Since moving back to the U.S. (after 16 years living in Tanzania) my family has slowly slipped into the American life style of TV, iPads, junk food, and automated living.  I have been fighting it as much as humanly possible for a single mother who sometimes ‘just needs to get the dinner made’ without children running through the house tearing up the furniture or dragging dirt every where – right after I have just vacuumed and mopped.  So, yes, I admit I do find myself pulling my hair out and then the words, “why don’t you watch a show together?” come flowing out of my mouth.  Ok, so watching a little TV is not a major problem a couple of evenings a week, but when it starts to flow into the weekend mornings, which turn into afternoons it is no longer OK.

Now, I am, or rather we are one lucky family.  My parents live close by and my dad (aka Grandpa) spends time with the kids every weekend, and many days during the school holidays and summer months.  So, I can actually limit screen time around ‘Grandpa time’, however, the huge sense of satisfaction children (and me too) feel from grabbing a screen and making something appear to captivate their attention for endless hours is hard to compete against.  So, we have found in my family that we have to be more mindful in making decisions.  Spending time outdoors in nature must be purposefully added to the daily (ok, weekly) schedule.  Grandpa is a nature lover and he knows after 76 years on this earth that he has a more balanced sense of himself, his family, and the world when he spends time outside.  So, my lucky kids get to spend time with Grandpa who has already understood the importance of nature and consciously incorporates it into his life.  He takes them to our local museums (the favorite being the Cleveland Museum of Natural History ), many of the Cleveland Metro Parks, and anywhere outdoors with green space, trees and earth to dig in.  This is how I grew up in my inner ring suburb of Cleveland home.  Our yard was small, but Sundays were spent at the Holden Arboretum, South Chagrin Reservation, Shaker Lakes, and elsewhere.  Sometimes it felt like a chore to ‘spend time with family’, but now as a mom myself I know those days had a profound effect on my psyche.  I can find solace in nature.  I can make sense of the chaos rolling around in my mind when I am soaking in the power of a 50 year old tree or observing a wooly warm wander across my path.  And really if we are not connected to the earth how can we be connected to each other?

Through experiences outdoors, getting dirty, and pushing their minds and bodies to work in different ways from the way they spend their days in school or other organized activities I notice my children have two distinct qualities: empathy and problem solving.  They are trying to figure out how the earth works, which creates a sense of wonder and more questions than answers.  Inspiration for art projects is born from the time my children spend outside, as are ideas for new innovations in engineering and technology. They grapple with how to make things work by utilizing water, sand, sticks, and leaves.  They come up with solutions to making the world more peaceful, more efficient.   I see them concerned about the habitats of flora and fauna in our local area, as well as globally.  They wonder why some species are disappearing and why people can’t be satisfied with smaller amounts (of things, money, and natural resources to fuel their desires). This sense compassion seeps into their relationships with others.  They are building empathy.  They are grappling with destruction on a global scale while learning how to cope with their own hurt and the pain they unintentionally inflict on others.

Through this journey I am witness to their growing tenderness as they move from the ego-centric embodiment of early childhood into older childhood and pre-adolescence. As they make this journey they are thinking of all the solutions to the earth’s problems.  Their innocence is uplifting – if only we had hydro-electric cars (Gabriel is trying to ‘invent’ the first one), or if people just stopped being mean to each other maybe there wouldn’t be a refugee crisis (Sylvia as the next Ambassador to the UN?)  Of course, I know the solutions are not this simple, but as they talk me through their ideas I recognize the importance of keeping this light alive.  They are the future.  They are my future.  They are the future for this planet.  So, we continue to find inspiration and build on our aspirations.  We want to keep our planet great.  This is possible through a much more complex set of relationships than just appreciating nature.  We must engage with nature.  We must engage with each other.  Through these engagement we will become more than tolerant of each other.  We will learn to truly appreciate each other and we will understand the cruciality of caring for our planet.

Spending time in nature is known to reduce stress, clear cluttered minds, and create a sense of connectedness.  I am reading The Nature Fix by Florence Williams at the moment (I will be starting a book club page soon).  I find myself nodding my head in agreement to much of what she is telling us.  Being in nature makes my family calmer, clearer, kinder and it is the springboard from which many of our ideas come from.

Join us on this journey as we take you along on our well beaten path (we are not going to remote places, but rather we are exploring the local environment right here that we can reach without much cost or planning) engaging with nature.  We will muck about in the parks, our back yard, visit museums related to nature (or the environment or that connect us to others through natural experiences), create art, write essays, letters, and make posters (the March for Science is coming up TOMORROW).  Our hands, feet, hair and clothes will get dirty.  Our minds and souls will open. And we welcome you on our journey.