Don’t lose your wonder

We have grown dull toward this world in which we live; we have forgotten that it is not normal or scien- tific in any sense of the word.

It is fantastic. It is fairy tale through and through.

Really now. Elephants? Caterpillars? Snow? At what point did you lose your wonder at it all?

Even so, once in a while something will come along and shock us right out of our dullness and resignation. We come round a corner, and there before us is a cricket, a peacock, a stag with horns as big as he.

Perhaps we come upon a waterfall, the clouds have made a rainbow in a circle round the sun, or a mouse scampers across the counter, pauses for a moment to twitch its whiskers at you, and disappears into the cupboard. And for a moment we realize that we were born into a world astonishing as any fairy tale.