Andi, Oakley and I just got back from a breezy, crisp, and sunny walk to the library. It’s “Letdown Day” as we’ve just returned from a 9-day Spring Break trip away from home. Time outside was a welcome respite, despite the cool temps and chilly wind on the walk westward!
I pushed Oaks and a bundle of library books in the stroller while Andi took to her purple Razor scooter for the first time this season. We were midway home before she pulled off to the side and stooped down to pick up a stringy piece of bark. She examined it in a couple of seconds and found it un-save-worthy, or too difficult to cart home on a scooter, and dropped it back down to the grass. The whole experience reminded me of one of the 1000 things I love about our sweet Sister-Soo.
Andi is a great finder of journey treasures. Walks through parking lots, sidewalk journeys to stores or the library, or nooks and crannies around a house yield loot for Andi’s apt eyes. She is ever aware of whats on the ground under her feet. She has found plenty of coins, standard fare for kids with an eye for piggy bank collections, but has also found a plastic ring she still loves, loose plastic gems, stickers, balls, and miscellaneous discarded trash she considers treasure. While some days it makes me trip right over her, unknowingly leave her behind, or worry about the germs she’s also gathering, today, and mostly, it makes me appreciate Andi’s awareness of what’s below her and the potential of the ordinary artifacts at our feet.
In this way, Andi reminds me to look down- appreciating people, agendas, ideas, and experiences that aren’t so high and lofty; I should lift up the lowly. She also reminds me not to look over something left behind. There’s potential in small pieces of life passed along unknowingly from person to person via the shared spaces of sidewalks. 
