Walks With Sennett

My six-year-old daughter Sennett informs me that she’s a big kid now; that she doesn’t need my help. “Oh mom, I got this,” she says with a toss of her blonde hair and just enough attitude to foreshadow what fifteen will look like.

I want to slow down time, savor this last summer before she starts elementary school and I’m no longer the center of her world. So we take walks through our neighborhood.

We look closely at what for me has become mundane: a neighbor’s bush, a crack in the sidewalk, a spiderweb. Sennett shows me the magical creatures in shadows. She asks me to read words she sees. I take my photographs. And sometimes Sennett even holds my hand.