Lola was berating me last night. She hadn’t been on a walk for two days and she had a lot of pent-up energy seeking release. It was half past dark, so I promised her we would go first thing this morning.
It may not have been the first thing we did, but I kept my promise.
The afternoon highs are still in the 90s here, but we have experienced the hope of fall. The winds shifted a couple of days ago and there was the slightest, but real, hint of fall. You could feel it. You could breathe it.
As I was contemplating the potential of cooler weather, I noticed a pecan growing on a young tree right at eye level as we walked by. That pecan transported me back to the days when my oldest daughter was a toddler and we would take walks and find treasures. A pecan lying on the ground would have qualified.
I found her a shoebox and we called it her Treasure Box. It became the dedicated space for all the treasures she picked up and brought home from a walk or found in our yard.
So on my walk this morning, I found myself picking up the kinds of treasures my daughter might have found 25 years ago – feathers, shiny rocks (always a favorite), acorns, acorn tops (good hats for fairies), pretty leaves (none of those today), and anything else that looked interesting.
It was a happy memory – walking with a little one, oooh-ing at a new find, talking about the newest treasure – what it was and why we enjoyed it, putting them in the treasure box, taking them out to look at again when we added more treasures. I hoped she would learn that real treasures are not found in a store.
My daughter added to her treasure box for a couple of years and hung onto it even longer. Sometime in her tweens, she went through the Treasure Box one last time and threw everything out.
I may have been more sensitive to this memory today because of something I saw on GMA before our walk. It seems that a young mother of a 10-week-old baby blogged that she was taking a vacation for six days. She wouldn’t be taking the baby with her. She has received a lot of flak.
It was annoying that GMA, in discussing this, paired one of their doctors with a “real housewife” from somewhere who, I thought, had nothing of value to say. I wondered how the doctor had allowed herself to be paired with this woman. I felt humiliated for her (the doctor). I changed the channel.
All I can say is – I hope this young mother comes back from her vacation refreshed and renewed. I hope she misses her baby while she is gone, for if she does, then there is a bond between them. And I hope they fill a Treasure Box together.
