Nature Deficit Disorder

I took the baby for a long walk yesterday. I felt the need to get out "in nature" - I was reading a book about camping in the Alaskan wilderness, and just wanted to be out somewhere quiet, in the cathedral-like gloom of a forest, with no one else around. The closest I could find was an old closed-off road that goes through a park. Technically pedestrians aren't supposed to go back there but it was the only woodland within walking distance of our apartment. So I headed down the road carrying the baby in the Snugli. Little birds flitted across the path in front of us. The wind shifted the trees overhead, making the patches of shadows dance. I thought about "the need to be versed in country things" and hoped that as we walked she might absorb some of the peacefulness of the setting and somewhere in her subconscious a love for solitude and nature might be sparked.

But five minutes into our walk there were things I couldn't tune out any more. Like the persistent honking of traffic from the highway next to us. And the regular pounding of hammers from a crew of roofers nearby, followed by the buzz of jackhammers from a construction site that we passed a little later. And the glimpses of houses on both sides through the trees. And the strong reek of raw sewage that apparently the city dumps directly into the creek (are they allowed to do that? really?). As the path dipped under an overpass, I saw a couple of orange construction cones and a sign that warned that this was a lead removal area, and that eating and drinking were forbidden. We kept walking, but we couldn't get away from it all. At all. I then began to worry that at this formative stage the baby might learn to associate woodland with the stink of sewage, and would grow up to hate nature.

Maybe we should move to the country. If we can find some place in the country with decent schools, liberal politics, and no confinement agriculture facilities nearby.