But I find that it’s more of a challenge being a parent. My
children, like so many, love the iPad and could spend hours a day on it if we
let them. We’re probably not as permissive with the technology as many parents,
but there’s an adequate amount of guilt associated with it (relief as well),
and it’s something that requires limits, boundaries, and often impatience and tears.
Last Child
galvanized me into action. While in the middle of the book, I had a wild hair
one weekend to take Oliver up to Skyline and go on a hike in the woods. I
imagined sunlight streaming through the Redwoods, dodging banana slugs
underfoot, tromping up trails to mountainous outlooks, vistas of the Pacific
Ocean…a real bonding moment for me and my son in nature. But the reality was
that it was a gloomy, foggy, cold day. I tempered my expectations, but kept my
hopes up. We saw a banana slug before we got to the trailhead, which was pretty
exciting. But that was the highlight of the trip.
We started down a path, and Oliver immediately became
tenuous. When I cautioned him about Poison Oak, pointing out the red tips on
the leaves, it only caused him to shrink away from anything green, fearing everything
was Poison Oak. He asked to go home. ‘Food might help,’ I thought, but there
was no stump or log, no grassy spot to sit. So we stood there and ate energy
bars together. I looked down the path we were walking on. It was shrouded in
fog, chilly, overcast. There was an ominous bend in the path up ahead, in the
direction we were going. I wondered whether Ringwraiths would come galloping
around the bend anytime soon, and if I could protect Oliver when they did. Oli
had a fair dose of nature-fear for the day. So we bailed and went home.
Later that week, as I was driving to work, Louv’s words
struck a chord, “A trip to REI to get just the right camping equipment for a
two-week vacation in Yosemite is not a prerequisite or, for that matter, any
substitute for more languid natural pastimes that can be had in the backyard.
The dugout in the weeds or leaves beneath a backyard willow, the rivulet of a
seasonal creek, even the ditch between a front yard and the road – all of these
places are entire universes to a young child. Expeditions to the mountains or
national parks often pale, in a child’s eyes, in comparison with the mysteries
of the ravine at the end of the cul de sac.” How true. We didn’t need big hikes
up on Skyline. We had our own neighborhood. And lucky us – we have a creek
behind our house!
We quickly learned our first bit of creekwalk wisdom – watch
out for broken glass and poop. Words to the wise. We scrambled over stones and
old metal sidings. We found balls, cans, bottles, even an abandoned swivel
chair. We reached a point we thought we could not pass – a point where a spider
lurked in the middle of a giant web, with clumps of dog poop clustered on the ground
just beyond the web. We managed to squeeze by the web and avoid the poop, but
that was about enough adventure for Oli for the day. We turned around and
headed home.
Before our second creekwalk, a few days before Halloween,
Oliver suggested we wear gloves. Brilliant. I suggested we wear better hiking
shoes. So this time, he put on his topsiders. ‘Better than flip-flops,’ I
thought. Down in the creekbed, we spied a family of ants devouring a peach pit.
The giant spider web was gone, but the dog poop was still there. We ventured
beyond where we’d turned around the first time. We were both repulsed by and in
awe of what looked to be a mummified squirrel carcass missing its head. Oliver
found a pinecone Christmas decoration with an eyebolt and a length of wire. We
noticed that many of our neighbors’ back yards are much more accessible
creekside than ours. Some don’t even have fences. At the endpoint of our hike,
Oliver climbed under a neighbor’s stairway and glanced down into what we called
the jungle. It was too thick, so we
turned around.
At one of the more inviting creeksides on our way back, we
stopped to chat with a neighbor who was out tending her yard. Her name was
Beppy and she had just moved in three months ago. She was very friendly and asked
Oliver about his Halloween costume and how kindergarten was going. Oli was
polite but not overly talkative. She invited us to stop by and trick-or-treat,
“The green house with the red door!”
Just then Oliver let out a bloodcurling scream. He’d slipped
and fallen and had scraped his leg on some broken concrete slabs (no, he was
not wearing the topsiders – I’d insisted he change into more suitable hiking
shoes). It was a hard fall, and I did my best to maintain my balance squatting
in that uneven creekbed, comforting him as he wailed in my arms. At that
moment, I feared he wouldn’t want to go exploring anymore, that his nature-fear
would return for good and that our creekwalks had reached an end. But that
wasn’t the case. Kids are resilient. I let him cry, then we said our byes to
Beppy and Oli managed to walk the length back to our home.
His enthusiasm for creekwalks not diminished, Oliver jumped
at the idea to go back down into the creek a few weekends later. This time we
brought our flashlights, and instead of venturing west, we turned east– through
what was once a prohibitive ivy snarl, all the way to the edge of Elm Street. Sometimes
we look into the creek from Elm Street. Now we were in the creek, looking out,
a pretty cool perspective switch. A tunnel in the creekbed runs underneath the
street, but it’s a pretty long way to go, with very little headroom, suitable
only for crawling. Franco had followed us, and walked on ahead down the tunnel,
where he laid down and wiggled around in the dirt. We could do it, if we didn’t
mind crawling on our bellies and getting really dirty. But we’d also need a
fair amount of courage and our flashlight batteries weren’t that strong. So we
turned back and headed west, down our familiar path.
We made a point of venturing past the rocks he’d slipped on
previously. I pointed them out and we recalled the incident. We couldn’t find
the mummified squirrel, but kept walking until we came to the jungle. Again, it
looked impenetrable, but we decided that it’d be a pretty cool thing to try to
always go a bit further than we did on our previous creekwalk. So instead of
venturing through the jungle, we scaled the side and clambered through some ivy
along a dirt path that took the high ground around the perimeter of the jungle.
At the end of the road, we dropped back into the creekbed, the jungle behind
us, and ventured forth.
We came to a point in which a house was built about halfway
over the creek, held up by 2x4s and rusty old metal siding. It was safe, so we
ventured underneath, and I was reminded of my own childhood adventures under
our cabin in Breckenridge. We heard children playing, and Oliver resisted the
urge to clamber up the ravine and make contact with them. We didn’t go very far
past the house, but we didn’t have to. We’d already explored new ground.
Though we both know that the creek extends to Cedar Street,
far to the west, we don’t have a goal of getting there. And that’s the trick I
need to remember – don’t have an agenda. Let Oliver’s curiosity guide us. Point
out the details. Just explore nature.