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No Fear (Almost) AMC Outdoors, June 1999 By David Brill A couple of decades back, I followed the Raisins, a Cincinnati rock band that never busted the charts but composed a few interesting tunes. One of my favorites, "Fear Is Never Boring," explores the notion that fear and arousal are points along a continuum that begins with somnolence (e.g., "Today's lecture is on the viscosity of crankcase oil") and extends to terror (e.g., "Folks, our 727 just lost both wings, and we're going to set her down nose-first in a cornfield"). Somewhere in between lies the target zone that comprises most outdoor pursuits. If you've ever shot the V in a Class V rapid or dangled on a rope over a 200-foot drop, you know that arousal is a necessary ingredient for adventure — and that applies to both parents and their kids. Strip away all uncertainty and risk, and a life outdoors becomes about as interesting as one spent living in a sterile bubble. But parents who lead their kids into adventurous settings face the added challenge of defining their own comfort levels as well as those of their children. Nothing terrifies a kid more than a parent in the throes of an emotional meltdown. I learned that lesson the hard way a few years back during a family camping trip. We had set up the tent in a clearing in a forest of towering pines, and after depositing our two young daughters, Challen, then six, and Logan, then four, inside for the night, my wife, Susan, and I sat talking by the campfire. A sudden gust surged through the forest, and as we watched, it plucked the dome tent from the ground and sent it rolling through the campground like a large purple tumbleweed, its two hapless passengers trapped inside. Panicked, we dashed off to capture the errant shelter and assess the damage. When I zipped open the door to the now inverted tent and shined my headlamp inside, I saw two small faces peering up at me from a tangle of sleeping bags and Therm-a-Rest® pads. The expressions were sleepy and somewhat placid — I suspect that the girls were wondering why the carnival ride had stopped — until they glimpsed the terror on my face, discerned the tension in my voice, and took their emotional cues from me. Only then did they start to cry. In the years since, we've learned to pack plenty of extra tent stakes and have spent countless blissful days and nights in the wilderness, camping, canoeing, swimming, and exploring, while honoring the unspoken obligation to respect each other's limits and keep our cool. Susan and I are convinced that if we push the kids too far, they'll be telling damning stories about us in group therapy sessions a couple of decades from now. But if we coddle them, maybe they'll grow up to be wallflowers, actuaries, or copywriters who compose warning labels for power tools. We've also learned to defer to the girls to let us know when the trail is too steep, or the wind is too cold, or the current is too swift, or the edge is too near; and we've all accepted the reality that when we enter the outdoors, we face factors that are well beyond our control. When my older daughter, Challen, was barely three months old, Susan and I decided it was time to introduce her to hiking. We set out on a short, three-mile hike with Challen nestled in a Snugli pack on Susan's chest. We reached our destination, a cascading waterfall, and sat on a rock to enjoy lunch in the sunshine. Soon, a menacing cumulonimbus cloud lumbered into view and blocked the sun, and we quickly packed up our gear, donned our Gore-Tex® jackets, and headed back to the car. We weren't a half-mile down the trail when lightning flashed and thunder shook the ground under our feet. Then the clouds opened and poured forth golf-ball-sized hailstones. We broke into a trot as the hail peppered our heads and shoulders, and I wrestled with the notion that Susan and I were guilty of child endangerment in the extreme. Though not a peep issued from the Snugli, I felt the need to execute a quick progeny check. We paused on the trail, and I unzipped Susan's jacket and peered inside. A tiny face greeted me, not with a scowl but a contented smile. And I couldn't help but smile back. Challen was not only okay, she was buoyant. For her, as for all children, being close to Mom and Dad in the woods and sharing in their activities — especially those that set the heart pounding but stop short of fear — is about as good as it gets. —David Brill's first book, As Far as the Eye Can See: Reflections of an Appalachian Trail Hiker (Rutledge Hill Press), was released in paperback in 1996. Brill lives in a three-room cabin in Morgan County, Tenn., where he is working on a book about the value of retreat into nature. |
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