When your mom was a toddler and went on walks with your grannie, your mom had to stop and say, "Hi," to all the flowers. Every one. You, when you go on walks with your mom and dad, stop and pick up all the rocks. Your mom is a gardener and botanist. It is possible you are a landscaper and geologist.
Not that you do not like flowers. You do. You sniff them, sniff deeply and say, "Mmmm." But you always want to put the flower back where you got it and try to see if you can reconnect it to its stem or to the tuft of grass and dirt you pulled it up from. But flowers do not go back to how they were.
Rocks you can pick up and put back all day. A rock that you pick up with your right hand can go down on your left side. Pick up a rock with your left hand and you can drop it on your right. They clatter back to the ground, welcomed back with gravelly open arms by the rest of the rocky crowd.
You do not mind sticking your fingers in a pot of soil or patting down a cracked patch of dirt in your backyard. But you would much rather examine the gradual slant of an offset square of sidewalk under your feet. You run up and down the gentle grade leading up to the garage. You linger with care on steps and even in doorways without steps, feeling cautiously for a step that might be there anyway.
You and your mom both love nature. Perhaps your curiosity about nature extends deeper than soil depth. For you, the mantle may not be enough.
