Walking With William

William decided we should walk to the farm Sunday afternoon. It was sunny and cool - light jackets required, but no hats or gloves necessary. Taiya and Jeremy chose to stay at the house. We left Daisy and her rambunctiousness at home as well, much to her chagrin. Wearing orange safety vests and bringing with us only my phone, a bottle of water, and Tiger Shark the monster truck, William and I ventured out. 

Walking with William is an exercise in patience. We made it only to the end of the driveway before he stopped to drive Tiger Shark over some rocks for several minutes. I did some walking meditation while he did so, placing each foot down with slow deliberateness, heel to toe, heel to toe. He finished the truck/rock game and we sprinted up our road and dashed across the highway to the farm driveway. We then had to make up for that burst of speed with a break to make some phone calls (to his two grandmothers). He found a puddle the shape of a stocking, and some more rocks for Tiger Shark. Stop and start, meander, mosey, run, rest, play with more rocks. It is his way of moving through the world. I do my very best to go with his flow. 

I have to remind myself that we are not going for a walk like I do when I'm alone: straight up the hill, straight back down the hill, at a pace to get the blood pumping. Sometimes on my solo walks I stop to take pictures or to look at some interesting moss or lichen, or to check out a butterfly, and I do let Daisy have a good sniff here and there. But I'm going somewhere and then I'm going back. Movement is the goal. For William, there doesn't seem to be a goal. He just takes what comes next and makes a game of it. 

We got to the pastures and found the goats grazing at the edge of the field. They nibbled on the browned grass and red cedar branches and didn't pay much attention to us. They have gotten quite rotund, their pregnant bellies stretching their middles into pronounced parentheses. Our two farm dogs, Skye and Dozer, were doing their job hanging out with the goats as they grazed. 

William and I then proceeded across the "lower Howe meadow" as it's always been called (pronounced "meddah," not meadow), where William played the hopping-over-cow-pies game. He found a short stub of a stick and we played catch for a while. Then we wandered over to where the new round bales are laid out and played hide and seek for several rounds. Dozer found us there and played too. 

Meandering further, we walked through a swampy part of the pasture and this led to an exciting, squelchy game of follow-the-leader. We found Lucy the pig in her hut having a nap. She's getting up there in years, and clearly is making the most of her retirement. Then we walked through "the hundred acre wood swamp" to head for home. This is a swampy drainage on the farm with sweet gum trees crowded so close together that they've been forced to grow straight and tall, and with the afternoon light streaming through it felt a little like a wild cathedral. 

At this point William started to lose some steam. We took a rest in the sun, then I gave him a short piggy-back-ride back to the shop building. It was getting to be chore time so Jeremy came and got us in the truck and drove us home before going back up the hill to give all the animals their supper. 

All that I've just described took two and a half hours. It was a beautiful way to spend a Sunday afternoon, though I will admit I had to work to exercise patience. I did my very best not to hurry him along, to play the games he wanted to play for as long as he wanted to play them. It is amazing to me how hard it can be to slow down and play - shouldn't that be the easiest thing in the world? But it is hard as an adult to focus on the same things that enrapture him. It's just not that fun for me to stand there and pick apart wooly croton seed pods forever, or to dig in the cold wet dirt with my bare hands for no apparent reason. But I know it is important for him to do these things, so I took the time to look a little closer at things I wouldn't normally look that closely at (those seed pods are actually pretty cool!), to watch his face as he concentrated on these all-important explorations, to breath in the breezy air, to bask in the almost-winter-solstice afternoon light, and to feel gratitude for the luxury of this time together. When I can shake the impatience of adulthood, walking with William is an experience in living in the moment, in creativity, in delight. 

One night this week, as William was snuggling in to go to sleep, he sighed happily, "This is like heaven." I asked, "What about it feels like heaven to you?" and he said, "It's warm, I have Mouse, I have you, and there's lights..." (we put up Christmas lights on their bunk beds). And he's so right. What could be better in the world than warmth, companionship, love, and light? I am so lucky to have him here to remind me of all of these things.