Since you follow my work, you likely know that I love jumping in a cold mountain stream! Even in winter. Especially in winter. And frequently in my birthday suit. Cause that’s how god made me.
Maybe you know I’m a mom too.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe my kiddo is twenty now, a year and a half out from graduating from college. Go Wolfpack! She moved to Raleigh two and a half years ago and it’s always good to have her home.
This year she called me a few days before winter break and declared, “I have an idea that I know you’ll like! I’ll do a polar plunge with you, but there’s a condition. There’ll be no dilly-dallying.”
Usually, when I jump in the creek, I head off down a trail to one of my hidden spots so that said event is just between me. God, the creek and the trees. When it’s really cold out, the task of getting dried off and appropriately dressed again for the return hike is considerably more difficult than the simple challenge of getting in the 40ish degree water.
Also jumping in the creek is somewhat of a spiritual thing for me. I take my time getting in, and I say a prayer before I submerge. Apparently, Juliet was having none of my hippie dippie, slo-mo dipping.
“What do you mean by no dilly-dallying?” I asked.
She laid out her terms…It’s gotta be a place where we can leave the car running and warm. We get in. We get out. And we go back to the warm car. In other words…NO dilly-dallying.
And to make sure she was crystal clear she added, “That means it will probably be in a public place and you have to wear clothes. If you can handle that, I will do a polar plunge with you.”
Conditions accepted! SPLASH and DASH, it is…
Of course, she knew I would agree to any terms that meant she would be spending some QT with me in nature.
One of my favorite memories of her as a little girl was creating a magical, impromptu nature mandala at the end of a trail in the Linville Gorge of Western NC. In case you don’t know, a mandala is a geometric design that’s generally symmetrical and radiates out in complexity from the center. I don’t remember who started it now, but for at least an hour, we each went out gathering all of the various elements of nature laying around us, and we organically took turns gently placing them on our design and building it out from the center.
It was like we both fell into some sort of magic creative nature spell and at the end of it, we had created an intricate, exquisite nature mandala made of big pine cones and little pine cones, green leaves and brown leaves, sharp rocks and round rocks, long sticks and short sticks, nuts and catkins and anything else that called out to us from the forest floor.
It was truly a work of art, and it felt really good leaving it there knowing that anyone who ventured down that long trail would be greeted with our heartfelt offering upon reaching their destination. For a couple of days anyway as we knew it would inevitably get scattered by the wind, the rain, the critters… and maybe some young hiker who would probably have as much fun messing it up as Juliet and I had creating it.
We spent a lot of time together outside and in the woods. Until we didn’t.
With all that high school entails, including the non-stop extra-curriculars along with the constant barrage of electronics… iThis and iThat… that pulled on our time, it got harder and harder for both of us…either of us…to make space for quality time outside.
There was a point in high school when Juliet forbade me from even asking her to go on a hike! She basically put me in Parent Time Out for trying too hard to get her to love being outside as much as I thought she should. Realizing I was being a bit overbearing, I mostly chose to stay in Time Out and behave… and think about how I had acted…since that’s what time out is for.
Thankfully, she seems to have gotten past that stage. A couple months earlier on Thanksgiving break, she declared that she wanted to hike to a fire tower before returning to school. Never mind that it was crazy cold and windy and the Blue Ridge Parkway was closed for snow, adding a couple more miles to the hike. She decided that’s what she wanted to do, so we did it!
And for New Year’s Eve, she decided she wanted to go camping in the snow! Again, howling winds and 20’s. That wasn’t for me, but her roommate is in ROTC, and she was able to round up 3 ROTC guys for the brave and frigid trek. They did a 21 mile loop through the glorious Grayson Highlands, or more aptly titled the Grayson Tundra on this occasion.
The kiddo is tough! And if it sounds like I’m bragging a little… maybe I am. I’m pretty proud of my girl. It’s true. I’ll say though, it’s impossible to convey how much it delights me to know that she is taking refuge in nature.
I say let ‘em stick their feet in the creek…roll ‘em in the mud…let ‘em eat worms. Ok, well maybe not worms, but you get the picture.
I think being in nature helps us to keep our hearts and heads on straight in this wild world. And I believe the more we are able to nurture our children with nature, the better off we’re all going to be!
