The leaves of the live oaks in my yard don’t rattle as I reported yesterday. I was wrong. They don’t even seem to have much contact with each other, firmly molded into position on the branch. The dry boughs do creak though.

The primary sounds of the wind gusting through the trees this morning are ones I have no words for. Soft angry wordless voices of tortoises the size of houses? Sometimes we hear what we expect to hear rather than what meets the ear.

Speaking of the turtle family. Once upon a time, a red-eared slider was crossing the road. While their shells have proved to be an evolutionary success in the sense that turtles and tortoises go way way back without being taken out by predators, those shells are no match for the automobile. I pulled over, carried it to the car--happy it wasn’t a snapper--and took it to preschool where I was headed to pick up the boys.

The teacher was delighted, and within moments, the kids were all outside, with paper and crayons. They formed a circle around the turtle, with instructions to look at it and draw a picture of it. Tomorrow, they would write about what they saw.

The kids were excited and talkative and they seemed happy with the big beautiful live model, the diversion, the task. I watched with pleasure as each child lay in the dust and grass to draw, each reaching for crayons out of the bowl. Each trying to draw what he or she saw.

Except that every drawing was green. The cartoon greens the kids were familiar with from their story books, funny papers, and TV cartoons.

This turtle was a definite brown.

They weren’t being artistically expressive with the color choice (eg ‘Purple Turtle--it spoke to me!’) Perhaps even at so young an age, their brains were programmed to go with an assumption rather than data. Turtle=green.

It is so very hard to hear. Even as the sound is vibrating our ear drums. It is so very hard to see. Even what is right in front of us. So essential to pay attention.

What else am I not hearing? What else am I not seeing? What else am I assuming?