Saturday afternoon, I sat on a bench in Millennium Park in Chicago, people watching and taking photographs and just enjoying the slow pace of a spring afternoon. While I sat on that park bench, I realized that it was the first time in longer than I can recall in which I had no where to go, no where to be, nothing that needed to be done, no one needing anything from me in the immediate future. It was a strange – but somewhat freeing – feeling.

I have a tendency to fill my days; boredom terrifies me and I am not sure I would remember what it feels like to be bored – it’s been so long. If there’s nothing to do, I fill the time with something. Frankly, arbitrarily filling time is not something I have to do much of these days. The time, it fills itself. Having a less flexible schedule these days translates into a little bit of juggling to make things fit into the day somehow.

I once saw Denzel Washington on Oprah (shut up), and he said at the time that the motto in his family is “You have to do the things you have to do so you can do the things you want to do.”

There’s a lot of “have to do’s” these days.

That’s okay, it’s part of being all grown up.

FYI, being a grown up is stupid.

But, I need to make more time for the things I want to do because I hadn’t realized it until I had a few unclaimed hours just how much I missed being aimless with my camera.

I haven’t really written in I don’t know how long. I think y’all can tell from the puny numbers on the right there, how few blog posts I’m actually writing these days. I’m not even doing much writing that I’m not posting. When I write, it’s work writing and not writing for joy. I used to write for joy. I used to write because the words would bubble up under the surface until I unleashed them, through my finger tips, the keyboard, onto my screen one character at a time. I used to think I would write a book someday – these days, I’m lucky if I can remember to add “vanilla extract” to a grocery list.

My guitar case sits propped against the wall, getting covered by a layer of dust that I should find time to clear off. My fingertips, which had been getting nicely callused from playing are nearly soft again, and I wonder if I can even remember how to form chords anymore.

I still find time for my camera. I still find time for pictures. And it saves me sometimes because it’s a reminder that I’m not losing my perspective, my eye. It reminds me that I can still see and that I’m still absorbing and that at some point, I’ll find my groove and make all of these things fit back into my day again somehow.

But Saturday I stopped.

I breathed in. I watched the world around me. I moved as quickly and as slowly as I wanted. I took all the time and none of the time. I wondered about people and places and things. I felt rain drops on my face and I saw my reflection as I slowly walked past store windows, a face that was nearly at peace from the unrushed pace of a day.

Pumpkin really loves dogs. She loves real dogs to the extent that she can rattle off extensive lists of dog breeds and facts. As an extension, she also likes stuffed dogs – so much so that she has somewhere in the neighborhood of eleventy-billion of them (give or take a couple). When a gift-giving occasion approaches, she asks for stuffed dogs. When she has extra money to spend, she opts to buy stuffed dogs. There are stuffed dogs all over the house – but they’re what she loves. They all have names – she remembers them all.

As you would imagine, sometimes she takes the dogs with her. She does a good job in varying which dog she chooses – a while back, she had this method of closing her eyes, leaning back on her bed (where all eleventy billion stuffed dogs reside – really, there’s hardly any room for Pumpkin in there), and selecting the first dog she reaches. She’s not so choosy; she loves them all.

Sometimes the dogs go to school with her. Usually the dogs come home with her.

Yesterday, one didn’t.

Yesterday, she apparently left Patches in the sandbox during recess. When I got home, she was sitting with grandpa at the dining table making “Missing Puppy” signs to hang up around school. The signs noted that Patches was a “shnowzer” (sic), with blue eyes and a gray belly. In a six year old’s scrawl, Patches’ last known whereabouts were detailed, along with a plea to “return Patches as soon as possible.” Her earnestness and devotion to Patches gnawed at me. The Princess had even jumped in to help with the sign making process.

Grandpa headed home, we sat down to dinner, and outside the rain pummeled down. It was raining so hard and so furiously that the rain came down sideways. Inside, there were some waterworks as well, as Pumpkin started worrying about Patches outside in the rain in the sandbox. It seemed to ease her mind when I left a voice mail for the school, letting them know that we were on the lookout for a stuffed schnauzer. She became distracted, playing with her sister and carrying on with normal kid stuff until bedtime.

Around bedtime – when the second wave of tears hit – I realized that maybe, despite the rain I should have driven the girls to the school to see if Patches was still outside. That maybe I should not have been deterred by torrential sideways rains (or tornado watches) and just gone to look for her puppy. It hadn’t occurred to me earlier in the evening and by the time I was tucking kids in for the night, it was really too late to go stomping around a sandbox in the rainy night to find a stuffed dog.

And now today I have been thinking of Pumpkin and her dog all day. I have no idea if she found him yet or if she did not – and if she did, I can only imagine he is smelly and soggy and gross and will need a trip in the washing machine on the gentle cycle. If she can’t find him, I wonder if she will be content with her eleventy billion (minus one) other dogs, or if Patches somehow held a bigger place in her heart.

It’s weird what happens when you become a parent – when your children’s sadness becomes a weight in your heart. Sometimes stuff happens, sometimes toys get left in the rain. It will be a lesson to her, I’m sure – a lesson on taking care of her things and consequences for when she doesn’t. But in the meantime, her sad makes me sad. I’d never imagined that at 35, I’d spend hours of my day, thinking about the whereabouts of a stuffed animal. And somehow, despite the weirdness, it feels totally normal.