I'm hiding. I've tucked myself in behind a macassar oil tree and a hare's foot fern. I don't want to sit out in the open to write. I want to peak out on the world, content to observe and write unseen.

It is odd watching mommies pushing empty strollers while toddlers clomp behind, refusing to be harnessed. I am usually in this position, children in tow, attempting to wrangle one out of a fountain while pacifying another. Today, I sit attempting a wrangling of a different sort.

I'm tempted to get up and move, to go to my familiar haunts, to watch the mommies and their children. It is familiar. I can predict what I would see, what I would write. Familiar reflections on my role as a mom, how odd it is to have this time to myself. But I don't want to do that. I'm trying to push myself this morning, to be the unseen seer. I'm attempting to wrangle my own tendencies, keep them in check, so that I might see the unseen.

But this is too much like yoga. I to want to want to do yoga. To calm my breathing, my thoughts. But the minute I still my body and breathing to observe the world I'm in, my mind goes racing to the checklist of chores and duties lined up in my head. So much so that I miss what is right in front of me.

The leaves of the hair oil tree are touching my knee. Their edged a crusty brown, and the leaf closest to me has a hold eaten straight through its middle. In such a controlled environment, a summer englassed in the midst of winter, where did the bug come from?