Forest vs. Face Mask
Yesterday I took Benjamin to the forest for the first time. It took just a few breaths of crisp mountain air and a couple crunchy steps to decide: Yes, he was going be the king of this forest. And, just like that, the world got one more Ladd man to chase down mountain trails. Benjamin wanted to run through waterfalls and giggled as gravity pulled him down the mountain path, no matter how much my glutes were screaming, “We just pushed a stroller and a small human UP this path. It is NOT time to go down yet!”
He had a waterfall lunch, and then hit the trails again.
This is what happened when it was time to go...
It filled my soul to see my boy running through the woods. He was fully alive and fully basking in creation - celebrating it like his daddy does.
Today I took the kids to the grocery store for the first time in over three months. It was a huge operation. We put Benjamin in a bubble, sterilized Lifa, and his job was baby management while I pushed the shopping basket and touched everything else. Benjamin anxiously poked his little head out of his bubble ’s peep hole and kept checking to make sure it was us behind the funny face masks. No one cooed or chattered with him like he was used to before.
It’s a weird world right now. We were all a little quiet on the way home. I started to feel overcome with sorrow for my children living in a socially distanced world. But I quickly decided to stop the sorrow train and remember: This too shall pass. Face masks are not forever. This will be something we tell the next generation about. “Where were you during the Coronavirus pandemic” will be rocking chair stories for grandpas and grandmas. Benjamin may not even remember it.
I don’t care if Benjamin ever gets used to riding around in a bubble and reading people’s eyes for context clues. I do care very much about the forest under his feet, sand between his toes, mud cakes shaped in his hands, and sunshine on his cheeks. Before I go to bed tonight, I’m going to watch all the videos of Benjamin in the forest again and hold my handsome husband’s hand while I thank the Creator of the universe for His beauty. I am deciding to think about the things I care about instead of worry about the things I cannot control. And that feels as free as the forest!
