“It’s springtime! Trees are stretching and yawning. Buds are peeking. Birds are gathering materials and building
nests. Seeds are seeking sunshine and
sprouting. Awaken a new sense of wonder
for your children by discovering the offerings of spring.” – Jennifer Ward, i love dirt
The vernal equinox is not normally a cause for much
celebration in our nature-challenged household.
In the blur of duties and demands of work and raising children, the
transition from winter to spring has meant little more than lower heating bills,
longer laps in the swimming pool, and a time change that takes about six months
to get used to. But now that we are on a
seemingly permanent war-footing with the indoor world, our perspective is
starting to change a little, and we now know, for example, what the vernal
equinox actually is.
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| Celebrating the vernal equinox. |
This one, thanks to the long run of cold and cloudy weather all
winter, couldn’t come soon enough, and on March 20th we drove out to
Goochland to celebrate its arrival.
There we sacralized the first day of spring a with a hastily organized
(and probably illegal) campfire cookout, sacrificing hot dogs,
marshmallows and our digestive tracts over an open fire. “Dad, this is the best dinner I’ve ever had,”
one of our children said soberly – in case you were wondering who regularly
does the cooking here at GORP headquarters.
But apparently Mother Nature did not accept our offering. If anything, the weather that’s followed has
been worse. By the weekend our
collective mood was deteriorating in lockstep with the forecast, a condition
only worsened by VCU’s lopsided loss in the NCAA basketball tournament. (Losing by 25 points to Michigan was
depressing enough; must we also have Michigan’s weather?) Tricycle Gardens, our
post-basketball destination, was highly inspiring on a theoretical level, but
to a horticulturally-illiterate family like this one it provided the psychic
lift of a poetry reading.
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| Into the urban jungle on the North Bank Trail. |
Enthusiasm for Sunday’s outing along the James River was not
high, and after changing the start time to avoid the coming storm of slush and
snow we did not expect any help raising our spirits. So it was a pleasant surprise to find three
other families ready to set out with us from Oregon Hill. The children immediately fell into an
extended game of tag, or chase, or something that involved a great deal of
continuous running. The precipitation
held off. Our mood quickly lifted.
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| High water at Texas Beach. |
A walk in the woods is the most reliable cure for any
low-grade depression, and on this gray and dreary Sunday morning the North Bank
Trail did the trick. It was nice to have
the place mostly to ourselves, an urban wilderness with the emphasis on the
natural, not the urban, wild. That going
for a walk in the woods requires such heroic feats of parental engineering is a
source of great consternation in our household.
The fantasy of stepping out our back door into a backcountry world of woods
and walking trails – while still having a coffee shop or a restaurant, not to
mention a few friends, out our front – has a tight grip on our imagination. We struggle to reconcile ourselves to the
facts on the ground: the poorly integrated urban parks, the want of greenways,
the unsightly sprawl and scarcity of public land further afield, that out our
back door there exists just a small alley.
And then we wonder, if we had such a space, whether our kids would even
use it. Whether the pathological
busyness of modern life – the screens, the schedules, the suffocating
supervision and structure – has rendered that space unavailable.
Well, it has been a long winter. These are the idle speculations of a mind in
the grip of cabin fever. Obviously we
need some warmth and sunshine. Our next GORP
outing is April 6, a week from Saturday, when we will continue our exploration
of the north bank of the James River – come rain or come snow or come shine. Hope you can join us.
“We
belong out there. There’s a rich,
multifarious, lush green world outside that we are part of. And it’s healthy. Good for the body, and yes, good for the
soul. ‘Outside lies magic,’ says John
Stilgoe. Outside lies a world of
marvels, a thousand dormant associations to be tucked away and recalled later
in life. Outside lie stories to unfold,
miracles to witness, hardships to overcome, fears to stare down, people and
animals to meet – life in its full range of experience. We can sense much of this inside too, but it
is recalled more deeply, felt more intensely, when we get out.” – Rick Van Noy, A Natural Sense of Wonder
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| GORP at Texas Beach. |
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| At Tricycle Gardens, proof of spring. |
G.O.R.P.
Last night, speaking to an audience at the University of
Richmond, Richard Louv opened with the following reflection:
Of course what I would so often like to be free from is my
own children. A weekend where they are all
outside, messing about on their own from morning until night, while I come into
the peace of a long nap, that’s the lost terrain I most long to recover. Possibly this would be inappropriate for our
2-year-old – we might still have to supervise him or at least make sure the
gates to the playground across the street are well secured – but that we have
failed utterly to provide such a world for our older children, or failed to
force them to create it for themselves, is a source of much handwringing in
this household. 
Monday’s massacre in Boston, on top of the earlier horror in
Newtown, will only lead to even more careful monitoring of our children. Although the bogeyman here at GORP
headquarters is a not a terrorist or deranged 20-year-old but a two-ton Toyota
with a texting driver, the end result is much the same. We keep them close, on a short leash.
Should it be otherwise?
Our April 7th outing to Texas Beach included an encounter with railroad
tracks that challenged my obviously limited capacity to adequately assess risk. GORP has not had a truly stupid-daddy moment
to date – and this one, my own children’s subsequent visions of a
fast-approaching train bearing down on them notwithstanding, passed without
incident – but it’s only a matter of time.
Much of what I think should be perfectly permissible would merit a visit
from child protective services, and if I’ve learned anything in nearly ten
years of parenting it is that much of what I think is flat-out wrong. It’s not all wrong, but how to distinguish
between what is wrong and what is right?
To fault our national obsession with childhood safety and
risk minimization for the diminishment of childhood over the past thirty years
would be a gross oversimplification of what is a highly complex cultural
phenomenon. Letting our kids loose to
play chicken with freight trains is not the answer to this problem – however
appealing that prospect seems to this parent most afternoons. Besides, “Even if
I do send them out,” Michael Chabon asks, “will there be anyone to play with?”
“What is the impact of the closing down of the Wilderness on the
development of children’s imaginations? This is what I worry about the most. I
grew up with a freedom, a liberty that now seems breathtaking and almost impossible.
Recently, my younger daughter, after the usual struggle and exhilaration,
learned to ride her bicycle. Her joy at her achievement was rapidly followed by
a creeping sense of puzzlement and disappointment as it became clear to both of
us that there was nowhere for her to ride it—nowhere that I was willing to let
her go. Should I send my children out to play? – Michael Chabon
“For eons, human beings spent most of their formative years
in nature. But within the space of a few
decades, the way children understand and experience nature has changed
radically. Healing the broken bond between our young and nature is in
everyone’s self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demand it, but
also because our mental, physical and spiritual health depend upon it.” – Richard Louv
Directions: From anywhere in the Fan, take Meadow St.
SOUTH, past the entrance to Maymont, until it ends at Kansas Ave. Turn left on Kansas Ave. and then, after a
couple blocks, right on Texas Ave., which runs into the parking lot. (Map here.)
Following the outing, those so inclined can join us for
post-GORP treats at Crossroads
Coffee & Ice Cream near VCU.
“It’s springtime! Trees are stretching and yawning. Buds are peeking. Birds are gathering materials and building
nests. Seeds are seeking sunshine and
sprouting. Awaken a new sense of wonder
for your children by discovering the offerings of spring.” – Jennifer Ward, i love dirt
Well, it has been a long winter. These are the idle speculations of a mind in
the grip of cabin fever. Obviously we
need some warmth and sunshine. Our next GORP
outing is April 6, a week from Saturday, when we will continue our exploration
of the north bank of the James River – come rain or come snow or come shine. Hope you can join us.
