My hiking wish came true

It’s true that I’ve been a big believer in the “Write it down, make it happen” principle ever since reading the book by the same name by Henriette Anne Klauser. But I didn’t really believe that getting my kids out in the woods this weekend would be that easy, or that the same technique I apply to tasks such as filing my community briefs for the paper or sewing a Girl Scout badge on Holly’s smock would work for implementing a new attitude in them.

But somehow it did. Last week I blogged about how important it was to me to do some kind of woods walking with both kids this weekend, no matter how easy, no matter how brief, no matter how close to home. Just to make it happen.

And it did happen! They didn’t read my blog entry; their only way of knowing how important it was to me was hearing me say at dinner on Thursday, “This is something I really really want to do.” But either I talk a good game and made them want to do it too – let’s not forget that for eight years, my full-time job was to write copy that would compel people to spend thousands of dollars on overseas vacations – or else they intuited how much it mattered to me. On Saturday I reminded them in the morning, “After lunch we’re going walking around Walden Pond,” and after lunch I said “We can leave just as soon as I brush my teeth,” and both were ready to go. No demurring, no conversation about why they did or didn’t want to do it. They just showed up at the appointed time and place, and that in itself amazed me.

The three of us plus the dog drove twenty minutes to Walden Pond, but when we arrived, the parking lot attendant told us that dogs are not allowed at the pond, at least not this weekend. (Or am I forgetting that Thoreau actually said “I went to the woods because I wanted to live caninelessly”?) I felt momentarily sorry for Belle but shrugged it off quickly; more important to get our walk in than to worry about her needs, so I said to the attendant, “Oh well, she can just stay in the car then.” But he explained dogs aren’t even allowed in cars at Walden Pond, a detail that mystified the kids and generated several more minutes of discussion as I turned the car around. “Why does it matter to the park rangers if your dog pees in your car?” they wondered. It’s a fair question, but happily for us, the parking lot attendant had a suggestion for a place we could walk with the dog just five minutes away, so we headed onward to Brister Hill.

And again, what amused me was just the no-questions-asked aspect of it on the kids’ part. I realize there’s nothing so complicated about walking on a trail in the woods, even if you haven’t done it much before, but they just piled out of the car and hit the trail without asking me where we were headed or how long we’d be out or anything. And even though I’m happy to walk for hours in the woods, especially on what was a sunny, mild fall day with the foliage shimmering beautifully, I didn’t mind at all if we didn’t get far. It was about getting out, not getting far.

We hadn’t traveled more than twenty feet from the parking lot, dog on leash, when the kids found the first item of fascination (well, the second, given that the first was really Walden Pond’s policy about dogs in cars): in a shallow marshy spot lay a log that rocked slightly back and forth when they stood on it. Shrieking with glee, they stood together on the log, seeing how long they could rock before one of them lost balance. That took up the first ten minutes of the walk; then we headed farther into the woods, where we found a trail that circled a pond, and started making our way around it.

In all, we were in the woods for an hour. At the end of the hour I felt like neither the dog nor I had gotten any exercise to speak of because the kids’ hiking style is so strange. Rather than proceeding along the path, they divert constantly: first to find walking sticks for themselves, then to test the water temperature in the pond, then to walk the length of a fallen tree, using it like a balance beam. Part of the trail ran alongside a very steep esker: while Belle and I waited below, the two of them scampered up the esker and slid down half a dozen times or so, then found another fallen tree to use like a balance beam, then up a different steep hillside to see how far they could walk parallel to the trail, keeping sight of me from high above. I don’t know that we covered so much as a mile of linear terrain, but it didn’t matter because they were so happy: Tim because of all the adventuresome things he was finding to do and Holly because Tim was pulling her along with him on all the feats to be attempted.

And I was happy that we were out walking in the woods, just like I’d hoped for. I was happy that my Columbus Day wish came true.