When and Why do we Stop Being Childish?
Seeing some posts this last week and a couple of chats with friends reminded me of something that I often return to, the curiosity of children and the awe of little discoveries.
Parts of many of my walks, and sometimes the whole walk, will have time for slowing right down. This also happens when I run, although running is something I am not doing a lot of right now. Probably more on that another time. It is fine and good to rush through and cover the distance and get the milage done, but time on feet and being in the moment is also very helpful.
This is where being childish comes into the equation. I still remember the times when walking a mile with my two when there were much younger would take an age. Examination of grass stems, stones, snails, flowers, leaves even a twig would take precedent over forward progression. As an adult this takes adjustment. And patience. And a change of attitude. Do we really need to be where we thought we needed to be at the time we expected to get there? Yes, sometimes. But often no, we don’t. And then the journey becomes the aim of the outing. The destination will often change it’s location.
I am reading Enchantment by Katherine May; I love the way she writes and her observations. This passage really caught my eye and made me think, yes exactly. “Childhood used to have dirt under its fingernails. Now it has hand sanitiser. So much of what we give to our children is shallow terrain: the shiny plastic surfaces of soft-play centres and the toys whose purpose is so specific that they run out of joy after a few minutes.” She goes on to describe how this approach is very superficial and loud and colourful. All surface but no substance.
She takes her son to the forest to try and deepen this experience and be less superficial, to actually allow our curiosity to become active. I do this as well and take my two to the woods and rocky edges to explore. We play the ‘floor is lava’ , make up Parkour routes over the boulders, climb trees and look in detail at the little things that make up the whole. How the whole forest fits together. They are at an age where they learn the theory at school and so I try to integrate this into the real world. To make sense of the text books and teaching. I grasp at anything to hold their attention.
So my point is when do we lose this childhood curiosity? They are starting to lose it. I have to work hard to get them to do these things. In their eyes I am starting to be seen as slightly eccentric and a bit mad because I want to visit a particular tree in the woods or explore a path that may lead to nowhere or delve into a cave to see if we can find any bats (or just anything). They are already seeing these things as not the normal way of doing things. I persevere and know these little things will stick with them and hopefully they will want to return to these little adventures at some point in the future. We are banking this knowledge, feelings, experience deep within us for when we might need it again.
We have to slow down and then we can see more of the little things again. When we did we stop seeing the fairy houses and hearing the chatter between the animals who passages we spotted on their way somewhere. We have to open up our childlike curiosity and explore. Be in the moment and stop rushing about. Question the what ifs and not always be too keen to put a label to something. Just enjoy it for what it makes us feel and how it makes us react. As soon as we identify something, I feel we lose the curiosity of what it actually is. We feel we know it and then we stop looking.
I am going to go on a walk on Sunday 27th November starting from my clinic in Hathersage (S32 1DP) at 10-10.30. I am going to walk through the woods to Padley Gorge and then up onto the moorland around Owler Tor. You are welcome to join me. I don’t know how far I am going to go or how long it will take. I don’t know what I shall see, hear, feel, smell or taste. It is a walk I have done many times, but it will again be very different. If you want to come along I would love to have some company and see if we can find our childlike curiosity again. We shall be observing, not identifying (or maybe a little identification), exploring and looking for the little things. Let’s see if we can find the magic in the woods again.