The interactions and the lessons of childhood, with nature, between parent and child…translated…
Since the infant can run, the park became a daily going-on, only in the park, can the children find that release for the not-yet released extra energies from school. The park also served as a perfect ending for the day, like that hot cup of coffee with the steams still after supper.
After preschool lets out, as the sun is still on, the set schedule for us is to head over to the local park. As we'd gone back to my parents' in Taichung, right after we put down our bags, the kids had their minds on the parks. Setting up a family trip away, before we set out, we'd made sure, there are the local parks to the hotels we were staying in. As we take the kids to Penghu, they'd not run out to the beaches first, but to the parks, to Chiayi, not to have the turkey over rice, they'd hollered they wanted to go to the parks. The teachers of their preschool asked where they went on the weekends, the kids always answered that we'd taken them to the parks (even if it was raining, and we'd stayed in, but maybe, in his imaginations, he'd been to the, parks already). Park was the center of their lives, the fulcrum of their, worlds; I'm guessing, that even if the kids go to Antarctica, soon as they get off the boat that broke through the ice, they'd, run toward the parks.
But for the ordinary working class, the busyness of work on the calendars, the schedules started building up like those illegally built places, no room for a park, no leisure. The adults in the cities always had too many "to-dos" on their lists, turning on the cell phone, massive information started leaking out and we can't sort through every one, the parks to us, are places with the benches we sat and check our cell phones, to drink the coffees, or time for that cigarette. To the adults, the parks' slow pace needed to have the leisure of mind, it's an extravagance, not a, necessity.
The park is on its own time clock. For instance, at four in the afternoon, when the shifts of the day get switched, the migrant workers who'd brought the elderly they looked after had gone home to prepare the suppers, the parks fell quiet for a short bit, then, welcomed the kids who get out of school right after school was, out.
watch the child, react with wonder, with everything s/he comes across...photo from online
Shortly after four, the preschool lets out, the kids' laughter resonated through the park. The children in the pre-K classes led by the adults (more often it's their mothers, but there would be the grandparents too), leading them, step by step, toward that, slide. The younger infants were situated in the strollers, sucking on the pacifiers, watching kids older than they, play. Those who are even older, those who rode out on the scooters, seemed to have known this place like the backs of their hands, broken out of the field of visions of their adults, and, rammed toward their favorite thing on the playgrounds.
Many of the toddlers let go of their parents hands here, and stumbled, unsteadily, toward so distant place. The parents may feel relieved (finally s/he can play on her/his own), but at the same time, they would feel, a bit of, loss. Oh, that infant that's, clung on to me since birth, the infant that start crying when s/he doesn't see me, already become a toddler who can run off to find her/his own play things.
But, maybe, the care and attention of the parents is for this precise moment of time, so the kids can leave their parents, let go of the parents, and run forward without any sense of worries.
Children who grow up securely attached, are more ready to explore the world, the attachments were for the sake of independence of their separate, futures, metaphorically, the parents' tentatively caring for their young is NOT to keep them close by, but so they can, go of, farther, away.
In the park, the toddlers have their own rules of games they go by. That was from the invention and creations of the very beginning, their taking apart the structures of the world, putting them back together, then taking them apart again. In the eyes of the toddlers, the slides aren't just for sliding down, but a mountain trail to conquer using the arms, legs, hands, and feet, it's also a slope for them to test out just how far that ball can, roll. The tiny playground in the park, offered an assortment of materials, it's the experimental laboratory that introduced children to the world. He'd squatted down, curiously watched the spot made by the sunlight that came through the objects around him, also, observant of the tracks of which the pebbles and the branches fell. He became immersed in things I wasn't aware of, and in a split second, half an hour's passed. His tiny back looked so, focused, made him resembled that scientist from the sixteenth century, high up on that tower, testing out gravity for the very, first time.
Or maybe, every child is, a scientist. They're curious of everything around them, not for the sake of grades, or papers, but intrigued by the world itself. The faster that spinner goes, the branches get thrown out. Letting go from someplace high, the conifer cones would roll farther. They never grow tired of it, repeatedly, experimented on their own, experimental methods. Learning for them, served the purpose of introducing them to the world, not using the words, the papers, the formulas, or the exams they are, taking in class.
The adults who'd been, domesticated by school and education, focuses on the speed of weight, the calculation of gravitational, pull, but children don't care for any of these, their games are, closer to the phenomena themselves—sometimes, I'd feel, that the children tagged along behind us, not just for the sake of safety, but for learning as well. Learned to forget about all the laws, and the rules, using a clearer view, rediscover this, world.
Slowly, I was, affected by the toddler, started loving following him out to the parks, and because I took him to the parks, I'd found, that the parks kept the barely noticeable changes of the city's seasons intact. Springtime, the trail is filled with the cherry blossoms, autumn, the leaves from the trees fell, turned the ground into that carpet of leave that rustled as we trekked across. All of these, almost no one notices, slowly appeared in the parks, and slowly, they, vanished. After having children, the adults discovered, that they'd, failed to note the changes of the seasons too long.
And so, I'd learned, before sunset, to take him to the park to the slides, to watch how his hair gets lifted up by the wind when he is running, dipped in the golden rays of the setting sun; then, under the slowly painted with the colors of the dusk sunset, I'd stood on the bridge, and watch the neon signs come on, counting how many egrets are coming and going, waiting for the world to turn dark together. At first, I'd thought that I was the one, taking him to the parks to play, but later, discovered, that it was him, who'd, led me back to the parks, to allow me to discover the world, see how beautiful the world is, to get in touch with his, world, that's, so very, breathtakingly, beautiful.
So, with this young child, this adult is able to, find her childhood wonder back, she thought she was the one, taking her son to the park to explore, only to realize, that it was him, who'd, reintroduced her back to her, childhood wonders she'd, already, left, behind…
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