Camping

My kids and I put up a tent and camped out. We had our warm sleeping bags, no bugs, and a slew of nighttime sounds to lull us to sleep. From the chirruping of the Spring Peepers, to the “Who Cooks for You” of the Barred Owl, we felt alive. It felt so good after weeks of just eking by, to stretch our imaginations and think outside the box. At one point, we heard coyotes in the distance, and we could feel the cool life-giving air in our nostrils as we tried to hunker further into our warm sleeping bags.

This time of isolation from my community of people has been hard, as I’m sure it has been for you.

It may or may not be your cup of tea to sleep outside when it’s barely above freezing overnight, but I bet you could take a moment after the sun goes down to listen, feel and observe your surroundings. I like to have my children do jumping jacks a few times and play a “freeze” game with them. When we all freeze, we each have to think about one of our senses and name something we notice. This is especially powerful at night when it’s hard to use the sense of sight.

What’s different about your observations in this exercise versus the one we did in the daytime?