48. Today I spent the morning on a long walk with my friend, talking politics and life and family dynamics. After that I went to the Co-op because I’m obsessed with making almond milk these days, so am, well, out of almonds. I was putting the almonds into jars in the pantry, and came across this kite that I had bought for my nephew for Christmas. Gifts were a shake uneven this year, so I hung back on giving it to him then. But, as he lives in Detroit and they are still in deep freeze territory, I decided to send him the kite as a signal to spring, and a paper snowflake as a reminder that winter is lovely and only lasts a short time.

I couldn’t remember offhand how to make a successful snowflake out of office paper. I tried and made a few cute, but square ones (and thought – hmmm, maybe I should dip that in natural dye of turmeric or beet, and frame it???) but returned to the task at hand. They didn’t look like the angular, diamond shaped snowflakes that I remember making in 3rd grade. So I headed to YouTube, and followed a diagram-based video created by a TEACHER OF PAPER SNOWFLAKE MAKING (anything is possible, kids). But when I opened them, they fell apart into four pieces instead of one. I had followed the written instructions directly, compensating for my left-handedness and reversing all of the steps, but still. Broken snowflakes. Pretty, but not what I was going for. So I went to the next YouTube video, this one an actual video, of hands and folding and cutting, and got it first try.

I could write now about how this relates to our experience in life – about how we learn, how we get our information, how we vet our information, balance it against other approaches, process the world around us, and much more. But instead, I’ll leave you with this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59dOIF3PMjY

A lovely way to spend a cold, sunny, Sunday afternoon.