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Felicity and the Age of Discovery

Almost six months has Felicity been a part of our everyday household. (Sure the nine months prior, she was present, but her needs manifested themselves in mommy eating extra ice cream). Somewhere around month four she became really curious about everything. Now when I hold her unless she is very sleepy, her arms and legs wiggle and she thrusts her little head out looking around at everything drinking in the books, the Christmas tree, the piano, the light, and the color contrasts. Then if she is let down, she grabs objects with her little hands and soon after grabbing them, they make there way to her mouth for a more thorough investigation.

Today it is raining. When I opened the shade Felicity couldn’t take her eyes off of the dripping world. Watching her watch the world I can't help but wonder what thoughts cross her brain? Does she know the difference between rain and sunshine? Does she recognize the window as the same window she looked out before?

The world of our little house is large to her and I think she finds it as wondrous as I find England or Italy or any other place I visited and explored. Her England is the kitchen and her view of the Thames is the raindrops outside our home. Her museum is the books on the shelf and her exotic foods are the taste of water or berry or ice from her teething ring.

We all must start in the world as explorers and the first age of life is an age of discovery. Yet, her exploration reminds me that we should never stop exploring. Eliot says it well, “We shall not cease from exploration, but the end of our exploring will be to arrive at the place we started and to know it for the first time." All ages of our lives need to be ages of discovery. Eventually exploring leads a person home to wonder at the raindrops falling outside the window.

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