I mastered Zen while playing in a pile of wood chips

Never Done: I spent an hour playing in a pile of wood chips

I can't honestly vow that I haven't spent an hour in a pile of wood chips before, but if I have, I was probably the age Tabitha is now (18 months) which turns out to be the age at which playing with wood chips is hilarious. Hilarious, I am telling you. It is especially hilarious when you take two fists full of wood chips and then drop them at the same time. Hahahahaha!!!! It is even funnier when you save out one little chip and then drop it a second later. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! And when you're doing that and then a flock of hyperactive robins swoop past you and scare a squirrel who scatters away, well that isn't so much as hilarious as shocking. (Motionless, startled stare.) But you know what's great for getting over shock? Dropping wood chips!

You know what else is interesting about playing in a wood chip pile with a toddler? People beam at you. They say hi, they ask how old the toddler is, they walk past with benevolent smiles. If they are under 5 years old, they get on the wood pile too, and if they are above 6, they stand nearby and watch, yearning for the days when they also got to while away their hours in wood piles. And if you are the toddler in the mechanized wood pile creche that everyone is watching, the thing that is really amazing is that you ignore all these people, because none of them even comes close to being as interesting as picking up and dropping the wood chips.

Talk about Be Here Now. The closest mide (middah) that mirrors the zen principle of be Here Now is, I think, Diligence: Always find something to do. I am very good at finding things to do, but what I need to work on is being completely focused on what it is that I am doing. Nothing like hanging out with a toddler to remind me what that looks like.