This past Saturday afternoon I walked
through the verdant garden of my friend, John. His thumbs are a deep forest green
and it was pure delight to stroll past each happy chlorophyll life form. His
wife, Candice pointed me to a lovely white rose and my randomly connecting
brain forced me to ask which early British branch of the royal family was
associated with the white rose. While we cast about for an answer and
before their tech-savvy son, Will, could check it on his incredibly smart phone, we bent to smell
a blossom and there was a lovely white globe bodied spider. She (I say “she”
because I immediately thought of Charlotte) had a slight pink mark and 8 long
white legs, which carried her to the underside of a petal in the time it took
me to say, “I wish Anisha was here.”
Last summer, I read a biography of Frank
Oppenheimer, Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens, which
contained his observation on the rich learning environment he designed.
“The Exploratorium was conceived as a
place to teach and learn, primarily because these are things we all like to do.
It is the way we bring up our children, take our friends to the top of a hill
to see the view, or call out, when we are walking through the woods ‘Hey, look,
there’s a deer’.
Yesterday, I Tweeted something I enjoyed from Joe Hanson
(sadly misspelling his last name L):
his wonderful answer to the question Why is a rainbow? His own website has many
engaging posts and I love the name It’s OK to be Smart. Joe wrote a piece recently about Einstein and his elevator observation, that I can hardly wait
feel. The next time I step into an elevator I hope to explore it, rather than
take the ride mindlessly. I hope I am that kind of person (and I hope the same
for Anisha) – the kind who says “Whooooa, that’s cool!”
I finish with this sweet quote from a letter Einstein
wrote to his son that came to me via Brain Pickings.
“That is the way
to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that
you don’t notice that the time passes.”
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