Tuesdays are my babysitting days.  At nine o’clock, Ana comes.  “Ana bus!” the Hobbit calls her, because when she comes, he gets to take the bus with her out to the library for some story-telling, dancing, singing and bubble-blowing fun.  Meanwhile, I have a few hours to myself in which I can engage as an adult with the world.  The point is to feel free for a little while, to stimulate my mind and my imagination, to find a little inspiration.  So, I go to cafes and people watch and eavesdrop on conversations; I read newspapers or magazines I don’t usually have time for then sit back and process what I’ve just read; I wander in open space – on the beach, in a park, at the zoo – or read a novel, or head downtown to wade through the sea of working people.  I buy a hot dog and sit eating it in a sunny spot while watching bike messengers kill time between assignments, professional women walking fast in skirts and running shoes, homeless men and women organizing their possessions in shopping carts or asking passers-by for spare change.  I do any of these things and usually, by the end of my babysitting hours, I not only feel more aware of being alive, I also feel ready, excited even, to face the blank page.

Last Tuesday I started my Ana hours with a drive to the beach.  It was a spectacularly clear day – the sky was a pale blue, the Pacific was sparkling, the temperature was mild and autumnal – and I thought some sea air might clear my head.  A few blocks from the beach though, spotting a large garden center that I’d forgot existed, I changed my plan, pulled over, parked, and went in.  (Ah, the spontaneity of the Ana hours!)  I’d been thinking about getting some house plants and thought a little interaction with nature, tame as it would be in a garden center, might be refreshing.

Refreshing it was, and enlightening.  Especially when I got to the bonsai section.  It was a small section, befitting its subject, and when I spotted it, my heart fluttered with excitement.  Bonsais! I thought, and I walked over, thinking maybe there was something of destiny in my happening on the garden center that day: I have long loved the tiny beauty of bonsais, and have, on a few occasions, thought of investing in one.

Hoping to find a variety of bonsais to behold, I was a bit confused if not disappointed to find the section contained tools I’d never seen before, and gloves, and seed packets and books.  Where are the tiny trees? I wondered.  I want to see some tiny trees!  Figuring there might be some answer in one of the books, I picked up a guide to bonsai cultivation, and as I began to read, it dawned on me that the idea of walking into a garden center and buying a bonsai was pretty much at odds with the bonsai tradition.  Bonsai cultivation is an art, I read.  Bonsai cultivation is a centuries-old tradition based on Chinese ideas about the relationship between humans and nature.  It is a meditation, a spiritual practice, part of a long, steady journey toward enlightenment.  Honestly, it sounded wonderful and rewarding.  But pretty quickly, I lost all interest in taking on the practice myself, because as I read about the planting, pruning, fertilizing and repotting of bonsais, I realized that I already have a bonsai of my own: the Hobbit.  Every day, I’m cultivating a person.  From delivering him into the world, through all those long, long nights in the early days when he’d wake two or three times, I’ve been cultivating him.  And the ongoing cultivation – the feeding of him, dressing of him, bathing of him and putting him to bed; the playing with him, reading with him, and laughing with him; the establishment of an environment in which he can grow and become his best self, the introduction of other people into his life, the letting go and the being there with extra care during the harsh winters of his life – has rich rewards.  The Hobbit blossoms.  I blossom.

So, who knows.  Maybe there’s a bonsai or two in my future.  But for now, I’m more than satisfied with the challenge of being fully present in my life with the little guy.  Especially when I have those Ana hours to balance things out.