Reading: Last Child in the Woods

I've been reading Last Child in the Woods. The author argues that many social and physical problems can be traced to our decreasing regular, intense experience of nature. It makes me wonder if we get outside enough. We walk regularly to work and in the evenings and on free afternoons with Peter, and we do spend time digging in the garden, but we don't have opportunities for the long days of outdoor play that I experienced growing up: days when I'd leave the house after an early breakfast, and come in just for lunch and supper, both times tired and dirty. We are lucky to live near a park, but it pales in comparison to my grandparents' farm and the surrounding countryside that was my range when I was small. The waterfowl park has boardwalks and railings to keep people in, ostensibly to protect nature, but also to keep our feet dry and our faces and legs free from nicks and bruises. It is a zoo of a park. We also live near the shore, several shores, in fact: Silver Lake, which is very close and good for swimming; Cumberland Basin, which is edged by walkable dykes and mussel beds; Shepody Bay, where we lived on Dorchester Cape before Peter was born; and the Northumberland Strait, about half an hour's drive, but eminently beachly and worth the time in the car. I suppose that when Peter is bigger, he'll discover the wild unkept edges of the waterfowl park a minute from our door, and perhaps if he still notices the outside when he's bigger than that, the paths to Silver Lake and the dykes. I hope these will be more than beer-drinking places for his generation.