flowers that we will forget all about when they are buried under 6 feet of snow.

How privileged we are to be able to think this way, and to say such things.

Our fast paced lives have helped us forget about such things as the wonders of our seasons, and the things we will remember about them, and the things we will forget about them.  This is one thing that I have come to realize this past year.  Life gets so crazy that we forget much of what can truly make us happy - give us joy.

I am seeing this through my son's eyes this week.

He is a typical urban dwelling man.  He works full time as a teacher at a trades and technical college, teaching technical, architectural and commercial drafting to his students.  He uses the public transportation system everywhere he goes.  Even though he owns a home and a yard, his focus in life is technology.  He is very much into the cyber world and everything that goes along with it.

We pretty much forced him to come out and visit us for a few weeks in the country.  We played on his sympathies like only parents can do to their children - whining that we have not been able to see him much in the past year, telling him how very much we have missed him... you know the drill.

All true on our part, and I am sure on his as well  - and it worked -  he agreed to come out for a visit, and so he did.

What I have seen unfolding in him, is what I felt unfolding in me this past year.  The first few days he was still attached to his computer, but now he is out walking around the town.  He has latched on to my camera, so when he is on the computer now, it is more to edit the photos he has taken than to connect with social media.  His phone is no longer prominently in sight everywhere he goes.

He is excited about the huge bumble bees he sees in my garden, and has spent hours sitting outside on a chair with my tripod and camera set up watching and waiting for the best shot of one to catch and take home with him.

He is walking through the garden, asking the names of the plants.  He is seeking birds nests, and watching the sky overhead for hawks, owls, and birds other than the ones he sees in the city.



He is taking some awesome pictures, and remembering that there is a whole other way of life, that he once was very familiar with, but had grown away from.

And he is feeling the privilege of letting the world around him sink into his psyche, leaving him calm, content and happy.

He is asking to visit extended family, he is embracing his roots, his heritage, his life - and I am thankful to see that just a few days spent away from his life in the city, can recharge his mind, his heart and his creativity so profoundly.

However did I get from Christmas - to this?