Watching a chick hatch is more zen than tweezing your eyebrows

Sabrina and I stood in front of a glass case, awed, watching a chick peck it's way out of a shell. We were in Chicago for a girls' weekend, and spent an afternoon at the Museum of Science and Industry. We'd been to the Earth Explorers exhibit (about the pros who explore exo-zones like oceans, polar regions and rain forests), we'd seen the Flight of the Butterflies in the Omnimax Theater. Sabrina had stood inside the vortex of a 40-foot tornado, heard how her voice might sound when she was 80 and marveled at a gigantic model train.

But we couldn't take our eyes off the eggshells in the Baby Chick Hatchery. There were about eight in the case, several already split open with damp-fuzzed chicks wandering around, dazed. A few had flopped down for naps, completely exhausted. Another little bird was making his way out. He was doing it on his own sweet time—a few pecks, then nothing for a few minutes, then a little more. 

I couldn't remember the last time I had focused on something like this. I mean, yeah, I focus on writing when I blog and the editing I do at work. I focus when I read. I focus when I do crafts or bake with the kids. And, oh joy, I focus on my eyebrows when I tweeze them. (Trust me, the fact that I find plucking so zen scares me.) Mostly, my mind's on a million things. I'm forever thinking about what I have to do next. 

I only took a few photos of the chick, no video, no Facebook sharing. I wasn't in a rush to get anywhere. Sabrina and I just stood there and watched in fascination for a good 15 minutes. We were both immersed in that chick's emergence into the world, and it was wondrous.