4 minute read
LEAVE THE KIDS ALONE
Leave the kids alone. In nature.
BY ELISA SCALAMBRA PHOTOS ANDREA SCHILIRÒ
Suddenly we are under house arrest. In the past, the usual space for socialization had always been an outdoor environment while lately it had become for us the city, the kindergarten, the office, the supermarket, the gym, and mostly other closed places with physical boundaries. But suddenly even those have disappeared as well as the air we breath.
That’s when we learned to live a different life, through a daily relationship with the external environment, being outdoors in a natural way, with a new perspective in seeing, hearing and experiencing spaces. We have always been very close to nature, although we have never denied the opportunities that the city offers us. The weekend has always been a time for us to step outside the boundaries of the walls and open ourselves to the air, wind, sun, rain, snow and more natural environments. As Erri De Luca says “I love trees. They are like us. Roots on the ground and head towards the sky”.
This is why on March 7th, with closed schools and smart working, we leave a Milan shaken by the pandemic reaching Livigno, which we have loved for several years. Once arrived, there comes the lockdown. What to do now? This situation is bigger than us, we are rather helpless, we think about it every night when Achille sleeps and, summing up many questions and attempts to answer, perhaps our most important consideration is this: we cannot choose a safe alternative, we are facing a critical condition that is involving the whole world, we choose what makes us feel alive in this moment, the world, now more than ever, needs positivity and living people.
And so we stay in the mountains for eight months, opening up to the opportunity and giving ourselves the goal of experiencing nature in its multidimensionality, actively participating in this experience, as if it were what was once the race of the season, to make it a unique and authentic school of learning and awareness. Because we have learned that what you do is much more important than what you say, especially if the observer is a child.
Achille, welcome to your new school without borders, with a green floor (after the snow has melted) and a blue sky (sometimes grey or sometimes whitish). And that was the place of his many first times, the first sandwich at 3000m, the first mini trekking with poles, the first snowstorm, the first time he throw stones into the river, the first run on the snow. We put together a box with the memories of the lockdown where we stored what we collected outside our front door, our little experiments and first experiences. Thanks to the good fortune of being in such a place, just 200km away from home, we have a spelling book of crafts and tools. It is a priceless experience, nature is an immensely wise and incredibly unpredictable teacher, it trains us to be flexible, patient, respectful. It teaches that you can go for a walk in a t-shirt with the sun and get to the top facing wind and snow, the only
constant is change and we must be ready to face it and live it with enthusiasm. Nature offers contexts and gives you the opportunity to live and tell experiences.
It is with the same enthusiasm that we listen to Achille telling his grandparents that stones sink while hay and branches float, that from the milk of the cows we get butter that he eats with bread and jam, that the hen makes the egg from which you get the omelette, that the snowcat does not meow.
Nature and even more the mountain is a teacher of life and values, but adults must be ready to welcome this learning, humble and respectful but also open to the experience of the little ones, who throw themselves into the mud even if you have just made them wear new shoes, who touch the earthworms as if they were pastries, who taste the earth as we are used to trying a new food, who put their feet in the icy water of the stream, who roll in the leaves or sit on the ground even if it has just rained. We have the sole task of foreseeing them and dressing them appropriately.It's nice to see how a child experiences nature. So let's let them do it without telling them. We lived eight intense months and it was a very captivating experience, sometimes even difficult, but which allowed us to experience a sense of freedom despite the house arrest of the first months.
We love being outdoor because it is simple but on the other hand complex, dynamic, unpredictable, sometimes wild and at the same time harmonious and rhythmic. It is a tireless teacher for living beings of all ages, for children, adults and even more for parents.
After eight months we made space in the suitcase among sweaters and fleeces to bring back to Milan an awareness that is priceless: immerse yourself in the environment and into nature to learn to observe rather than superficially look. And with astonishment we see Achille trying to lift the pavement of Piazza Gae Aulenti to throw large stones into the fountain to be able to cross it.
