Small Things

A velvety bright pink flower that looks like something out of a Dr. Suess book. A praying mantis on the stair rail. The way my daughter’s dog snuggles up to me and stuffs his head under my armpit. I am training myself to take notice of small things. To pushpin myself in place and time

because here is what I usually do: the flower. What IS it? I have to take a picture on my phone. Try the plant ID.

(It might be Celosia argentea, known as cockscomb because the ruffly appearance looks like the crest on a rooster.) (I also learn it may have come from India and had to be nurtured back from extinction, and isn’t it interesting how it found its way here, to this community garden in Washington DC, where my husband and I are visiting our daughter and son-in-law over the weekend?)

And the praying mantis, which I do not stop to photograph because my daughter is yelping, running up the stairs with the dog, afraid, apparently. A bug! It’s a giant bug, Mom!

It’s a praying mantis, they’re supposed to be good luck. (Are they good luck? I want to look this up too but we’re running up the stairs together, the dog sprint-loping ahead of us. He’s such a sweet dog—and then I am vaulting back into the past, the Pandemic year, when the dog lived with us in Ohio, along with our daughter and soon-to-be son-in-law, the times we all smushed together on the couch, binge-watching Master Chef, the gourmet meals we ate, courtesy of the soon-to-be son-in-law who took over the cooking.

Which reminds me, we are going out to dinner tonight at the restaurant where he is a chef! The last time we dined at this lovely place, he sent samples out from the kitchen, a tangy feta dip and sesame bread with the perfect combination of crusty crust and soft center that I have been dreaming about ever since—but wait, a nagging worry:

all of the things I’ve been reading about in the news about the soldiers occupying DC and scaring off people who just want to eat at restaurants, this further spurred on by the conversation I had with a library patron the other day, when she asked me if I had plans for the weekend and I said, going to DC to visit my daughter. And she said, Are you afraid?

And then she told me a story about the country where she came from and how her family had to leave because there was a war, but they’ve been back since then, and even there, in a war-torn country, they don’t have soldiers stationed in the street. And I said, Yeah, it’s crazy.) It is crazy.

But back to the flower, the praying mantis, the comfy couch where I am sitting, the sleeping house, the light filtering in through the windows, the trees, the leaves yellowing (yellowing? When did this happen? How am I just now noticing?) the dog loping out to curl up next to me, his grunty, satisfied snores, and I am here again, this place, this time. A reach for my phone to look up praying mantises.

A pausing and letting go, content, just for the moment, to wonder.