‘Don’t expect a repeat experience.’

Don’t expect the same experience every time.

(The fog of morning haze is better than the blaring blue daylight of clarity sometimes)

We headed to a waterfall, a certain waterfall that we had a wonderful time at the last time. We hiked down, down, past the falls and went to cross the river below, and…

…it was blocked off. Blocked. As in: we couldn’t cross.

A slippery log jutted out over, and my 5-year old brightly suggested that was the solution. I glanced down at him, then at my other trusty assistant (age: 2), and made a command decision that seemed sensible in the moment:

I’m the only adult around right now,
I said haughtily.
If anything unfortunate happened, then some people might think it was my fault.

He looked at the log eagerly.
I promise I won’t slip off,
he said.

Remember,
I said, be very careful about making promises. Do not casually make promises that you may not be able to keep.

If our hiking party of three was an egalitarian sort of decision-making outfit, then the outcome would have been certain: we would have ended up either A) on the other side, or B) in the river below the falls.

But this was not a hiking democracy, so I reluctantly turned us around and we headed another direction, away from the river, away from the falls…

…and suddenly, they were gone.

Gone boys.
Disappeared.

I looked around the desolate forest, the deep-rooted pines, packed around with Doug Firs and vegetation everywhere, fog seeping into every crack of the trail…what trail I could even see. It appeared that in my errant attempt to make a sensible decision, I had, in fact, lost them.

Lost them to the Forboding Forest.

I slumped my way along the fog-shrouded trail, glum and despairing at what faced me upon arriving home:
Where are the boys? Becca would ask.
Yeah, where are the boys? Their older siblings would echo.

And I would have to look at all of them and say I’m so sorry, I lost them in the woods, and it’s my fault but we’ll go look for them tomorrow, so please pass the ketchup.

These are the thoughts swirling through part of my mind.

Suddenly: a noise, a branch crack, a rustle of fabric, a…scream.

The scream was me.
The noises were not.
I arose from the ground where I had tripped in fear; arose to see the ghastly apparitions of two young hikers looming over me in the ghostly fog. After a few short minutes, I began to recognize them.

It was them.
The lost boys.
My boys.
I found them. Or something of the sort.

Eventually it turned out that they had intentionally run away while I was distracted, and had immersed themselves in the foggy forest in order to hide.

They were playing a game. Hide and seek.

After my fury receded a small amount, they articulated the rules of the game. The detailed rules are as follows;

I was to close my eyes and count to a big number.
They would hide.
I would then hunt for them.

Surprisingly, this game had a certain element of enjoyment to it. In the end, I found myself with two young boys I identified as my own, so it’s fair to say that I won this game - and the many rounds we played in the deep dark forest.

I think there is something to learn in there. Perhaps along the lines of: because you have a good time somewhere once, doesn’t mean you’re going to have the same kind of good experience there again. So don’t try to repeat the experience. Sort of like if you’re a filmmaker and admire Robert Rodriguez, don’t try to repeat his style, or his exact steps to making a low-budget feature: try to learn from the spirit of what he did (note: he made his first film for seven grand with a mix of friends, family, loans, credit cards, and moxie; this story is canon and legend amongst up and coming moviemakers).

Same thing with experiences or places. How can you create something singular or unique in familiar places, in familiar situations, and take the spirit of something along, rather than trying to match the actions of what you loved before?

That’s my take. I love pretty waterfalls, and now I love hide and seek in dangerous mysterious foggy woods with loud dangerous children.

Other notes

He is two, and he loves libraries. We go to the library for two reasons:

to read books and check out books
to talk with librarians and staff

That’s it. So he’s lying on the floor, reading (looking at) a book on monsters or princesses or tsunamis or something, a lovely young girl perhaps double his age comes along in a beautiful floofy dress.

It is apparent, soon, that she wants to interact with him. To engage in conversation and perhaps play. He is reading.

I encourage him to communicate at least a hello, how are you? He does so with the minimum of words and social nicety. And goes back to his book.

As a bibliophile myself, it is difficult to know how to handle things exactly when your two-year old is in a library reading a book and wants to do nothing other than read books, and I do not feel that it is imperative that I tear him away from that for the sake of mollifying a fellow child, no matter how pretty the dress and beautiful the parade-twirls.

I’m sorry, Young Girl, he likes his books. And I understand.

House

I point out a house as we’re driving by and casually state that I like it. Hearing nothing, I ask for other opinions. He responds from his five-year old perch in the back:

No. I don’t really like that house we just passed.

Why not? I wonder.

The only house I like is ours.
he says.
I like ours. You can’t exactly make me like other houses.

I’d like to find the unique attributes that make different people and houses beautiful in diverse ways. But it was also…comforting to hear his emphatic statement of affection for our house; the same house where we play soccer amidst the mole hills.

Gratitude

I got a call from out of the clear dark blue from an old friend who’s doing some wonderful illustration work, and she thanked me, in a very specific way, for helping inspire the stylistic direction she’s gone in. I appreciated it very much, and was a great reminder to me of how much it can mean to let people know they’re important to you. Out of the blue.

Books

Berenstain Bears “Show and Tell”
Cave Dada