Hi there! Thanks for stopping by Homestead Lane. Things have been so busy here that I haven't had any time to write.
Silas and I (read: definitely 95% Silas) have been sanding and refinishing floors and building a room in the Cozy Cabin.
Por Que?
We have a new inhabitant: Sweet Sylvia. My daughter. The beautiful pink fancy part of my heart. She has been living with her Dad in Denver for the past almost 6 months, and is now back to live with us for all time on Homestead Lane. To say that I'm happy would be a gross understatement. Assume I smile, really really big, every day. Even when she's being a whiny four year old. But that's not why I'm writing. I'm just catching you up.
It's been such a pleasure to watch Sweet Sylvia exist in the dreamy wooded perfection of Homestead Lane. I've know since I moved here, and every day that I walk around the property, that I'm so lucky to live in such incredible natural beauty. But, I haven't really seen it from the height of a four year-old or stopped to think how amazing it must be to live in a magical forest, which is, of course, where she thinks she lives. And why wouldn't she? There are towers like castles of cedar and spruce and sequoia all around her, ferns as big as boulders that she can hide under, excitingly scary and beautifully mysterious barred owls that call to each other from the tree tops while watching over her, birds that have the happiest tweets to wake her up in the morning and sing to her all day long, frogs that release an almost defining croak at night. When the sun comes out it filters through the trees and makes the dew on the grass sparkle like crystals. And this doesn't even hold a candle to all the fairies and gnomes she is sure that are living around us in the trees and under mushrooms.
I remember reading one time that it's important to touch your skin to the earth every day. For Sylvia this is not a problem. On a daily basis she communes with nature, getting her hands in everything she can; picking up worms, inspecting beetles, poking at slugs. She would never dream of avoiding the muddy sloppiness of the rain-soaked property. She heads right for it, opting not to take the dry path. She's planting seed starters, growing tadpoles from the pond in a jar in our living space, checking the hoop house for slugs, leveling space for a new garden, and soon taking care of baby chicks. She gets to ride on the tractor with Silas.
And that's just here on the property. We live on an island and have a 12-ft boat that allows us the opportunity to fish, throw crab pots, run to neighboring island. We get minus tides during the afternoon so we can dig for clams. Storms roll in driftwood for beach forts. There are two beaches loaded with agates. We take sunset beach walks. We ride the ferry to school every day. The discovery and adventure is endless.
But this is the best bit: she gets to leave the cabin and tell me "I'll be right back Mama," and I don't worry one bit about where she's going. She'll get dirty, probably fall down, definitely get into some mischief, but it's of the best kind. There's so much safety in her existence here. It's much like my own childhood where I left the house after breakfast, maybe came back for lunch unless a friends mom was offering spaghetti o's and meatballs and Ruffles chips, which were not allowed at my house, and then had to be begged to come in for dinner and bath at the end of the day. My mom never worried about where I was, who I was with, or what I would get up to. It was a much safer world in the early 80s. There aren't many places in our world where that is still possible, and luckily we live on a sleepy little island where it is. At some point she'll be a teenager and mobile and be able to leave with the same parting message, get on her bike and really put some distance between us. Heck, she may be able to jump in her own boat and sail to a neighboring island. And for the most part, save for the innate worrisome mother gene, I'll feel the same safety for her.
If I could rewind and re-live my childhood here, I would. This place is magic. It's open. It's free. It's full of possibility. It's the childhood of my dreams. I'm happy that Sweet Sylvia gets it. There are years of climbing trees and broken arms, tree houses, forts, hiding in the forest, making gardens, digging clams, throwing crab pots. The list is endless.
This is all not to say that children not living on an island or a farm or in the woods somewhere are not having fulfilling childhoods. Quite the opposite. I have some extraordinary friends raising their children amidst the urban jungles of Manhattan, Chicago, San Francisco - all which provide adventures of an entirely different sort. It's about tapping into the curiosity and sense of adventure of our children and growing it wherever we are. I just happen to be doing that in a place that also makes me feel like a child too.
