Lucia and Rose along Doe Creek
It may not seem like much
but we want to honor
the very big thing
a friend of ours did last week.
She lives in Tulsa
and when her granddaughter
and her granddaughter’s longest friend
came for a visit during their spring break,
she brought them for a day at Turtle Rock Farm.
The girls used to live in the same town
and now they live in different states
so I can imagine that they didn’t really care
what activities their grandmother had lined up for them
as long as they could be together.
I make this conjecture because while they were here,
they were pretty much “joined at the hip.”
And so,
“joined at the hip”
they graciously followed me out to the pond
where the bullfrogs got their attention.
We let them try to catch them,
knowing this was impossible,
partly because there is a hole in the net.
But trying to catch them
required their watching them.
And that is the point.
Our agenda was exploring creeks.
While we were checking out life in Doe Creek,
they were finding a way to cross it
and climb its banks.
While we were checking out Red Rock Creek,
they were calling our attention
to a spider with an egg sack
they had spotted running on the bank.
Lucia Coraling a Pregnant Spider
These girls are not strangers to the natural world
and neither are they afraid of it.
There is a reason for that:
they have adults in their lives
who care about the natural world,
are intrigued by it
and bring them to ponds and creeks and parks and prairie
to explore and play.
It is a simple thing,
but no small thing their grandmother did,
bringing them for a day in the country
on their spring break.
Rather, it is a very big gift.
Richard Louv,
in his book, Last Child in the Woods, writes:
Nature – the sublime, the harsh and the beautiful – offers something that the street or gated community or computer game cannot. Nature presents the young with something so much greater than they are; it offers an environment where they can easily contemplate infinity and eternity.. Immersion in the natural environment cuts to the chase, exposes the young directly and immediately to the very elements from which humans evolved: earth, water, air and other living kin, large and small. Without that experience…we forget our place; we forget that larger fabric on which our lives depend.
A Quiet Moment for Lucia and Rose at the Pond
