The Little Kid Feeling

Remember way back when you were a little kid and you saw something knew and a feeling of wonderment and excitement passed over you. How you could stare up at a rainbow or watch lightning fork the sky and have to pause to take  it in simply because it left you breathless. How you used to lay down in the grass, look up at the limitless blue sky and form pictures from the clouds. Times when you would sit cross legged in the park and try to coax a squirrel over to you with a peanut.

Remember how those things were awesome and, for the fleeting time you spent there in the moment, you were happy and astonished. It's one of the best feelings. That total sense of awe at the world around you.

Sometimes, if you're lucky, you have that little kid feeling when you are an adult. Sometimes the bitterness is put on hold, the harshness of the world falls away and you find yourself in a moment of unsullied amazement. It's those experiences that should stay with us. We should hold them inside, revisit them whenever possible, so we don't forget how exquisite life can be.

These small moments of wonder happen to me a fair bit. When I am out in the forest, searching for adventure, and the sky splits apart and rain falls from the heavens with such a ferocity you'd think it was mourning the loss of something grand. Listening to the sea lions bark at each other at Fanny Bay. Spying a deer at the side of the road grazing on lush green grass. Seeing anything for the first time, like a moose ambling across a roadway, or a mother with her cubs. A piece of cake I can eat. Or watching a bird fly, how it soars through the sky without thought to the magic it is displaying.

Today my little kid feeling came from a bumblebee. A very big bumblebee with an orange belt, We are talking loonie sized. Freeing it from the salon. Watching as it took to the sky. There was that sense of joy and astonishment.

That feeling is what I am grateful for. That I still have it. And hopefully always will.