Today was such a blustery day. I took an invigorating walk to the little beach near my house. The sun was out, clouds racing across the sky, and the wind so strong I had to struggle to stay upright. A good day, I thought, to read "Winnie-the-Pooh and the Blustery Day" - maybe have some tea and toast with hunny. And so I did (discovering that the chapter "Winnie-the-Pooh and the Blustery Day" actually goes by a completely different title, and Milne used the word "blusterous", not "blustery").
Later, I began to think about the adventures Christopher Robin and his friends had in the Hundred Acre Wood. As a child, I loved everything about the two Winnie-the-Pooh books: the humor, the distinct characters of all the animals, the depictions of nature and the seasons. My mother read the books to me often, and they helped shape my view of nature. A bridge over a stream calls for a game of Pooh-sticks. A tree is someone's home. A path leads to discoveries.
Maybe the path leads to an enchanted castle as it would in E. Nesbit's magical books. My mother loved E. Nesbit's books and would read them to me on lazy, summer afternoons or blustery, winter afternoons accompanied by tea cups or cocoa mugs. The children in the books would head out in the morning with a basket full of sausage rolls and two types of cake and ginger beer in stoneware bottles, and they wouldn't go home until dinnertime. They would walk until they were hot and dusty and ready for a picnic, or an adventure. The freedom that they enjoyed!
I had freedom, too. We all did. We could go off to play with friends in the neighborhood. We were trusted to be at someone's house where a mother would be available in case a band-aid was needed, but the mothers never hovered. We made up our own games. One summer, my friend Ginger and I played at being mermaids. We made up elaborate mermaid stories as we sat on rocks in her family's rockery with the sprinklers keeping us cool (and appropriately wet). Our adventures didn't quite measure up to those in books, but we were outside and we were pretty much on our own.
I also had the freedom to be bored. Other than mealtimes and reading out loud times, I was expected to entertain myself. If there wasn't anyone around to play with, I would moan: "I'm booored. There's nothing to dooo". And what would my mother say? "Spit in your shoe." "But I don't want to spit in my shoe!", I wailed. So obviously, I had to find something else to do. Make a miniature fairy garden. Write up clues for a treasure hunt to entertain my parents. Train my stuffed animals to do circus tricks.
That's how I raised my children (although I never told them to spit in their shoes). I taught them how to cross the street safely, and then let them walk to a stream about half a mile away where they could build dams and do whatever their imaginations suggested. Of course, one time, not long after we had moved to Mercer Island, my seven year old announced that he was going for a walk after school. The sun was close to setting, and he still wasn't home. I bundled the four year old into the car. We drove to the stream, we drove to the park, we drove around the neighborhood. Then I called the police. They found him about half a mile away, on his way home. He had decided to walk to the library, a few miles away. As the police car drove up, I greeted my son with the words "Wasn't it exciting to get a ride in a police car?" Not expecting Mommy to applaud him for his adventure, he was tearful. But he did continue to be independent and adventurous.
I have just a few more books on the themes of nature, adventure, and freedom to share with you. My younger son grew up to love "messing with boats" as Ratty in The Wind in the Willows did. But there is nothing to match Arthur Ransome's books such as Swallows and Amazons for independence. The children in his books spend the whole summer messing with boats, camping out on their own, having amazing adventures, and learning invaluable lessons. Allowing my younger son to take sailing lessons and go sailing with friends when he was a teen set him on a lifetime path which has led him to volunteering with Northwest Seaport. Letting him be bored led to him figuring how to take things apart and put them together again which he does with the old, wooden boats that he works on.
Richard Louv, in Last Child in the Woods, wrote about how "in nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy and privacy, a place distinct from the adult world, a separate peace". We don't have that book, but there are many in our collection that can help parents and other care-givers to provide opportunities for children to connect with nature, to develop their imaginations, and to be free from the over-committed, over-watched lives of today.
Pooh's bedtime book / Milne, A. A. J 821 MIL
The railway children / Nesbit, E. JF NES
The would-be-goods; being the further adventures of the treasure seekers; with illus. by C. Walter Hodges. Nesbit, E. JF NES
The wind in the willows / Grahame, Kenneth, E GRA
The wind in the willows / Grahame, Kenneth, J F GRA
The nature principle: Reconnecting with life in a virtual age/Louv, Richard
The nature fix: Why nature makes us happier, healthier, and more creative/Williams, Florence
The re-enchantment of everyday life / Moore, Thomas, 158 MOO
The sacred place : witnessing the holy in the physical world / 810.8 OLS
The secret therapy of trees / Mencagli, Marco, 582.16 MEN
Spiritual ecology : a guide for reconnecting with nature / Nollman, Jim. 201.44 NOL
A spiritual field guide : meditations for the outdoors / Brady, Bernard V. 242 BRA