When my son was about a year old, I once covered his ears while a firetruck was driving by us with it’s sirens blaring.

Since shortly after this he has taken to covering his own ears whenever he hears a siren.

Most often, at first I wonder why he is doing it.

“There are no sirens right now…?”

But when I finish speaking the thought that things aren’t right, in the silence of my confusion a very distant and faint siren can be heard. Blocks away, maybe even the next town over.

Without a barrage of thoughts firing inside my head I am so much more available to experience the depth of what is actually happening around me, right now.

And so these moments when my boy raises his hands to cover his ears for the siren, I am taking as an alert to the profundity of his presence and a call for my own.