This article reflects on the capacity for wonder and awe, contrasting a child's excitement over a purple umbrella with an adult's more jaded perspective. It explores how we lose the ability to appreciate the beauty in everyday objects and experiences, using examples like snowflakes, umbrellas, and pencils to illustrate this point.
A child catches snowflakes with their tongue during El Museo del Barrio's 47th annual Three Kings Day parade, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in New York. I still cannot get over a typical snowflake, something that is so fragile and unique, writes Christopher de Vinck.
One snowflake! That amazes me.As part of my weekly routine at 3 p.m., I pick up my 4-year-old granddaughter, Indigo, at her preschool. Last week it was raining, so before I left the house, I grabbed a random umbrella from the closet. It was purple. When I arrived at the school, the teacher was waiting at the closed door that had a large window, and when she saw me, she opened the door, called Indigo, and my granddaughter popped out of the building with a huge smile, a huge hug, and then she looked up at the purple umbrella and said with full vigor and spontaneity, “It’s beautiful!” I just wasn’t expecting that Indigo would be excited about an ordinary umbrella she had never seen before, and that she would express awe with such passion. But then I was reminded that children see things with new eyes, and adults have ho-hum eyes.I wonder how I would react if I had never seen an umbrella before and watched how that wonderful contraption opened up like the wings of an angel. People have used all types of umbrellas for more than 4,000 years. No wonder we take them for granted. When I watchedin the summer of 1964, I was startled with delight when I watched Julie Andrews floating over London, holding her carpetbag in one hand and holding her open, magical umbrella in the other. The children in the film were elated.Are we adults as easily entranced when we see something amazing or beautiful these days? Are we too cynical? Do we take most things for granted? A pencil is a pencil, but can you imagine using a pencil for the first time on white paper? How amazing that a line appears from the tip of that magical wand! It seems we adults need something spectacular to jolt our awe. During the Christmas season, we now erect 20-foot-high inflatable reindeer for people to notice. We are no longer happy with just an elephant and a few clowns at the circus. Instead, we need to be stunned with awe at Cirque du Soleil as we watch the extraordinary acrobatics.Niagara Falls is impressive. Palo Duro Canyon, located in the Texas Panhandle, is beautiful. We take notice. Big Tex, the giant 55-foot figure, welcomes people each fall at the State Fair of Texas to the delight of everyone. But what about ordinary things that surround us? A child seeing a frog for the first time! Can you imagine seeing a frog for the first time? Or even learning the word “frog.” That word ought to make us laugh each time we say it: “frrrr-ooooo----g!” Can you imagine what it must be like for someone who never had running water or carpets and feels, for the first time, cold drinking water running onto his hands, or feels a wool rug under his bare feet? How is it that we so easily lose our awe? I suppose the more we watch a horse running, the easier it is to shrug. It’s just a horse. But if you have never seen a horse at full speed, it is easy to think that early civilizations called the horse a god, or a mythical creature with powers to fly.My mother was a poet and saw with childlike vision. I remember how she sat with me and asked me to trace with my finger the beauty of the ribs in a fern that we found in the backyard. She and I collected pine cones as if they were Paul Bunyan’s treasure. She spoke about yellow cats and ruffled peonies, moonlight and petrified roses in winter. She called the moon a milky pond and teased that sparks flew from the coats of tigers and wolves. When I shared photographs of my children, my mother looked at each picture, caressed them and laughed with delight as if she had never seen pictures of her grandchildren. We do miss the chance for initial awe. Critics ridiculed artist Claude Monet’s famous “Water Lilies” series because they thought his new paintings were vague, unfinished sketches that ignored traditional details. Many critics didn’t like the work of this new composer called Johann Sebastian Bach.a commercial airline flies overhead when I am in the yard, I look up, amazed. Amazed! I just can’t get over something that heavy and that beautiful flying.I still cannot get over a typical snowflake, something that is so fragile and unique, travels down two miles from the sky and can move horizontally from 1 to 4 miles per hour and take about an hour to reach the ground. One snowflake! That amazes me.Tuesday, March 7, 1944, Anne Frank wrote in her diary, “Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”Christopher de Vinck Christopher de Vinck's 16th book is Mr. Nicholas, a Christmas novel published by Paraclete Press. He is a Dallas Morning News contributing columnist.
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