Passing on the Nuts

I went for a walk the other day at a local mountain park. It's beautiful here right now with the fall colors at a peak. I found a nut that was whole and intact (as opposed to all of the other partial nut pieces I saw along the trail) so I picked it up for Emma. A WHOLE nut! Boy, was she going to be excited!! So excited!!!

An hour later, I picked her up from school and, after listening to her tell me about her day, I gave her the nut. "Emma! I found a whole nut for you on the walking trail today!" She politely accepted it, but behind her smile I glimpsed a strange but familiar expression on her face. I recognized it immediately....

She thought I was crazy.

I was suddenly whooshed back in time to the many car rides with my mother when she would hand me some sort of treasure from her nature walks. A nut or a leaf or a pretty rock. I remember one time I went to my dorm mailbox in college and found a single, perfect pine cone sitting in there. (My mother worked at the college I attended - free tuition! - and she got the mailroom guy to put it in there.) I distinctly remember shaking my head and laughing about how crazy she was.

I don't know when I morphed from that girl into the woman I am now. One who picks up nuts that are whole and feels excited about them - and even more excited to give them to my daughter. Or that goes on for ten minutes about how the mountains look like they're on fire and, "Isn't it beautiful Emma?!" while she replies, "Um, sure." Or one that mourns when all of the leaves finally fall off my favorite tree because I know I won't get to see its beauty again for a whole year. And one that, when asked by a friend going to France what I'd like him to bring back for me, says, "A leaf. I want a French leaf." Not French wine or French chocolates, but a French leaf. I think he thought I was a little crazy too but he did bring me a leaf and I loved that leaf. (Note: He also brought back the wine and chocolates too and I thoroughly enjoyed them as well.)

When did I become my mother's daughter? Something I vowed never to become? I really don't know...but I'd like to think that I took the best of her and carry those threads of her quirkiness and goodness with me as I mother my daughter. And you know what? I still have that pine cone my mother gave me. I treasure it now because she's gone and it's nice to have a reminder of her funny ways of showing me that she was thinking about me during her day - and that she cared enough to give me the perfect pine cone she'd found.

So I'm going to continue giving Emma my weird nature trail finds. Maybe some day she'll find one of them in a box somewhere and she'll fondly remember how crazy I was. And that I loved her enough to give them to her.