Processing the name tag of the person standing at my table at the local book festival, I had an ah-ha moment. “I think my kids are going to go to see you talk later today!” I exclaimed to her,. “You wrote the elephant book, right?”
She smiled and nodded. “That’s why I stopped by your table – the elephant sign,” she said, gesturing at the sign that said “Protect Elephants from Climate Change” sitting next to a stack of my books. My younger son had made it a few weeks before for a climate change rally. It seemed like an appropriate decoration to accompany an environmental parenting advice book.
“But you know what?” she added, leaning in conspiratorially. “Everyone thinks elephants are my favorite animal because I wrote a book about them. But they’re not. Squirrels are.”
I returned the smile. “My older son loves squirrels! He always gets offended that they don’t get more respect.”
“Right? They’re so amazing.”
“Yeah, they really are.”
Personally, I never noticed squirrels all that much until my older son fell in love with small mammals. I love and take joy in all sorts of critters, even (and sometimes especially) ones that are considered weird or gross or traditionally ugly. But in my rush to walk to work or elsewhere, I often didn’t take the time to slow down and really notice them.
Ever since he was born, my older son has made me slow down. He’s always walked at his own pace, in his own time, noticing what he’s going to notice. And now on our walks – wherever we are, including New York City – he points out squirrels. Chattering, rushing up and down trees, gathering nuts in their little paws.
And they are amazing! They fling themselves from branch to branch, balance on the thinnest of wires, and can evade quick predators. One time while camping, we tied our food up so bears wouldn’t take it – but instead a group of squirrels ate through our bag and spilled out all of the granola.
In so many ways, from soaring views from helicopters to photographs of galaxies, society tells us to gaze in wonder at the big, the large, the spectacular. And I love these things – don’t get me wrong. My jaw drops at photos from telescopes and I adore a good scenic view from the top of a mountain.
But wonder can be so much more than that limited set of options. So often, the small, ordinary things are just as amazing as the metaphorically and literally big ones. The tangle of roots of a tree and the communities of microbes that connect them one another. Fireflies flickering in grass on a summer evening. A full moon hanging in the sky. Dandelion seeds fluttering off with a string breeze. Spiderwebs criss-crossing the eves of a roof, rebuilt every night. And squirrels just being squirrels.
If we can find wonder in those small things, those lovely, ordinary objects, we can find joy anywhere we go. It’s just a matter of training ourselves to look for it, like my kid does.