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Wonder

The weather here is uniquely warm this year. We have a tradition of celebrating the last warm day with a slurpee, always happening with a spike in temperature in November, but this year I've wondered if we need to have another slurpee day in December. Then I look at the forecast - though sunny, 45 degrees isn't slurpee weather.

I walked outside and realized a bit later that I tracked these leaves in on my shoe. Pretty enough for a picture. 

A few days ago my children were out enjoying a nice day in the backyard with a friend. They needed my help with a crisis situation when they realized there was a bird in our shed, ("leave the door open, it will get itself out") and I saw they had been at work on quite a project, gathering and sorting a beautiful nature collection.



From Katherine Paterson, "Children are born with a wholesome sense of curiosity. I won't argue that, but wonder is more than curiosity. It demands an element of awe, a marveling that takes time and wisdom to supply. Both Rachel Carson and her nephew, for whom she wrote her book, had a sense of wonder, but I defy anyone to prove that his sense, simply because he was a child, was of a higher quality than hers. As the book shows, Roger caught his sense of wonder from his aunt, who never tried to teach him natural history. She simply shared with him something that had filled her with wonder, saying: 'Watch' or 'Listen' or 'Smell.'"

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