Autumn is here. I really want to go for a walk in the woods with the child before hunting season starts, but things have been very very wet lately, so it's unlikely to happen. Instead, we play made up games in our driveway, and she squeals "outside? outside! OUTSIDE!" every time we come home from running errands. The trees are just passing their peak here, with more leaves on the ground than up above.
I was listening to MPR yesterday and they were re-running a story about the noise in our life: how we only have a few generations now who have grown up with constant noise. It was a complicated story about how this guy's fridge hummed a constant B flat, but his microwave hummed at a C, which was a bit jarring, and then the dishwasher brought in a minor fourth and...well, you get the idea. (I spent 15 minutes trying to find it to link to it, but I can't, for the life of me. Send it if you know what I'm talking about). Most kids in the US today have never been without (or away for extended periods) from that constant buzzing.
When I was a kid, maybe about 7 or 8, there was no place I'd rather be than out in the woods, usually by myself, with a picnic lunch. I'd follow deer trails, look for mice, examine spiders and tree rot and leaf skeletons. It was quiet, and I was not afraid. I have to remember this part of me, and take myself outside (outside! OUTSIDE!) sometimes so I don't lose that quietness. I feel it most of all around midterms, when we're in to this semester hip deep and the end seems so far away.
I'm off to go grade papers, probably at a bar or a restaurant with flourescent lights, a jukebox, several TVs, many fridges and microwaves and blenders and all sorts of dissonance. But maybe, after supper, I'll take V to the park, where, if we get far enough from the road, close enough to the river, we can hear a little less buzzing and a little more quiet.
Or maybe we'll just play in the driveway.
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