Looking closer

It’s amazing when you look more closely at your own back yard, how the place you consider ordinary can suddenly appear exotic and new. When we lived in a suburb of San Diego, my husband and I used to examine every insect, every bird, every weed we encountered in our yard. Once we saw what we thought was an earthworm, and on closer inspection it turned out to be a kind of salamander, with tiny legs and a face—all packaged up to seem to be an earthworm. What trick of adaptation caused it to take that form I’ll never know.

Seeing that reminded me to always look a little closer, to never assume I know any place, even my own back yard, as well as I could.