December again – a fitting time to share again my all-time favourite post.

“Mom, we should collect these to decorate for Christmas?”

“I wish we brought a bag.”

But that didn’t deter her – Blossom gathered a handful of the eucalyptus seed pods that littered the path. We use them in place of pinecones, which we rarely find. Their earthiness brings the warmth of Christmas.

“Mmm, mom, smell.” Blossom held a pod to my nose and I breathed it all in: the healing scent, the sun catching her blonde hair after weeks of smog, her shining face turned toward mine.

I didn’t plan this. I haven’t spent much time outdoors lately – I’ve been at home working – but my oldest son, needed to be picked up after spending the night at a friend’s. With plans to stop at Dairy Queen, we walked. We had something to celebrate.

The kids finished their first school term. They prepared portfolios and presented them to the teacher that oversees our homeschool – she’s the kind of person you want in your kids’ lives, one who listens, who takes time to care. I enjoyed sitting in on their video calls, being part of the connection, seeing the results of their greatest efforts.

But now I was exhausted. We all were. The kids were enjoying a break and I hoped for one too but remembered my To Do list, shoved aside. I couldn’t afford a few days, but I could break for ice-cream.

With playing cards in my purse, I looked forward to spending time with my kids. For weeks I was hunched over the computer, scanning and e-mailing documents, helping kids meet deadlines, instead of cuddled on the couch reading or walking and talking in the park. Those fulfilling aspects faded into the background as I helped my kids rise to meet school’s expectations.

Even once our term reports were finished and we could return to our regular pace, my growing boys filled more of their free time pursuing their own interests over spending time with mom. DQ had been attractive to my son but when we discovered it was not yet open, he didn’t want to enjoy the park with us, he walked home alone.

That’s how I landed right where I wanted to be – in the park with my daughter, meandering.

She filled her pockets to a bulge. As I delighted in her carefree joy my eyes caught a patch of clover and I thought of words I read the night before, of a man who was once a boy sitting for hours, surrounded by clover searching for luck in the form of four leaves.

I thought of myself as a child, of lying on thick snow in the schoolyard, watching clouds flow across an infinite sky. Now, in this strip of a city park, flanked by rows of skyscrapers, I wondered how Blossom would respond to the sprawling space of my childhood, to boardwalks over ponds fringed by pussy willows.

But do kids hemmed in by nature still spend free days rambling? In this Christmas season are they sipping cider beside an outdoor rink after icing sugar cookies? Or have these pleasures been traded away?

Reminiscing urged me to embrace my daughter’s eagerness, especially as my oldest evidences that time runs away. She stepped closer to me, saw what caught my gaze.

“Mom, can I look for four-leaf clovers?” My thoughts jumped to the present, to the press of work undone.

“Let’s find a place to sit,” I pushed myself to say. We found another patch of clover, this one beside a path’s kerb. I sat. As clovers consumed Blossom someone else caught my eye. A lady at the other end of life. She captivated me, exemplifying simplicity.

Framed by weeping branches she sat on a simple stool. She held what looked like a refined banjo. It reminded me of my school principle. What a surprise he was – the man of authority, with banjo in arms, plucking and singing Fly’s In The Buttermilk as we waltzed. Such moments suspend life’s weight.

At the same school all us kids started each December morning seated on the gym floor, singing carols. But there was no cluster of kids today. All little ones that gathered ‘round this woman were surely grown, as I am. She strummed and hummed – the zhong wan, I later discovered – as people with faces buried in phones walked by. Few stopped to breathe in the calm.

I pulled my sketchbook from my purse. I tucked it there when I realized I was weighted with grocery shopping, meal making, and homeschooling, as permission to capture these glimpses of grace.

I sketched the woman who represented what, for me, somehow slipped away. What better time to find it again? Blossom finished collecting Christmas decorations. She tugged for my attention. It wasn’t snowflakes she chased but a butterfly, now on her hand, resting.

It’s nothing like Christmas back home but like the child who stepped out of the school building, biting wind slamming the door, to discover the first snowfall, a torrent of ornate flakes hurled from heaven, melting on my coat, my mittens, my tongue – I let myself be pulled into the wonder.

View my Chinese Ink Painting of The Zhong Wan Strummer.