The Days When My Kids Weren’t Allowed Outside

It wasn’t until my children were no longer allowed to go outside that I really began to appreciate nature.

 It was March 2020, and we were living in the Colombian Andes. When the COVID-19 pandemic began to take hold in China and in Italy and in Spain, we watched. And then one day, our city’s mayor announced that we were going to undergo a 72-hour lockdown “drill.” For 72 hours, we would practice being locked down in our homes so that we’d be prepared to do so when the real lockdown was necessary. 

 So for three days, my spouse and I were allowed to venture out one at a time to grocery shop or to go to the doctor. Our children were not allowed to leave our apartment—at all. 

 Colombia is not the United States and so we were not surprised when, a few hours before this “drill” was set to end, the mayor informed us we were going to remain in lockdown—real lockdown—for three weeks. COVID hadn’t actually entered Colombia yet, but the government wanted to make sure it didn’t. [Spoiler: Neither the lockdown, nor the closing of the borders that happened at the same time, managed to keep COVID out.]

 As an American, I bristled. As a mother, I seethed. How could they forbid my children from taking even a walk around the block for three weeks? 

 If I couldn’t get them outside, at least I could nourish them. We stopped eating refined sugar and I coped by making raw date and almond tarts, from-scratch bagels and homemade vegan sushi. My children coped by doing Zoom soccer drills and Zoom piano lessons and Zoom ballet classes. As the days dragged on, I became increasingly stir-crazy on their behalf. These were kids who were accustomed to taking nature walks every day, to examining ant trails and collecting moss and building stick teepees, and who were now stuck behind glass like zoo animals.

 So we waited. When the lockdown didn’t end, we decided to get on one of the Fort Lauderdale-bound emergency evacuation flights the U.S. Embassy had organized for American citizens. And the first thing we did after dropping off our suitcases at the hotel was take a walk outside.

 We found a deserted nature trail nearby and set off to enjoy the rustling of the trees, the birdsong, and the gamboling of the little trailside creek as it ran its way through the wood. And we breathed in the fresh air and reveled in the wonder of existing in creation. It felt very much like a right that should be inalienable—and that I still believe is inalienable.

 People are meant to be outdoors. Sometimes we feel like we don’t have time for it, and sometimes the weather isn’t enticing—and we’re not all made for roughing it. But we belong in nature. Whenever I forget that, I remember the days that my kids weren’t allowed outside, and I bundle myself up and head out to enjoy it.