Yesterday evening, after a long day of work in the yard, some difficult overseas phone-calls and other things that make a Sunday seem long, I decided to go for a walk in our neighborhood. It's something I used to do a lot in our old neighborhood where there are many side-walks and trails that connect with each other. While our current neighborhood features beautiful and individualized single family homes, it is almost completely devoid of sidewalks and other amenities that help pedestrians and bikers alike. So I walked down some streets at first, but then--getting more courageous and defiant--I walked across the newly developed campus of a nearby children's home, then through a recently razed neighborhood. I was getting excited. Simply walking already had let me see houses and yards I would otherwise have ignored and overlooked, but walking through this old razed part of my home-town almost made me feel that I'm no longer in my own town. Some of the foundations of old buildings were still left, but all the trees had been taken out. Many already had been shredded and along the eerie shapes of roads there were piles and piles of woodshavings. Further down I found something that looked just like a tree grave-yard. Huge tree-trunks lying next to each other, waiting for the shredder.
I kept walking, came back to the road I know, then to another construction area. Here, too, former buildings had been razed and what is left is a huge open space, a sudden clearing in an otherwise urban and quite dense context. I saw small houses along streets I drive down at least once every day, but had never seen before. I took short-cuts through people's yards and, finally, back onto the children's home campus, across another wide open area that soon will be developed and gone. I finished my walk by taking a short cut to our house across the local country-club, seeing--for the first time--the back-sides of all the houses I drive by in the morning. Huge glass porches, patios, etc. all looking out onto the country club.
Why am I telling you all this? Well, mostly because of two things. First, this walk brought out the boy in me. I always knew he was there, every time I had passed those construction areas and old neighborhoods I had thought about what it would be like to walk into them. Everytime I drove across the bridge that crosses the salt-fork I had yearned to stop and crawl under the bridge to explore. You get the drift of this . . . this walk felt like an adventure, an exploration of sorts.
Secondly, this walk cemented the thought that I would take my older sons--Noah and Jacob--on this walk. Would they come, I wondered. They're not spoiled, but sometimes, when I suggest a walk, especially when it's in cold weather, they balked at the idea. Not so this time. Both were gung-ho. Likely also because it would be after dark, a time we usually spend at home getting ready for bed, the next day, etc.
So, today, just a day after my own first experience, we went. Oh, it was so much fun. The boy in me had had a the right sense. The things I found exciting yesterday were the things they saw today. The huge tree with five trunks, the front yard that was filled with junk, the old fifteen feet sun-flower, some very weird halloween decorations and of course the razed neighborhood. I had described it to them as similar to the "badlands" in the Lion King. As it turns out, that was the perfect description, stirring their sense of adventure and their curiosity. Of course, they climbed on the piles of mulch and debris and jumped onto the tree-trunks. And, although it was dark, they "found" lots of things.
We walked for over an hour in 30 degree weather. We had fun. There was agreement, quiet agreement nothing big. Just a sense that one just has to step out of one's own door to begin to see things. Everything just depends on how we look and how we move. Plenty of times we had driven by those places, perhaps we had all even seen them. Yet they had reminded profoundly empty and meaningless to us until we entered them. Entering these places, old houses, thick woods, steep hollows that lead down to a creek and entering them on foot changed how we saw these things and created a new connection between us. Doing this after dark, of course, only heightened the effect of the experience.
I am proud of my sons and of myself. Proud of them for simply saying "yes" to this small proposal. Proud of myself for connecting a part of my own very alive boy-ish-ness with theirs. I am proud, too, because I sense that this experience helped them feel earthbound and connected to their own neighborhood. As much as I would also like to take them overseas, explore the territories north of the polar circle, etc. this experience gave them something different. It connected their home, our house, with other places around it. But it was necessary to walk it. Had we just driven or even biked something about this connection would have been lost. My sons, I feel, learned something about marking their territory by walking its perimeter. They made it real for themselves by entering it.
I consider this a profound and existentially necessary "vehicular tunnel experiences" in which our feet never reach the ground.
I kept walking, came back to the road I know, then to another construction area. Here, too, former buildings had been razed and what is left is a huge open space, a sudden clearing in an otherwise urban and quite dense context. I saw small houses along streets I drive down at least once every day, but had never seen before. I took short-cuts through people's yards and, finally, back onto the children's home campus, across another wide open area that soon will be developed and gone. I finished my walk by taking a short cut to our house across the local country-club, seeing--for the first time--the back-sides of all the houses I drive by in the morning. Huge glass porches, patios, etc. all looking out onto the country club.
Why am I telling you all this? Well, mostly because of two things. First, this walk brought out the boy in me. I always knew he was there, every time I had passed those construction areas and old neighborhoods I had thought about what it would be like to walk into them. Everytime I drove across the bridge that crosses the salt-fork I had yearned to stop and crawl under the bridge to explore. You get the drift of this . . . this walk felt like an adventure, an exploration of sorts.
Secondly, this walk cemented the thought that I would take my older sons--Noah and Jacob--on this walk. Would they come, I wondered. They're not spoiled, but sometimes, when I suggest a walk, especially when it's in cold weather, they balked at the idea. Not so this time. Both were gung-ho. Likely also because it would be after dark, a time we usually spend at home getting ready for bed, the next day, etc.
So, today, just a day after my own first experience, we went. Oh, it was so much fun. The boy in me had had a the right sense. The things I found exciting yesterday were the things they saw today. The huge tree with five trunks, the front yard that was filled with junk, the old fifteen feet sun-flower, some very weird halloween decorations and of course the razed neighborhood. I had described it to them as similar to the "badlands" in the Lion King. As it turns out, that was the perfect description, stirring their sense of adventure and their curiosity. Of course, they climbed on the piles of mulch and debris and jumped onto the tree-trunks. And, although it was dark, they "found" lots of things.
We walked for over an hour in 30 degree weather. We had fun. There was agreement, quiet agreement nothing big. Just a sense that one just has to step out of one's own door to begin to see things. Everything just depends on how we look and how we move. Plenty of times we had driven by those places, perhaps we had all even seen them. Yet they had reminded profoundly empty and meaningless to us until we entered them. Entering these places, old houses, thick woods, steep hollows that lead down to a creek and entering them on foot changed how we saw these things and created a new connection between us. Doing this after dark, of course, only heightened the effect of the experience.
I am proud of my sons and of myself. Proud of them for simply saying "yes" to this small proposal. Proud of myself for connecting a part of my own very alive boy-ish-ness with theirs. I am proud, too, because I sense that this experience helped them feel earthbound and connected to their own neighborhood. As much as I would also like to take them overseas, explore the territories north of the polar circle, etc. this experience gave them something different. It connected their home, our house, with other places around it. But it was necessary to walk it. Had we just driven or even biked something about this connection would have been lost. My sons, I feel, learned something about marking their territory by walking its perimeter. They made it real for themselves by entering it.
I consider this a profound and existentially necessary "vehicular tunnel experiences" in which our feet never reach the ground.
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