"Wherever we go, there seems to be only one business at hand--that of finding workable compromises between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us."
Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk
This weekend Rado and I spent a total of at least two hours planning a hike with the kids that lasted about an hour and a half. We researched various parks and open space preserves, read hiking blogs and yelp reviews, pored over google maps trying to figure out elevation change, and checked the early Sunday morning weather about a dozen times. We wanted to go look at some wildflowers, which are just beginning to bloom, in the wake of a wild two weeks of incessant rain here in Northern California. We wanted to make sure that, wherever we went, we would have a wide enough path to accommodate our jogging stroller, we wouldn't have quick elevation changes but would enjoy wide open vistas, we would be able to get there and back between breakfast and lunch, and we wouldn't have to convince Sava that this was "fun."
We kinda knew this was a tall order, and we suspected there was no way our kids would oblige and allow us to walk at a fast enough clip to cover the sort of distance that would grant us a view of the fabled wildflowers in spring in the Bay Area, but we had to permit ourselves to dream.
We ended up parking across the road from a lovely pond, and when we ventured beyond the pond, in the vain hopes of reaching high hills blanketed in flowers, we got stuck about a quarter of a mile in, eating snack on a meadow covered in clover, gathering pinecones, and wiping snot from frozen noses. Raya threw up the milk which we fed her during snack, and Sava begged to be pushed in the stroller for much of the way, claiming that he was tired (to his credit, we found out tonight that he is running a fever). Raya wouldn't sit in the stroller, but she would stand in it or push it from behind, and would scream bloody murder if we told her that she could do neither. We saw only a few flowers here and there, and much of our research from the night before proved useless: who cares which one of five open space preserves has the most beautiful wildflowers, if we can't cover a mile in an hour and we have only two hours to complete the hike?
But as I witnessed Rado's frustration at trying to keep a vagrant toddler from going down the hill which we were ascending, I had to stop and laugh. And, rather than thinking of Thoreau, who has been on my mind much lately, what with reading Walden and dreaming of wildflowers and all, I recalled the brilliant quote from Annie Dillard above. Dillard loves Thoreau, but hers is a much more ironic and sobering perspective on the universe. Unlike Thoreau, whose lofty ideas never had to mingle with puke and snot, Dillard is keenly aware of the divide between our ideals and the real world. I like her writing and thoughts because, while recognizing the hilarious futility of many of our human endeavors, she affirms, again and again, the search for beauty and meaning in a life that often may seem devoid of either.
My search for beauty and meaning lately has me obsessed with the idea of getting my kids outside. We've always spent plenty of time outdoors, but I'd like to make our outings more purposeful, more memorable, and more full. We've joined Stroller Hikes, and we'll be doing some camping and lots of hiking this coming summer. I will have done a decent job of parenting them if, when my kids grow up, they understand what Annie Dillard means when she says:
"We are here on thie planet only once, and might as well get a feel for the place. We might as well get a feel for the fringes and hollows in which life is lived..."
A hike with our one- and four-year old (nearly five!) may not be exactly, or close to, what we imagined, but it is bound to take us places we may never otherwise "get a feel for," and it is, any way you look at it, a "compromise between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us."
*****Other outdoor spaces this week (& an obscene number of photos, which should make the grandparents very happy):
Parks with the bright sunshine that presages a hot California summer--
She is watching a dog behind the gate, with which she is completely fascinated; grandma and she go on pilgrimages to "see this dog" virtually after every meal.
Taking a snack break--
Catching bugs--
Tasting miner's lettuce again--
And yes, we did come inside once or twice; the kids have a new reading corner which I should remember to photograph next time, but the best part so far has been playing with the box in which their new lounger sofa arrived:
They do like to look at books together--
*****
When the new week starts in twenty minutes, I promise myself to take time to visit at least one new corner of this place on earth where we so fortunately find ourselves. Happy spring to all.
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