LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS

My dad is a marine biologist.  I spent large portions of my childhood living on a nature preserve in Washington's San Juan Islands.  Some of my earliest memories are of wandering alone on the beach naming the driftwood and imagining they were the various family members of a drift wood family known only to me.

Evan's parents were school teachers who ran a family cherry farm in the Summer.  Evan spent much of his childhood in cherry orchards...playing, picking, working the land. 

If you have been fallowing my blog for while, perhaps you remember this post, or this one.  Almost two years ago Evan and I felt strongly directed that we needed to find a way to provide our children with a childhood where they had access to the quiet of being in nature.  We decided that our days in the hustle and bustle of Portland were numbered and we needed land. 

This past year I began reading a book recommended by my friend Kim called "Last Child in the Woods."  It talks about the modern child's struggles with "nature deficit disorder."  I loved every page of the book as it put into words what I already was feeling: that it is getting harder and harder for modern children to have unstructured time in nature.  We live in an age when kids primary contact with grass is on a soccer field, when the idea of little boys using saws and hammers and nails to build their own forts is unheard of.  We live in a time when litigation and regulation and legislation and frankly,  cultural FEAR often have more power over the outdoor play of children than does imagination.

We knew we needed a special place for our kids to grow up.  And so we looked...and looked.  And we worked on getting our credit cleaned up from a two year battle with identity theft.  So here we are...one month away from closing on a house that is the culmination of every prayer and inspired direction from God.

I walked into the back yard and had to catch my breath: enough lawn to have our own soccer game...fruit trees, a playhouse and at the end of the grass a small forest of various evergreen trees just asking for children to come and make believe...our own woods. Here. In the desert of South Central Washington. Our own woods!

Anne in the side yard

cherry and peach trees 

our own woods...

My heart fills with awe and joy when I think of how God lead us to this moment.  After 13 years of marriage, 7 years back in school for Evan's pharmacy training, 18 months living in a tiny rental house, we are finally moving into the home where our children will grow up.  One month from today.

I.

can't.

wait.