On Thursday Abe’s flight didn’t arrive until late in the evening, and since I knew I had the evening routine to do by myself, I took the kids to the Tulip Festival. I figured they could wear themselves out running around and then bedtime would be a bit easier.
Clarissa LOVED the tulips and kept running at top speed (careening, really) down the paths to point delightedly at different flowers that caught her attention. She was entranced. Mary, whose favorite thing to do is take care of Clarissa, followed her delightedly, steering her, holding her hand, and cooing proudly at her. Ammon wanted to be independent and so kept trying to wander off. Lydia brought paper and a pen with her and spent the whole time writing poetry everywhere. In between writing poems she would exclaim how her head was filled with words and how inspired she felt by everything. These are the poems she wrote:
The Tulip
The tulip mostly ruby red
Makes a dreamy feeling in your head.
It smells so very, very sweet.
Birds come to it, tweet, tweet, tweet.
I love the tulip, as you can see.
I love the tulip, now it’s we.
The Tree
The tree is the tallest of them all.
It would take some might to make it fall
Wise and old it can be,
Super firm, as you can see.
I love the tree.
I hope you love the tree.
The Stream
The stream is very, very thin.
It’s very cold when touched by skin.
Sometimes very, very green,
Others, the color of a bean.
Smooth and fish-filled it may be.
If you love it, you can see
Why it’s calling out to me.
Lydia actually wrote more poems, but these are the ones I can find. I know she wrote one about a cloud but that must be lost somewhere.
Anyway, I loved that Lydia was so happy. After the first initial rush of excitement, this outing became very stressful for me. Clarissa is OBSESSED with water and wanted to jump into the waterfall, and in the meantime Ammon was trying to constantly escape. Thirty minutes in (or maybe not even that much) Mary got hungry and tired and started whining incessantly. Then Ammon got tired and started crying. And I had no stroller so I had to coax the children through acres and acres of garden with just my words.
After a while I remembered a lecture one of my English professors gave in college on the transcendentalists. I forget the point of the lecture, but during it he mentioned that as we age, often we lose our ability to experience ecstasy in nature. I remember feeling horrified at the thought that one day I could experience nature without ecstasy. Well, while I was corralling all of my children, hiking back up to the parking lot and pouring sweat, I remembered that lecture and realized with horror that I was in the middle of beautiful nature and didn’t feel a thing in my soul. I started to wonder if my spirit was insensate and dulled from my faith journey.
Then I realized I had four young kids with me, no stroller, and everyone was tired and hungry. I realized that I probably still have the capacity to enjoy nature, but not in these circumstances. I could recognize it was all very pretty, and maybe if I go again (with a stroller and, preferably, Abe too), maybe I’ll get a bit of ecstasy.
In the evening I went out for pedicures with Ethline and didn’t get back until 10 pm!!! By that time Shauna, Vanessa, and Abe had all arrived at the house. It was great to see everyone.