Other states, other lives, other souls

My husband Phil, the “mayor of Theodore Wirth Park” as I like to call him, started taking our grandson on woodland outings after he turned three in October. Wirth Park is the size of Central Park in New York City, over 700 acres, and has large tracks of undeveloped woodland, bogs and lakes. It straddles Minneapolis and a couple of western suburbs and is walking distance from our townhome.  Theo (a happy coincidence of name) loves to be outside, no matter the weather.  When we got our first sticking snow he suited up and reenacted  The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats.  He may be half Colombian, but he’s all Americano del norte, when it comes to cold weather.

This past Friday we took him to the Wirth woods again, without the benefit of the wagon Phil used earlier in the week.  That meant we traveled at the speed of a three year old. That could be lightning fast, but in this case it was at the speed of his curiosity and wonder.  “Grandpere”, my Spanish-English speaking grandson’s inexplicable but sweet name for my husband, was explaining to him how the leaves turn brown and fall off the trees in the winter. “And then they come back in the spring.”  “Oh my god!” exclaimed Theo.  (Our son told us that he could have very well exclaimed “Never again!” or “Extra, extra, read all about it!”– his favorite English exclamations that week.)

When we arrived at the jumping off point in our car, I gave Theo an adult-sized fanny pack, slung around his shoulder, so he could have a pouch for any treasures he might find.  He was recently into finding treasures—a quarter, a folded piece of paper, etc. We passed near an oak tree with a large hole at the bottom.  “There’s a tunnel!” he cried.  We examined more closely and noticed that the inside walls were burnt.  We pondered whether squirrels were using it.  Around the base we then noticed many, many acorns, all bearing signs of squirrel activity. Caps and nuts were always separated. Theo gathered a few and tried to fit tops to bottoms, as is his want with all tops and bottoms; but no reattachment without a glue stick was possible.

Next we noticed that Wirth Lake, a stone’s throw from our path, was starting to freeze over.  I got a stick and invited Theo to come to the edge and watch what happens.  My first stick stuck halfway into the gelid water, held in suspension.  This was something novel that his water play this summer had not revealed.  Theo proceeded to throw three or four smaller sticks, which skittered slightly across the ice skin covering this section of the lake.  The only way to get him away from doing this for the rest of the morning was to promise even more stick-throwing off the long pedestrian bridge spanning the northern edge of the lake up ahead. 

The ice there was even thicker so the sticks skittered farther.  At the halfway point across the bridge we looked up and noticed that there was moving open water ahead where an entry point to the lake must be.  We found the edge where the ice stopped and the unfrozen water moved toward it.  Theo looked at that for a long time.  What was he thinking? Maybe too complicated to describe at three.

A couple of large dogs later we reached the end of the bridge and were finally in the actual woods. While Phil ran to get the car, Theo and I kept walking along the path. First he spotted tiny pine cones, only one inch long.  4 or 5 of them went into his treasure- holding fanny pack, zipped tightly.  Then he found two large pine cones, not too large to fit securely in the pouch and zipped.

Along came Phil and we got back in the car to head home for lunch at Theo’s house with mama, his Colombian abuella, and the two toddlers there for Spanish immersion childcare.  On the way Theo began speaking to us about lunch, something about the green chair and the yellow table.   Was it a memory from his favorite cartoon show Sarah and Duck? Once he was standing with one leg bent against his knee, yoga tree pose style.  It turned out he was imitating the flamingo on Sara and Duck.  Is he talking about his booster seat and tray at his home?  “No!”   Gradually I realized he was thinking about the lunches he has had with us, sitting in a booster seat on our green mid-century Eames knock-off chairs and our round birch table, which I guess is more yellow than any other color from his magic marker box.

Welcomed home, Theo carried his fanny pack over to the coffee table where the two other children were. He unzipped and took out one of the large pine cones.  After exclamations of joy from mama, he took it over to the Christmas tree and placed it carefully, like a precious jewel, on some boughs.  Then he took out the tiny pine cones and gave one to each toddler.  Freddie, the expressive and affectionate elder, took it and held it with two hands against her cheek, smiling.  Gabby, the younger, was observed closely so she wouldn’t try to eat it.