Weather or Not...
I’ve been thinking about the weather lately. This weekend, I’ll fly my plane to Atlanta to join my wife at a fitness event where she's a presenter. When you pilot a small plane, the chances that weather may ground you are higher than when you travel commercially, and we all know how much weather can affect commercial flights. Anyone who has slept overnight in an airport knows this fact too well.
So I’ve been eyeing the forecasts, analyzing what the weather systems may do. But all this weather watching has led me to a paradoxical question:
Why is it when we were kids, we spent hours upon hours outdoors and rarely thought about the weather, while as adults, we spend the majority of time indoors and obsess over it?
I think I know the answer. It’s not only making me rethink how I deal with travel arrangements but life as well.
As kids, we lived in the present, accepting life as it arrived. Did we worry on Monday that it may rain on Saturday? No. We were light-hearted and happy anyway. If a storm came, we dealt with it, finding something to do inside while stealing glances at the windows where the rain pelted the glass. But once the rain lifted and the sun poked through the thin spots in the clouds, we bolted outside, jumping off our porches even as the roof eaves still dripped water. Compare that to what we do now as adults: We study the weather days in advance. We concoct what-ifs. We double-check. We make contingency plans. In other words, we worry, and we’ve made it high art.
When I was eleven and lived in a rural area of North Carolina, my friends and I would dash out early on Saturday mornings to explore the mystical woods behind our houses. We built forts, shinnied up trees, romped through clearings, leaped creeks. Not once do I recall watching the forecast to learn if the weather was going to cooperate. Yes, I had a safety net called “mom” who wouldn’t let me go if rain poured outside, but if the weather wasn’t bad, then the vast universe behind the house was fair game. If a rainstorm caught us by surprise after we left the houses, we ducked under the massive canopy of a willing oak. If the winds whipped up and thunder boomed nearby, we hightailed to a neighboring farm and huddled in a dark barn, mesmerized by the rain outside the open hayloft doors as it slanted down. Whatever happened, we dealt with it, never worrying about the what-ifs beforehand.
I realize planning is important as an adult. But I long for the old days when it didn’t take priority. I miss setting off into the world unaware of what the day may bring. I miss the discoveries made on those spontaneous jaunts, most rich treasures of kid-dom: ancient arrowheads we imagined dropping charging bears—sun-bleached bones surely belonging to fierce dinosaurs—remnants of stone walls by creeksides that we knew had been the base of a castle drawbridge used to shut off invading marauders.
This is why I’m relaxing about what the weather may bring for my Atlanta trip. If it’s bad, I will not fly myself. My mom won’t let me.
Instead, I’ll find a commercial flight, or maybe set off on a longer adventure and drive. Because if I drive, then I can pull over along the way and stomp through the woods for old time’s sake, scouring the ground for long-forgotten arrowheads, massive dinosaur bones, and ancient castle ruins.
