“On your mark, get set, go!” my son called out to me as I stood in a slightly bent position in anticipation of an obstacle course he had just created along a pier. The calm river was my audience.
This activity took place last weekend after Caleb and I rode our bikes a few miles to a lovely boardwalk and pier that overlooks the St. Johns River. This new nature haven of mine is located so close to home, yet I just learned about it when my neighbor and I were out walking the day before my adventure with Caleb.
After Caleb and I peddled across the pier shown in the picture, he hopped off his bike and said, “I’ve got to explore” as he began browsing the many sections of the pier while noticing lots of spider webs.
Because the location is such a perfect spot for doing yoga, I suggested we do that, to which Caleb replied: “All you want to do is yoga,” assuming I was merely talking about some general yoga stretches (and I was)! However, it was clear that he wanted to exert tremendous energy right from the get-go! I guess the bike ride to the pier was enough of a warm-up for him.
I, therefore, suggested an obstacle course — (which, as I’m typing, has given me the idea to do Obstacle-course yoga in one of my upcoming
children’s classes or next time we’re out on the pier). Caleb ended up creating the majority of the course after telling me I was lacking imagination at the time. The nerve of him! Does he not realize I was the one who added the component to his obstacle course that turned out to be the most challenging part of all? 🙂
When Caleb demonstrated the course, for one part he hopped up on a bench and ran across it before running down to a plank and hopping across with one foot. “Instead of just running across the bench, let’s jump up like this,” I suggested as I showed how we could hop up on the bench with two feet (which calls for more leg strength) and then jump down and up again, etc. It would turn out to be about five sets of jumps!
It all sounded good at first, but after having to do it five times, well, that ended up being the part of the course that ate up most of my time as Caleb counted, “….five Mississippi, six Mississippi, seven Mississippi….,” and so on. Of course, athletic Caleb could just instantly hop up with two feet, repeating each up-and-down jump five times as if he was simply gulping a glass of water. However, I had to do a little double bounce with my feet prior to each take-off for added momentum. “I knew I should have had more than a few sips of that green smoothie earlier this morning,” I thought as I approached one of the jumps.
Although I didn’t do the jump portion of the obstacle course as quickly as my son (since it was a competition), turns out, that little drill sargeant of mine was still quite impressed with Mommy’s gross motor skills. “Good job,” Sargeant Caleb said to me as he embraced my hand with a high-five upon completing the drills, twice. He ran the obstacle course a few more times than I did….merely out of a desire to set a new record for himself each time.
As we exited the boardwalk on our bikes, I pointed out a tree in the shape of a cross that I had noticed the day before. The moss that hung from it made the tree look as if it was enrobed, and the branches on the top of it were clearly shaped like a crown of thorns. That tree has now become quite special to me.
At “my Jesus tree” I read a poem, aloud, from Maya Angelou’s book, On the Pulse of Morning
“Here root yourselves beside me.
I am that Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.
I, the Rock, I, the River, I, the Tree
I am yours–your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes
Upon this day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.”
Peace & Love,
Penny