Brought low

"I think there is something rather dangerous about standing on these high places even to pray. ... Heights were made to be looked at, not to be looked from. ... One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak."
--The Innocence of Father Brown, The Hammer of God
by G.K. Chesterton

Toddlers have acute vision. Maybe it's because they're closer to the ground. This is certainly the case when it comes to insect identification. Two days ago, Meggie started hollering from her room, "There's a BUG! A bug in my room! A big bug!"

I rushed down the stairs, expecting to find something at least on the order of a globe spider. But instead I ended up hunting around in the corner to which she was pointing frantically. "A BUG!"

"Where?" I asked. She started pointing more strenuously, "It's right THERE!" I still couldn't see it and asked again, "But where?" Finally, she brought the tip of her finger very close to the floor, and I got on my hands and knees to see. The point of her finger hovered over the dessicated corpse of a fruit fly. "That?" I asked her. "Yes," she said, "a big bug in my room. Can you get it out, please?" I assume the fly must have come in with some produce. I retrieved a wet paper towel to give it a dignified burial in the kitchen trash. While I was at it, I wiped up several pieces of lint many times bigger than the hairy, offending fruit fly. Maybe it looked huge from a height of 36 inches.

And there are other things Meggie sees better than I. It must be a trick of the light when you look up more often than down. A month ago, there was a snowy morning when I was having particular trouble getting her out of the house to depart for preschool. She didn't want to wear that jacket today, she said. She wanted the purple one. Then she wanted to put her boots on by herself. That done, she scurried back into her room (the wrong direction) to retrieve some tennis shoes (the wrong shoes). "These are my tennis shoes that have princesses and light up," she said, "I want to wear them when summer comes." I told her to worry about that in the summertime, in five months.

And on and on it went, one request after another preventing our leaving. When we finally got to the school, late, I was exasperated. The journey from the sidewalk to the front door took an eternity. She stopped to look at this snow. Then that snow. And then she reminded me that I must not eat the yellow snow, "It has cat pee and dog pee in it, Mommy." I said that I knew this and could she PLEASE JUST WALK TO THE FRONT DOOR.

And then she stopped in her tracks and gasped, still only two feet closer to our destination. I pivoted, mentally preparing my speech about how if we were too late we'd miss the painting and the good songs and games, but she was transfixed on something, and I could see that she was gazing at the Christmas lights, still hanging on the building. She said, "Oh, Mommy, look. Glitter is coming down." I was confused, "What? Glitter? No, there's glitter inside, for painting and gluing. Let's go." She persisted, "NO. It's glitter coming down from the sky." And I looked up at the lights and saw that snow flurries had started to drift downward, individual snowflakes, each catching the light and shimmering slowly to the ground. We stood and watched for a while. It was breathtaking. And when she was ready, I let her lead me into the preschool very quietly.

I suppose a toddler's eyes also benefit from inexperience. Young eyes are caught by things that adults have seen so many times and have learned to discard as commonplace and not worth pondering. Like in the car. We were driving to play group two weeks ago. And Meggie asked me with some alarm, "What are you doing, Mommy?" I said, "Doing? Nothing, I'm just driving." "No, Mommy," she said and asked again, "What are you doing?" "I don't understand," I said. "With your cheeks," Meggie clarified, "Your cheeks look very funny." And I thought for a moment, and then I realized what it was. I clenched my teeth together, then released them, and repeated the movement several times. "You mean that?" I asked her. "Yes," she answered satisfied, "It makes your cheeks look very funny." "Oh, don't worry," I told her, "I was just grinding my teeth, I guess." She said, "Oh!" with wonder.

But I had to wonder myself. Why was I grinding my teeth? I was only thinking while driving. Thinking about the chores I had set myself that day. Thinking about who would be at play group. Thinking about the e-mails I had recently sent (some words so poorly chosen). Thinking about recent conversations. Thinking about the upcoming baby shower I'd be hosting. Thinking about the games, the prizes, the food. Thinking about what we needed from the store. Thinking about when I should go to the store. Should I do it while Meggie was at preschool? Or should I brave it with her in the cart, pulling all manner of unneeded hygiene products into the cart as we passed through the aisle? Thinking about work. Would I be working again soon? What jobs did I want to try for? Did I want to go back to school? Should I go to law school? But am I really attracted to practicing law, or am I more enamored with the lectures? Why should I be grinding my teeth? I was only thinking. There are some people who have a hard time silencing the mind.

So I decided to relax my jaw and my brain and to concentrate on watching instead of thinking. I watched the cars more closely. I watched the mountain ranges, one growing smaller in my rear-view mirror, the other getting larger ahead. I noticed the pine trees whooshing by. There are times when all that thinking is counterproductive. Like when you're driving on the highway.

Meggie has informed me many times that there are inconveniences to being very young and very small. "It's very, very hard," she often says. But in vision, toddlers may have the advantage over adults. They see quite well from down there.

Pictures.

We don't live life in the fast track. But we have...

A train track.

A snow track.

A laugh track.