Each day I make a list. Many people do as much. It is a way of clarifying the goals for that finite and elusive gift of twenty four hours, so that at the end of it I feel complete. Crossing off each item is often my only review, given that my routine has no report card, press release, or stock index. 

Leonardo da Vinci made a list each day too, except that his was of things he hoped to learn. How refreshing, both to anticipate and aspire to new thought. I suppose such an effort would have been an easy win back in college. All I would have had to do was document my assignments. But da Vinci was after something else entirely, more akin to the curiosity of every three year old I have ever met. 

"Why did the hummingbird fly away? Was he scared of me? Where does he live? Can I go there? Does he have babies? Will he land on my finger?"

Little kids can unleash more questions in five minutes than I percolate in a week. 

The downfall of not spending time with the preschool crowd is that my inquisitiveness has slipped to neutral. This is not, I can assure you, because I have figured everything out. All I have to do is walk in the woods to be surrounded by enigmas.

One of the questions on da Vinci's lists was how long a woodpecker's tongue is. It turns out that they are three times the length of their beaks, to enable them to curl around the woodpecker's brain as padding during the skull cracking effort that is ten times the force needed to kill a human. 

Today a friend informed me that penguins have knees. I did not know that, hence my impersonations of them have always involved straight legs. He even showed me an x-ray to prove it. 

Curiosity can breathe life into a relationship, too. Rather than leaning on assumptions, we can wonder. 

"Why does he leave the cupboards open?"

"How does he feel when I complain?"

"What are her regrets about the last year?"

It is possible, likely even, that an inquiring spirit could lead to being as joyful as a three year old who just found a caterpillar, or as inventive as the man who created a means for landing softly when a thud was expected.

That could definitely come in handy.