Renaissance

As children my parents would force us outside for family walks. Especially in the colder seasons. On special occasions they’d find a whiskey distillery or two to tour, which we hated. Not only was it boring when I was 9, I wasn’t even allowed to taste the whiskey when we were done. Nonetheless, I’m ever grateful they pushed us out the door and into the cold. My sisters and I would leave the house whining about the weather, the fact that we had to wear wellies, that we were going to miss Top of the Pops. We’d return with faces as flushed as red apples, noses streaming and eyes alight. Our legs would ache as we settled down in the dark that night, and our bodies would be tingling all over from the cold and the warm. We felt alive.

I want that for my sons – I want to take them out in the cold and see their cheeks flush and let the leaves and the wind be their play. Let the sea whip around their hair, stinging their ears, as they pretend to be pirates and stab dead jellyfish on the shore as I did with my sisters in winter on the rock pier. Let them run through the woods and climb hills and count more shades of green than you knew existed, even so in winter.

Except we live in North Carolina, not Scotland. I miss Scotland, and the Yorkshire dales, so much sometimes it makes my heart ache and if I give in I could have a good wee cry about it. The wilderness of the dark Island is one that runs in my blood and my children need it in theirs too.

Though today, I took my boys to the Renaissance festival, and as we walked around and heard the old music and watched the knights joust, I began to feel the life stir again in the cold. Walking through the woods at the end of a long day with my children outside, the world began to turn amber with the low sun and set Jonah’s hair alight. And his cheeks flushed and he danced giddily around me and Rohan as we trudged through the mud. And Rohan’s whole body shook with laughter in my arms.

Tonight Jonah is stretched out on a quilt by the open fire and I sit beside him in a low rocker, bare feet on the brick. Our legs ache, our noses stream and our bodies tingle like pins and needles from the cold being licked away by the flames. Life is returning to me deeper than this. He is opening my eyes again – the cloudy season is passing…..Hallelujah

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