Away from Nature

On the first day of the spring, a season that brings new life and joy all around you, a couple Bruce and Rose, welcomed their first baby girl and not far away a Barn owl welcomed its owlet into the world. Nature has its own way of blending the music together with the sound of the baby cries and cooing of an owlet.

With newfound joy, Bruce and Rose, settled into their house in the suburbs of Seattle surrounded by beautiful cherry blossoms, and a big tree in the backyard where the barn owl formed its nest. Bruce and Rose named their baby girl "Emma".

The parents started getting busy with lessons of parenting with no clue on how the first night outside of the hospital with the newborn will be like. Bruce and Rose, did everything they could to set up the nursery with a baby monitor and a white noise machine for Emma to sleep better.

After supervising the efforts of baby-proofing the house, Bruce remarked "We live in a different world than our parents did, we as kids used to spend much more time outdoors, counting the stars, exploring the woods, and listening to different sounds nature has to offer".

Agreeing with what Bruce just said, Rose replied back "Did you observe Bruce, woods around our house is filled with enough soothing natural sounds that can replace the white noise machine we bought for Emma. Hope Emma likes what we did with her nursery".

Bruce answered back, "All I need now is a good night's sleep.!".

As the night passed, Bruce and Rose, got anxious to check on the baby and to their surprise, they found Emma looking towards the window following the directions of the cooing of an owlet that was born on the same day.

Bruce remarked with a smile, "Owls are curious creatures, when the whole world sleeps, they stay awake, hope Emma doesn't stay awake in the night and sleep in the morning". Owlet as well was gazing towards the window, curious to find out more about the new companion.

Emma replied back saying "All babies are different, some like the sound of white noise, for some the sound of rain, but our baby girl, she found a connection with the owlet".

As the days passed the baby girl spent more time staying awake in the night, listening to the cooing of the owlet and the parents spent more time planning for the future. Every walk into the woods in a stroller, Emma showed more happiness and excitement towards nature.

One evening after returning from Work, Bruce started having a conversation with Rose about the future, "Rose I think we should move to Seattle downtown, the schools here are decent but heard downtown has great schools, professionally it will be a lateral move for me."

Rose unable to control her excitement, "Honey, I love it. We should move for a better future for Emma".

Few weeks passed by, Bruce and Rose, decided to move from the suburbs to the busy downtown of Seattle in search of better schools, a change of scenery from nature to skyscrapers, sounds from woods to noise from the traffic. Rose noticed that Emma is fond of Owl, so she started decorating the nursery in the new apartment with a theme of birds, especially with Owls and Cherry blossom trees, Rose also bought the baby girl a stuffed toy of Owl.

The first night in the apartment, Bruce and Rose, were finally able to put Emma to sleep after she spent most of the time crying. The parents struggled to adjust to the new way of life, finding Emma more unhappy as the days passed by. A stroll into the woods is replaced with a walk on the sideways of the busy streets of Seattle downtown.

Bruce and Rose, started to realize that they replaced the scent of nature and the cooing of an owl, with a plastic decal of birds on the wall and a stuffed fabric made into an Owl. The steps they together laid out for the future and the future they wanted, now resembled more of what was in the past.

Bruce with sadness starts conversing with Rose that "Often in search of something we just don't realize what a beautiful life we had in our old house, Emma was so happy there.!".

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

-Albert Einstein

The End.