We are exploring the trail, this unbeaten path to the unknown, he and I. It’s a path I’ve taken before, but all is fresh and new through his eyes. The wind is biting, trying to cut through the cloth of our sweatshirts. We both burrow deeper into our hoods, and keep our eyes open. Open to the wonders of this world.
“Mommy, look! This stick looks like a cane! Look, I’m an old man.” He totters towards me, on young limbs suddenly stiff with age and consequence. His arm holding the “cane” shakes, and he grabs his back with the other hand. I laugh at his antics.
We are well out of sight of the car, and our link to the modern world. On this path, we hunt for the elusive wood sprite, the crusty gnome, the glittering fairies.
“I found a rock. It looks like a crystal.” He shows me a piece of quartz, plain and unassuming on one side, translucent and veined on the other.
“Its pretty. Are you going to keep it?” I can’t help smiling at his enthusiasm.
“Yeah, its going in my collection.” He slips the rock into his pocket, eyes already scanning the ground for more.
We reach the lake. The water ripples in the wind, flowing in all directions. The wind can’t make up its mind which way to push, which way to pull. It pushes us forward.
He toes the edge of the water, and I remind him to keep his feet dry. Very unexplorer-like of me. He looks for flat rocks to skip. I sit on a fallen log, and inhale.
I remember going on walks like this with my Grandpa. He’d wake up very early, and he’d try to sneak out of the house before anyone else woke up. Out of sheer determination to accompany him was I able to wake up in time to catch him. We wouldn’t speak, but would travel along the same path every time, a path that led into the woodsy area of a neighborhood park by his home.
I remember the rock collecting, the tree climbing, the critter sightings. But what I remember the most is when we’d stop. I would perch on a rock, and watch as my Grandpa would go through the motions of what I now realize was Tai Chi. I remember holding my breath as I watched him flow smoothly from one pose to another, never seeming to fully stop. His limbs seemed to pour themselves into the next movement, and the concentration in his eyes spoke of a much younger man than his seventy-two years. He was still in his heart and mind, controlled in the movement of his body. It was beautiful.
When he finished, we would walk back along the same path, me chattering away, Grandpa listening and nodding, admiring my finds of rocks and sticks and leaves. He was once again my dear Japanese grandpa, the fluid man of the woods left behind.
I watch my son scamper along the shore of the lake, digging holes and writing his name in the sand with sticks, and trying to double the amount of rocks at the bottom of the lake.
I’ve tried to teach him how to enjoy moments like these. Moments without the distractions of the world all vying for our attention. Moments when we can stop and just breathe. Moments to be still.
Perhaps, as I did not understand the movements my Grandpa made until I was an adult, my son will not understand what I am trying to teach him until that time when he needs that silence, that space to breathe. But he’ll remember the rocks, and the sticks, and the sand. And then when he needs to, he’ll understand.
