I open my inbox to a flood of emails about COVID-19. Helpful information spills out towards me and I am grateful for it: 50 things to do with kids, best movies to watch during quarantine, 20 arts and crafts projects, 10 meals to make with your hoard of groceries, best ways to stay connected, and emails from each of my children’s teachers with academic enrichment activities.

The hand that is not driving my phone rests on the flank of my dog curled next to me. He is watching the forest. His ears flick now and then as he hears a footfall, a bird wing. His nose twitches upwards as the breeze shifts. I put my phone down and watch him. He has perfected the art of “doing nothing”. We turn toward the buzz of a newly arrived rufous hummingbird sucking nectar from a native currant. We hear people distantly on the street. I notice for the first time that insects are flying. My dog, of course, has known this all day.

I sit there longer than intended. Eventually, I have no idea where my kids are or what they are doing. It’s okay. It’s not always okay! But, for now it is. Sitting there I find them. My son, by the noise of a shovel grating. He’s building a mountain bike trail in our forest. My daughter, a sudden movement inside the house and then for the first time in months, the notes of a piano.

This upended time in our lives provides space to fill. And there are so many ways to fill it! As Director of Vashon Nature Center, a community science organization, I am happy to share a short list of science projects that can enrich your time outside during these next weeks. These projects also allow you to contribute to larger efforts that help us understand and care for the natural world.

But…..

My biggest wish is for you to honor the lulls in your cycle of being. Allow for some inactivity of the brain. Let your kids be. Let life be. Sit back, observe, open your senses. Make your whole self into a quiet question and listen. For as long as you can stand it. And then just a tad longer.

Robert Sapolsky, a neuroscientist who specializes in stress once said, “We’ve evolved to be smart enough to make ourselves sick.”

Allowing our bodies, especially our brains, to rest is essential. Focusing on my senses in nature is one way I make the switch to my instinctual self and allow my mind a moment of peace. Even a few breaths in this state provides tremendous grounding.  It is natural and healing to give yourself, your children, and your friends permission to drop into that blank space, to drop into stillness, to literally come back to our senses. If you watch any wild animal long enough you will see that gaze of being. Every living thing has it. Even the busiest bird and bee! Teach your children it’s good for them too.

Perhaps you will come out of your moment of quiet and one of the ideas below will pull at you. It will feel good to your heart. Or perhaps, out of that emptiness something else will emerge that’s all your own. Be your own tracker as you listen and observe. Take your time until you feel that compelling feeling that the time is right to move again. Then follow the line before you.

Community science projects to participate in through Vashon Nature Center:

• We are working with partners throughout the Salish Sea to create a database of existing biodiversity. Snap photos of plants and animals on your walks or in your yard and upload onto iNaturalist. It will automatically be picked up by our Vashon Biodiversity Project. So far Vashon ranks fourth in the amount of records! Let’s see if we can tip the scales and be the biggest contributors to this database in the next few weeks!
• Explore Heron Meadow behind Vashon Center for the Arts. We have a few interpretive signs on the barn to read. Feel free to walk the meadow and plantings. Use iNaturalist to record all the life you see. Or peruse on your computer what we’ve found so far.
• In the coming weeks we will be putting up photo stations at Heron meadow. These are long-term monitoring stations designed to track changes in the wetland through time. Help us document by taking photos at these stations or anywhere in the meadow. Upload onto Instagram: #heronmeadow, #vashonnaturecenter or email them to us: info@vashonnaturecenter.org
• Join the Heron meadow email list (email: paulinabarry13@gmail.com to join)  if you want to participate in drop in restoration. We will be putting together a task list and inviting anyone to complete the tasks at any time. Coming soon.
• Join Cornell’s Nestwatch program. Find bird nests at your house. How will you find them? Ask your kids. Map the nests and follow them throughout the season to document nest success. Warning: this can be a life-changing experience that will bond you to your bird neighbors forever.
• Have bumblebees started to fly? Join Xerces bumblebee watch to document these gentle giants. We don’t have a good understanding of the array of bumblebee species we’ve got on the island and how they may be changing.
• Make an animal costume! Vashon Nature Center and our partners at Vashon Center for the Arts, Vashon Heritage Museum, and Vashon-Maury Island Audubon are planning a Procession of the Species parade! It could happen on May 17^th. But, if not, we will add it to the Strawberry Festival parade in July. Join us! What will you be?
• Play virtual hide and seek with us. Take a photo of yourself on a walk and post it to our Facebook group with the line: where am I?
• Create an outdoor planter or bouquet for pollinators and put it outside the window of an elder friend!
• Lie on the ground and look at the clouds.
• Read this info on safety outside during coronavirus

 “Doing nothing is very hard to do….you never know when you’re finished!” –Leslie Nielsen

Featured photo: female rufous hummingbird by Jim Diers