The Giraffe

This morning, Rio and I woke up around 5:00 a.m.

As we always do, we opened the front door and said, “Welcome, world.”

We lit a few candles and some incense, and a little while later we noticed the sky beginning to glow. So we wandered outside together, trying to find the best place to watch the sunrise.

Along the way, Rio stopped suddenly.

“Mom! Look!”

There was what looked like a puddle of water—or maybe oil—on the asphalt. But somehow, impossibly, it looked exactly like the outline of a giraffe.

Not sort of.

Not if you squinted.

It looked like a giraffe.

So we stood there.

Not for a few seconds.

For several minutes.

Just staring at this accidental giraffe in complete amazement.

And I remember thinking…

If we had been rushing to get to school…

If I had been trying to get everyone dressed, fed, packed, and out the door…

If I had a meeting or a deadline or somewhere I had to be…

I probably would have smiled and said, “That’s nice,” before pulling Rio along.

Instead, we had nowhere to be.

So we stayed.

After that, we found the sunrise. The sky had turned the most beautiful shades of coral and pink, and when we walked past the lake, those colors reflected across the water like a painting.

We saw a mockingbird.

My children know that I believe birds—especially the ones that seem to find us—are my mother, Bobba appearing to say hi. So we waved and said, “Hi, Bobba.”

The bird chirped back.

Whether that was my mom or just a very chatty mockingbird doesn’t really matter.

For a moment, it felt like love.

Then we opened our new nature identification app and started identifying birds and plants just because we were curious.

When we got home, I used up some bananas that were getting too ripe and made chocolate chip banana bread for breakfast.

While it baked, I turned on Higher Love and started dancing.

Not exercising.

Not performing.

Just dancing.

The kind of slow, joyful dancing you do when nobody’s watching and you’re not trying to accomplish anything except enjoy being alive.

I asked Rio if he wanted to join me.

He smiled and said no.

He was busy doing his own thing.

And that made me smile too.

A little while later, I checked on Maya.

She was still asleep.

She’ll probably sleep until nine this morning.

That’s just who she is.

She needs twelve or more hours of sleep.

Rio doesn’t.

I don’t.

We’re all different.

And no alarm clock was going to tell her otherwise.

As I stood there watching her sleep, I realized that this—not the dancing, not the banana bread, not even the giraffe—was what I felt most grateful for.

Time.

The freedom to let our days unfold instead of forcing them into someone else’s schedule.

The freedom to stop and marvel at a puddle that looked like a giraffe.

The freedom to dance in the kitchen because a song moved me.

The freedom to let one child sleep while another explores the sunrise.

For years, I believed freedom meant escaping something.

Now I think freedom is much quieter than that.

Sometimes…

Freedom looks like standing on a sidewalk with your six-year-old, staring at a giraffe that isn’t really there.

And realizing you have absolutely nowhere else you’d rather be.