Yesterday I was having a simply fabulous afternoon. My morning at "work" had been shot to... well anyway, let's just say it hadn't been the productive morning I had hoped for. So I gave up early and joined the kids at the kitchen/project room table to see what they were up to.
We've been reading this book -- a fairly substantial thing about homo neanderthalensis -- the second such book we've devoured in the past few months. It's been a wonderful journey and has provided tons of dropping off points for the subjects that interest us. Theoretically, its a project being undertaken by my son and I, but something in our conversation and reading always seems to spark the interest of the girls and eventually I find that are all three kids are huddled around the book or have gone in whatever direction the study has taken us.
Anyway, there are some days when you just can't seem to cover enough ground. The best books, I believe, lead you to more questions than answers. And the questions evolving yesterday were doozies.
So when my son said, "Mom, why is the world upside down?" I was ready to admit that such a huge question just couldn't be answered simply and easily. Where do you even begin with a question like that? It's huge. Right up there with, "What's the meaning of life?"
Why is the world upside down?
But before I had a chance to really get warmed up in this philosophical discussion he said, "No, really. Look at Africa. It's upside down."
So it turns out the answer was pretty simple. The dog had knocked the globe across the room this morning and I had put it back together... apparently a little bleary eyed. The world, indeed, was upside down.
2 comments:
Hah!
My world just feels that way...
Ah, but was it upside down? After all, where is "up" in outer space, our vantage point for viewing the globe?
In our house, we have a wall map that is printed "upside down" -- with Australia and South America at the top. I'm told these are more common in the Southern Hemisphere. I like it because it reminds me that there's always more than one way to look at things! (-:
--Shelley
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