Every Wednesday night, my oldest son and I have what we call “Snuggle Time.” It’s a sweet time—about fifteen minutes—when he gets to have my undivided attention—which is a precious rarity in our home.
The last two Snuggle Time sessions he’s wanted to go for a walk—just up to our mailbox and back.
The other night, the moon was nearly full. We stepped outside our house, and there it was to greet us, looming in the black sky, the stars around it hardly visible because it was so bright. For a moment, a cloud passed over it, turning it hazy, like a glowing orb, a little other-worldly.
“Look at the moon,” my son said. We stood there for a few minutes, admiring this spectacle of the universe, which put on a lovely show, as though it knew we were watching. Then we continued on our mission: to the mailbox.
My son slipped his hand in mine, and we walked, side by side, step matched to step, the keys jangling in my other hand. He talked about what he wanted to do for his elective next year, when he enters middle school. I listened. I breathed. I saw.
Click. The stars peering out from behind clouds, pulsing a song we could not hear.
Click. The neighbors’ cars, shadowed, shining after a thin blanket of rain earlier this evening.
Click. A cat stealing across the driveway.
We joked about what we would have done if the animal skittering across the driveway had not been a cat—a skunk, perhaps, or a raccoon or a zombie. (We would have run, of course.)
We were back at the house much too soon, so we stopped again, peered up at the moon, still as lovely as before, his hand still in mine. The insignificant mail shared space with the keys in my other hand. My gaze kept turning back to that brilliant moon, as if something waited for my notice. For my listening.
And I heard it: the earth sang.
The earth is always singing, I think. It may sound a bit mystical to say that, but I agree with John Keats: “The poetry of the earth is never dead.”
And it has something to tell us if we take a moment to listen.
That night, it said, “Linger for a bit. Enjoy your son. Be here, now. Nothing lasts forever.”
So I lingered. After the timer clanged, startling both of us in a way that made him laugh hysterically, I took an extra minute—two, three—with my son.
Time never lasts forever.
I hope that as you move about your month, this last month before school is finished, perhaps, and your children move up yet another grade; this last month before the stretching out of summer, when you take a vacation or two and enjoy friends, family, or a lighter approach to work; this last month of endings and new beginnings, you will linger. I hope you will take a moment or two or three with the people you love, to say, I am here and you are here, and life is lovely, isn’t it?
I hope you will listen to the poetry of the earth.
(Photo by Helen Montoya Photography.)
