Walks with the little one

Whenever I go walking with my two-year-old granddaughter, we have no plan about where we are going to walk.  Sometimes she wants to go around the block to look at houses and their attendant shrubs and flowers.  Sometimes she just wants to be outside for a while and not walk out of the cul-de-sac.  And sometimes, she wants to walk in the nature area, throw rocks in the creek, watch ducks in the nearby pond, or walk the length of the creek to the point it crosses a major road.  It's different each time.  She picks wild buttercups or dandelions along the way and gives them to me.  She stops to look more closely at potato bugs, ants, dragonflies, and grasshoppers.  She has learned the sounds of frogs croaking and owls hooting.  She likes to try to find them when she hears them, usually without success, though.

She loves going walking, and I love going with her.  It's a new adventure each time.  Even though it is the same scenery that we walk in, we see it differently each time.  We take different routes, we find new logs or dams that kids have made in the creek.  We'll wait different intervals to go on our walks, stay different lengths of time, or go at different times of day.  But we always enjoy our walking time.

I have been around a person for two years now that likes to have A LOT of structure in her life.  She needs and relies on rules to regulate her days.  She has to know where all the boundaries and limits are and is rather judgmental about others who don't follow the rules she keeps or the structures she has put in place.  It's not fun to be around her.  I can feel the straightjacket being put on the minute I am in her presence.  It's so unlike the imaginative, exploratory walks with my granddaughter that I cringe to put the two experiences in juxtaposition to each other.  Any time, any day, I would stroll the neighborhood or nature area seeing again what is in my environment than to enter the world of the regulated life.

I know there are rules in life.  They keep order on the boundaries between people.  But when it comes to enjoying life, I want to see the possibilities, follow the rabbit trails, see what's behind bushes, watch little waterfalls, pursue interests requiring rigor and interests requiring only presence, and note beauty wherever it occurs.