CURIOUS

My life, this fall, has been blessed by the presence of curious people. There’s Derek, a City University student who works at Walk In Counselling, the place where I volunteer on Thursday afternoons. “There is a time in counselling when you make a shift and the whole picture changes,” he says. “How do I know when that time comes—the time to stop exploring the situation and change gears? What are the signs I would see? What should I do when I see them?” There’s our almost-ten-months-old Ben, who suddenly, irreversibly, has discovered the secret of propelling forward on hands and knees. “What is it,” he babbles in words that could be mistaken for ba-ba-ba, nose inches from the floor, “that you keep behind the toilet anyway? Why don’t more of the people in this family spend time hunting the fascinating dust bunnies that hide in the deepest corners of closets?” There are all the friends who recently have asked, “Who would you like to see win the municipal election?” There’s Jung-Suk, the recently hired Director of Communications at the CNIB where I currently counsel. “What can you see,” he asked, the moment I crossed his threshold. My favourite thing about curious people is that their curiosity makes me wonder. Because of them I have tried harder to understand the municipal election. I have given serious consideration to that magic moment in counselling when you see what might be possible and then reach out to reveal it. I have renewed my own curiosity about the corners of my closet. And I have begun to speculate about what I might have written about Jung-Suk if, when I first entered his office, I had actually “seen” him.