We went to the zoo this weekend. It was a pleasant afternoon and half the county wanted to go to the zoo as well.
People watching is always fun and the family ahead of us made for an interesting study. They were younger than us, mid-to-late twenties by their looks. He was clearly a tradesman, burly and weathered. She was slim and pretty, at least a six, and kept touching his arm and side and chatting with him. They had a daughter, probably five years old. She was an elfen grey-eyed blonde who kept running back and forth, far too happy and excited to wait in line. I never heard what the parents were talking about but shortly before the line moved he brushed the back of two fingers against her gently swelling belly.
I took my toddler to the nursery on Sunday. There are usually five to six kids there each week and about as many helpers. Besides the adult responsible for keeping the chaos contained there are any number of tweenage and teenage girls volunteers, several of whom greet my tot by name. Considering we haven't been there long that is pretty gratifying. Most of these girls are easily in the top half of their age group by any metric. Bright, healthy, and feminine, they have an unashamed interest in the little ones and their little joys and trials. I know that some of these girls are going to go off the rails as they grow older but many won't. They come from good families who are already many steps off the mainstream.
It is easy to get down about the state of the world. This is a crazy place and a whole lot is going wrong. Even so, there is a lot going right as well. You won't find it on the news because the news is written to demoralize. No matter. There are still things worth handing down, fighting for, and remaining hopeful about.
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