Home: Above the fog, below the snow

Out on the deck playing darts with a young (by my standards) college kid.  Dark closed in, creating a colorful play of light from my patio lamps, and from deep shadows of  silhouetted trees came the sharp yet gravely bark of a fox.   2 more games, which age won, even if by one throw, and my guest was off into the night, to do what college kids do before they go to study abroad, and I was left to ponder.  Fox.  Night.  Kids.  A world that is large and small.  

When I first moved to this area I was a young girl of 5 summers.  My first year of school I would walk down my grandpa's driveway about .5 miles to catch the bus, though quickly I shortened it by taking off through the woods.  But about 2/3's of the way down the hill was a pile of brush pushed to the side of the drive way.  In this pile of brush was a mother fox and her kits.  On my way up the hill in the afternoon, I would stop by this pile, fascinated.  If I stayed still enough, the mother would come out and sit on top, and let her kits come out to play.  And if I was still even longer they would be allowed to come up to me.  But when I moved, a sharp bark would bring them back, and into the pile their little ears, eyes and tails went!     

How time has moved, and how much have I stayed the same little girl and how much has grown from her.   Sometimes, it seems my childhood is like those little kits darting into the dark safety at the warning yip of their ever watchful mother.   

Now, I have kits of my own, and they go farther and farther afield.  So, close to college themselves, and I have to wonder what does the world have now for them, and what has it lost.   At 5/6 I could walk without much fear through the woods to the bus stop, or later ride my bike.  But now, now what?  I see how deeply our lives are confined by fear.  We no longer see the beauty, wonder and simplicity that is actually the majority of our life, we see in most things and experiences the possibility of danger.   We close the door to the passers on the street, for they might be dangerous.  We stay inside, glued to our screens, because upon seeing how dangerous the world is on them, it is not safe to go out side.   YET ...... there among the shadows is a bark that spirals me back into a past ........ when the world was large, perhaps not always kind, but not to be feared.  A world that my family strove in their different ways to prepare me for.  

I have to wonder, have I given my children at least the same level of preparedness?  Will they walk into college, to study at university?  Will they be able to keep and open heart in the face of danger?