The weather was gorgeous here a few Fridays ago, and my son and a group of this buddies decided to gather at a park at the end of the school day. His Apple watch battery was running low, and I hadn’t gotten outside for my walk yet, so I decided to venture down on foot to see how he was faring. As is often the case here in Chicago, the uncharacteristically mild temperatures drew out the masses. By the time I made it down to the park near the middle school building, I had passed a couple out for their first walk with their newborn and so many other women who were out with babies strapped in strollers. As I walked passed the playground of the primary building of our school, I saw the afterschool coordinators, clipboards perched at their hips, as they anxiously scanned the field to keep track of their students as they mixed in with the dozens of other children who had stayed on the school grounds to play in the warmth.

The park where my son was playing with his friends is the very first place we discovered when we began exploring the South Loop. The park is an oval shape, with a circular sidewalk. Off to the side of the circle at the far end of the park are two playgrounds on either side, and a large sand pit. My kids always wanted to play in that sand pit when they were little. How many times did I guide my two home from this park and straight to our bathtub to wash the sand stuck to their legs when they were little? And, of course, the center of the park, the part inside the oval, is all grass. The South Loop seems like such a concrete jungle in so many ways, but no other neighborhood in the city has such gloriously open park space.

A full array met my eyes as I entered the park, which was teaming with kids. They were on the swings, on the playground equipment, in the sand pit (of course). Adults sat on benches while kids rode around the circular path on their scooters. A couple moms sat and bounced their toddlers up and down. The toddlers were all over-dressed in their snowgear, and I remembered what it was like on those days when we’d been cooped up for so many weeks. It seemed almost negligent to dress them in anything lighter on a February day, the calendar serving as more of a guide than the actual temperature.

And what did I see, there in the center? There was my son, and his friends. And it struck me, as I continued to walk the perimeter of the sidewalk, how my son and his posse were the ‘big kids.’ They were throwing and catching a football, their movements fast and powerful in comparison to the little kids on their bicycles with training wheels. I watched them as I walked. It was Friday and the sun was shining, and I know I was feeling pretty buoyant given that this particular Friday was the last day of my jury duty week. There were so many pieces which put together made me smile. I watched my son and his friends that I’ve watched grow up over the years and I thought to myself, how are we here already? How are we suddenly the oldest group of kids at the park?

And I write this on my son’s 13th birthday, three weeks and a day after that sweet Friday. These moments don’t carry themselves like an opaque veil across our consciousness. Life is life, and my kids still drive me crazy at times and I can’t find where I put the cats’ nail clippers and I’m still nervous about my coaching training and my jury duty check from the Department of Treasury won’t go through my bank’s online check deposit so now I need to head to an ATM to make the $58 deposit, which is such a PIA. It’s no longer nice out, but back to being cold and blustery, with snow flurries and high winds. I feel enraged by what small blips of the news I allow myself to consume each day.

But that rush of warmth that I felt, when I entered the park a few Fridays ago and saw the strollers and the scooters, and my son throwing a football with a perfect spiral? I am learning to take a snapshot of these feelings, advice that I keep coming across through the Tapping Solution summit sessions (an interview with Dr. Bob Schwartz) and a new book out by Dr. Elisha Goldstein called Tiny Shifts. It’s called emotional tagging, and it is a way that we absorb and emphasize the positives when they sweep into us. We hold them close. We savor.

I walked a few laps around the park that day. My son saw me and said he’d be ready to head home in a little bit. I left the sidewalk to take a larger loop through Dearborn Park before returning, and by then he was ready. He grabbed his backpack and said goodbye to his pals, and together, we ventured home.

Emotional Tagging

Pigeons