things that go bump in the night
flying squirrels, horny frogs and every-day disasters
A couple of weeks ago, I signed up to peep some sexy, orchestral frogs. I took the boys, obviously. The ones who can walk. Christopher stayed back with the baby.
The event was called “Amphibian night.” It was run by a local nature sanctuary. About two dozen people showed up, some in military-grade headlamps and full-body waders. We were not so prepared: Clyde, our five year old, wore a bomber jacket—part of an old Halloween costume. But we had boots and nets and at least two flashlights between us. Enough for a good time.
We snaked our way through the deep woods to a vernal pool. These swampy bodies of water exist only in spring and autumn, evaporating in the heat and cold, and their evanescence makes them the ideal breeding ground for slimy, toothy creatures like peepers (frogs) and ‘toe-biters’ (insects large enough to abscond into their dark, entropic waters with pieces of tender skin). Our guide told me about the toe-biters after a short lecture in the nature center. I did not tell my boys.
Small dangers are big players in my parenting.
sure-footed missteps
Christopher and I are strict and careful in some ways, purposely hands-off in others. We limit screens. We expect good humor and kindness. Nails are kept short and clean. Otherwise, we prefer the boys dirty at the end of the day. Ticks, un-embedded, herald success. I enjoy watching the kids scramble up trees. As long as we’re on a path with no cars, we let them bike way outside our purview.
I grew up in the woods. After school I’d stuff snacks into a bag and venture into the forest across the road, alone. Life isn’t always easy for a kid. Home can make you itch with restriction; it can be scary or disappointing. Friends can be confusing, sometimes acid-mean. But outdoors, I was always well received.
I was POTUS in the woods; I was Indiana Jones. I was a fairy and I was a witch. I played out my dreams and shadow-sides in that emerald cathedral, full of chickadees and mourning doves and the occasional scrambling squirrel and screeching hawk. I became a writer outside—narrating stories; facing dramas both real and imagined. I’d climb too high, venture too far, and find out how brave I was when I got myself home. I think free-play, un-surveilled, is the stuff of life.
Not everyone shares this philosophy. I get perplexed looks when I tell the boys to take off their shoes to climb on the playground—bare feet are much better for feel and grip. I hear parents yip and yell constantly, “Too high!” I get it—we all want our kids to be safe. I guess safety to me means raising sure-footed people. It doesn’t surprise me that kids with an ever-narrowing zone of independence suffer from a crisis of confidence. We can only know what we’re capable of by finding out.
Long before Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation,” there was Richard Louv, whose book “Last Child in the Woods” explores the pathologies of young people who grow up without free-play. He coined the term “nature deficit disorder” to describe the psychic illnesses of an indoor youth. The book seemed damning when it came out nearly twenty years ago, but it feels prescient now. I like having Richard on my side anytime I feel other parents’ side-eye while I watch my kids at the playground…and pretend not to.
Richard’s writing has always given me confidence in the bargain I’ve made with the great outdoors: I’d trade a stitch or two for an adventure.
onward, to the pool
Night fell, hard. Though we were probably a half a mile from I-684, it could’ve been Narnia: trees went inky black against velvet navy and the stars peered through their budding tips, extra silver. The trees whispered to us in the wind, like witnesses and companions.
Our fellow hikers, almost all strangers, started to feel like home. Together, we made a caravan of safety. Some mammalian instinct came alive for me so that even when a loud, large teenage boy pelted a gob of wet leaves at my neck, I loved him. Just for being part of the herd. Plus, he’d make good cover from the coyotes I could hear, wailing in the distance.
At one point the guide told us to stop and look up: “A flying squirrel!” as a fuzzy square flung itself from one tree to the next. For all the time I’ve spent outdoors, I believed flying squirrels were in the imaginary company of the jackalope. But there it went, a tiny, living kite, sailing through the air. I could almost hear it go, “Weeeee!”
We reached the pool in total darkness.
The water shone amber through our beams: clean and clear until you stepped into the muddy edge, releasing the silt beneath the mass of leaves. Max, (10) who wore a pair of Hunter boots I’ve owned since college, waded in up to their tops, dragging his net for specimens. The pool was warm and inviting. I pictured toe-biters and leeches slipping in through Max’s boot brims. I cheered him on.
The boys balanced on a fallen log that led them to the middle of the water. They collected a multitude of peepers—said one elder-gentleman: “I’ve been trying to catch one for fifteen years!” We got lucky, I guess. There were at least a dozen in the plastic bucket within our first hour of dragging. Most were caught in pairs, which delighted the kids, who didn’t understand why they were getting twofers. Close up, the sounds of these tiny frogs are not so much peeps as screeches. It was thrilling to see such a tiny body producing so much noise. Clyde, our loudest, was smitten.
I was glad to see the boys dump quarts of water from their boots and tug the shoes back on and wade in again and again. I didn’t try to stop them when they scrambled up the slick moss-covered boulders or ran the path with the bulging roots. I didn’t hush them when they narrated stories to themselves, gesticulating as if nobody would notice. Damn if I’m going to stop a human from feeling free.
bump
We got back to the car intact. The hike took almost three hours; there had been some complaints and one piggy-back, but mostly, the boys were invigorated. I smelled the wildness on their skin, that mix of salt and blood flow, that particular, metallic spark of nighttime, outdoors. We’d swum in our imaginations and dragged the edges of eternity with our nets. We’d waded into foreign elements under the cover of darkness; felt the awe of the world turned inside out.
I was proud of the kids for venturing off the path, unafraid. Maybe I was even getting a little smug about it. Just me and Richard, doing what’s best for the children.
At home, the boys took long showers to get warm. As I was reaching for a towel, Clyde stepped out too fast, slipped on the floor between my legs…and gashed his head on the edge of the bathtub. He screamed and grabbed his face and I could tell this would be a stitch job.
Christopher loaded Clyde into the car and off they went. Several hours later, Clyde came home from the ER, the proud bearer of two eyebrow stitches. “I stayed up ‘til the next day,” he bragged to his teachers in the morning—he had never been awake past midnight.
So the forest held up its end of the bargain. It reminded us who we are because in the dark mist, we can be anybody. But the woods never fail to humble me, too: I can’t keep my kids safe, anywhere, actually. There’s no one way to raise these people (though I stand by the importance of barefoot climbing and clipped nails). Don’t forget, those shushing trees must’ve whispered: get too lofty and you’ll set yourself up for a karmic belly-laugh.
Glories and disasters are all around us, aren’t we lucky to have access to them all?
Please: tell me about your greatest wilderness mishap or adventure. And… would you tread in these waters?
Love, Isabel
Ps. Would you please be my mom?
I loved this. It feels like there’s so much more danger in our built environment — cars, screens, slippery tubs — than in the natural world. Yet many of us keep our kids “safe” in the human-engineered world when some dirt and ticks and toe-biters is just what they need. Thanks for the reminder. :) Hope the little one is recovering nicely from the stitches. 💚