Our Zoo Trip

We went to the zoo this week
and I must say I learned a few things.
Not new facts about the animals, 
but about this life we are living. 

Watching my Ceesa with her explorer hat, camera, and notebook, taking pictures and videos and stopping to write poems, made me realize something. She is free. Free from rules about how to dress, what people think, how she is supposed to behave. She is just herself. What a gift she is!

Hanging back from the crowd provides an abundance of peace. We usually go to the zoo in the spring or autumn because of the heat. But I realized, we also go then because there are less people. The zoo was packed and I could feel myself getting stressed by the shear number in the crowd. After about 20 minutes, I realized I needed to hang back, not go with the flow of the crowd, just be. I needed a chance to breathe deep.

Visiting the zoo, like this life, is not to be rushed. It is to be savored, enjoyed. If we don't see everything while we are there, it is okay. We're there to see what we can see and be together. If that means sitting with the gorillas for a while, or hanging back so Li can watch the elephants, that's okay. Slowing the pace is worth it.

Sometimes the best views and experiences with the animals come after a wait and some patience. Some animals I've waited almost 4 decades to see, finally to see them up close, in this time.

You can find beauty where no one else is looking. Just open your eyes to the things around you. There's no reason to be so busy, running here and there in a frantic search to see everything. When you are trying to see everything, you often see nothing.

I watched a lot of people with screaming children or a lot of adults screaming at the children. As I watched, I thought. I spent a lot of time thinking. Then it came to this...There is nothing to see or do with my family that requires them to make perfect choices, to be perfect. There will be times we need to regroup and it is important to do just that. And not wait until we are at our boiling points. Our days are fuller, we are blessed.

I'm not sure that I had planned on learning so many life lessons while walking about at the zoo, but I am certainly thankful that the good Lord saw fit to share them with me.

Wishing you homeschool blessings,


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