When out on a dog walk, one of my children asked me, why do dandelions stain your hands and why is their sap so sticky? Both spent the walk enjoying firing ‘nature’s bombs’ at each other – the seed heads of plantains, which they had tied up with their own stem to form a sort of catapult with which to fire the seeds at each other. It made me pause to think – what little details do you remember about interacting with nature as a child?
As an adult, forever busy, it’s easy to forget about the sticky sap of the dandelion and the brown stains it leaves after you’ve blown the ‘dandelion clock’ seeds away to tell the (definitely 100% accurate) time. Childhood allows for more messing about and finding out by experience - and being out and about in nature makes for a pure and plastic-free, eco-friendly experience. Perhaps you remember the helicopters of the sycamore seeds – once marvellous fun and now, perhaps, with your grown-up hat on, something to avoid for fear of those dreaded seedlings sprouting up all over the lawn! What about the wild wheat ‘arrows’ which are great to throw at your sibling or friend, and annoying to extract from your hair! What about the sticky ‘little friends’ green seed balls that were fun to pick one by one from your clothes after a walk through a field – when you weren’t worrying about them getting in the dog’s fur or the cat bringing home a tick from the long grass.
So this summer, why not remember nature as you saw it through your childhood eyes. Catch yourself a grasshopper, just for the joy of looking at it for a millisecond before it springs away, as if pinged up on invisible elastic; pull the seeds from the grass, only for the feel of it in your hands and the fun of seeing them disperse on the wind. Pick up a crow’s feather and remember that it’s not just black, as tilting it reveals its iridescence in the sunshine, or stop to look for the unreal blue of the damsel flies, resting momentarily on the river weed. It only takes a moment – and it could be a moment well spent.
Photo by Vitolda Klein
