a walk in the park

There is a park right behind our house. There is another one a few blocks away. I prefer the latter. There is something about walking to it that makes me feel introspective.

Maybe its the way my kids are fascinated with things we find along the way:



a fuzzy plant, a big leaf, a long stick.

Maybe its the way I can watch my kids and see their personality in action.

Like the way Ana always runs ahead and wants to get where we are going fast. She gets distracted and will run up stairs and over to benches until we catch up. She wants to catch squirrels (and is disappointed when they run away) and run in the falling leaves. She loves to do the monkey bars and hang upside down and meet new friends. Her hair is always in her face and her shoes flung off the moment we arrive at the park.

Jack walks slowly and steadily. He likes to find a stick and bang every tree along the way. He usually finds one thing and does that the entire time we're at the park - go down one slide, climb up and down one ladder, make a dirt pile, etc. Or, like yesterday, try to hit an acorn out of his hand with a stick. (He succeeded more often than you would think. He's got quite the coordination for a two year old.)(In this case I had to pull out my phone-camera.)


(Notice Ana hanging from the swing.)

It makes me notice that life is vivid.

Life is vivid in color, in expression, in all things that we feel and see and hear. I see it in so many things around me, but mostly the expression of life is found in my children. Each time I take this little walk, my thoughts turn in this direction. I usually leave my camera behind, because I know that I can't quite capture life in all its glory.

But in my head I make a mental snapshot of these vivid moments.