On the Coast – Families Issue 100 I June/July 2019 | Page 27

flute of thin clay, curved and exquisite,
like the end of a wind instrument, or
a tiny listening device for the hard of
hearing from yesteryear. Curving around
its circumference, tiny ridges, where
she’s gently sculpted each new part,
each curve. This is the work of a master
sculptor. The attention to detail isn’t just
mechanical, we see a heart at work.
Her drone precedes her as she
returns, and she parks in the air beside
us, waiting – we haven’t moved back
fast enough, are blocking her way. She
has every right to honk some kind of
waspy horn at us, but seems patient.
We step back respectfully. In her strong
looking jaws is a perfect ball of mud. For
this, in Australia, we know her kind as
mud-daubers, and she flies in now to
show us how it’s done, wandering over
her pottery creation, checking different
angles with eyes and feet. Finding the
right spot, she deposits the ball, pats and
licks it into place. There’s a lot of balls in
the construction, that’s a lot of patience
– searching out the right puddle, making
a ball, flying back, sculpting. In England
they’re called potters, these little people,
their signature handiwork there being
more like a tiny smooth vase. What she’s
known by here in Darkinjung country
I don’t know, but her cousins in Guinea,
Africa, in a place sung as Kissidougou,
are kinkindia.
How long are we there? Long enough
to see her bring green spiders, climb
down that flutey entrance, and deposit
them – we know – in a chamber inside.
Stunned prey, ready for her hatching
babies.
We visit her work often. We know
she’ll be finished for the year when
she eats that entrance, recycling the
clay into a sealed entrance. I watch her
sometimes on my own; sometimes I
watch my daughter watching her. Both
occupy the same neighbourhood – wasp
and daughter. This particular wasp, this
particular girl.
In a place full of such astonishing
particulars.
Richard Louv’s book, The Last Child in
the Woods, made the essential case for
kids and nature, which has since been
shown and proven and known: kids need
nature. Stressed? Go outside. Crying baby?
Carry her outside. Sky and leaves and
wind are as essential as a parent’s face.
Motor skills, focus, calmness, creativity,
ingenuity. It’s all there in the workshop,
the funschool, outside the door.
Here’s a thought: maybe nature needs
kids, too. Maybe it’s a kind of symbiosis.
Maybe when we, big kids and small, step
out with no particular goal, with curiosity
stitched to our feet like Peter Pan’s
shadow, cavorting and cartwheeling,
maybe we’re already in another country,
a few steps and you’re in. Maybe we were
heading on a long walk, my daughter and
I, maybe we had meant to visit the
chickens. But wonder is everywhere, and
curiosity is like a goofy bloodhound.
Where childhood
and nature meet is
the place where the
magic doors
are left open...
Researchers are now telling us, too,
that curiosity is the driver of creativity,
of lateral thinking, of problem solving, of
self confidence and resilience. Therapy so
valuable none of us could afford it. A two
step thing: outside; and wow (quiet or
loud, it doesn’t matter).
Magpie calls, spiderwebs, strange
caterpillars, curious letterboxes and
friendly neighbours. Strange frog songs.
Stars.
Meandering, exploring, scouting,
dawdling, taking a gander, having a
mosey, even the words spring up like
vagabond verbs. Coddiwaddle. Who
wouldn’t want to do that?
Where childhood and nature meet is
the place where the magic doors are left
open, the fences unbuilt, the fantastical
at the tip of the imagination; a spirit
of curiosity and wonder, a spurning of
boxes to be ticked, of expediency. These
may be the very things we need for a
new, kind and inventive future. And
they’re right there where we are.
Just saying.
Peter Shepherd facilitates the Heart & Place creative writing courses on the Central Coast and beyond.
He and his wife own The Book Forest in Niagara Park.
JUNE/JULY – ISSUE 100
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