We spent most of the weekend at Walden Pond, enjoying our first (and maybe only? please not only) real glimpse of summer weather. I took about 400 photos, 30 of which are up over at Flickr. Because I could not bear to withhold from all y’all the cuteness of Serena throwing a rock in the water, or building a sandcastle.
The one cute photo I did withhold is the one of her five minutes of freedom, where she goes tearing through the waves naked with her arms out in true B-movie monster style, destroying every sandcastle in her wake. It was a great five minutes, cut short when the Even Bigger Sea Monster (aka lifeguard) came over and told her she was breaking an obscenity law and had to put her bathing suit back on.
Really people, she is not-quite-two years old. She weighs 30 pounds. By volume, she was showing less ass than the teenagers in string bikinis sunning themselves next to us.
I am too tired, and too enthralled with the beauty of the water and the child to really get my own knickers in a twist about this, but it makes me want to cry.
What difference is it really if she goes naked or wears her Strawberry Shortcake swimsuit? I think Thoreau would have understood the difference, and I’m pretty sure the trees do. We lose a little bit of the precious Wild when we insist on clothing for the little innocents who still live in their personal Edens. I think the illusion of safety we buy with that sacrifice is a cheap trade, and I don’t want it.
When we go camping in a few weeks at a private lakeshore spot, I will not be packing her swimsuit.
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