A Little Barefoot Island Explorer

Reigniting the desire for exploration

Amidst a pretty heavy past few months, we escaped to a somewhat remote island in Fiji for a vacation that had been on the books for an entire year. After a 2 hour drive from San Diego to LAX, an 11-hour overnight flight, followed by a bus ride, a multiple hour-long wait at a hotel, another bus ride, and finally a boat ride, we arrived on Tavarua. The island is so small (and heart-shaped) that it only takes 20 minutes to walk the perimeter. We arrived with a handful of other families, including our friends who have daughters born only weeks apart from C. Upon arriving, I was skeptical about whether the long journey (that obviously coincided with day 1 of my period) was worth it. Quickly, over the course of the week, I watched as C gained confidence in herself, her body, and in her personhood as this island offered her a level of freedom that is hard—if not impossible—to find at home. Her at-homeness in her body allowed her to explore.

I continued to use this word “explore” in my therapy session following our return home. According to my therapist, after ending an engagement at the start of 2020 (right before the pandemic, can you imagine?), I set an intention to explore life. Explore myself, my body, and my personhood. After living so closed for years during that relationship, I wanted to open up my pores, become a sponge. To do this, I needed to become more embodied. I lived inside my brain, my construction of self, and exploring both my inner and outer world required me to step inside my body. I had to return to the childlike state where my body felt novel, where the constructs that framed how I thought about my body disappeared, where I noticed the automatic nature of my body like breathing and digestion and sneezing versus the intentional aspects of my body like stretching, sitting, and carrying.

Had that desire for exploration disappeared over the past five years or had it been submerged beneath the heaviness of to-dos, shoulds, and a lack of attention to myself?

C arrived on the island walking but not quite running. She left only running. She now can spin. On command. And I watch as she topples a bit from dizziness, but doesn’t fall over. She’s lighter on her feet, stumbles less frequently, and can climb. She spoke dozens of words before the island, but now that we’re home, she’s starting to put two words together. Did the magic of the island creep into her bones or did the timing of this trip coincidentally fall within a developmental leap?

This island “magic,” I call it. It not only allowed C to explore her inner and outer worlds, but allowed me to embrace the novelty of her having a body. A similar magic that overcame me after ending my past relationship. It granted me a greater sense of freedom. In the case of motherhood, freedom to set boundaries that were needed to keep her safe alongside the freedom to let go of boundaries I would otherwise set out of convenience or societal norms.

The island “magic” made this easy. Not only were there limited sets of danger on the island so long as C stayed within my line of sight, but the island’s vibe embodied the definition of community. The adults watched out for all children, not just their own. At one point, during a meal, a friend’s daughter climbed on top of a coffee table and four adults ran over to grab her because there was a rock hard sculpture begging for her head. We spoke about how it felt easier to parent when multiple adults were present even if the ratio of kid to parent remained the same. We had just met most of the other families visiting the island, yet they all—and the staff—were watching out for the children. I felt like we were part of a community, of a village.

The island was thousands of miles away from the individualistic, nuclear-family-centric culture at home.

Jonathan Haidt wrote about two types of childhood in The Anxious Generation: the “play-based” childhood that existed before the 1980s and the “phone-based” childhood that emerged in the early 2010s. He argues that overprotection in the real world and undeprotection in the virtual world and major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation. Now, C is not quite digital, but I think one of Haidt’s key reforms can impact those as young as C. Haidt advocates for more independence in the real world. To resore the kind of childhood that was full of exploration, adventure, thrills, and experiences away from parents and the secure home base.

To C, her secure home base is near mama and dada (specifically near dada since we’re in that phase right now). Given that she’s hardly a toddler, we can’t take our eyes off her since she more likely than not will put herself in a gravely dangerous situation involving water or electricity or both. But at home, or at places near home, there are few spaces in which she can explore newness without mama or dada on top of her. But was that about those places or did it have something to do with me?

Each day, I noticed that I followed her less and less. I’d still have eyes on her, but she might be across the restaurant or a ways down a pathway.

C became my little shoeless wild child and I loved it. I witnessed the benefits of truly exploring. How she’d walk ahead of me, stop to smell a flower or pick up a dried leaf from the ground. I witnessed myself let go much more than I was used to. How I wouldn’t jump in, even as she ate a fistful of sand or sat fully clothed in the stone footbath where we’d rinse our sandy feet. My body still remembers what it felt like to stand still, not jump in right away. I feel less on edge, a bit more mellow.

I want to allow the island magic to work its way into my daily life. Good things came after I spent that year exploring post-ending an engagement. I grew into my wholeness.

How can I sustain this energy? Well, yesterday morning, we forgot C’s shoes and she ran around the sidewalks of Encinitas anyway. Two days ago, she put a cracker in her mouth, then put it in Tabor’s mouth, and then she ate it. When she threw up earlier in the week, I comforted her and allowed the vomit to spread all over my top. At the park, she went down the slide alone for the first time.

It’s about recognizing when it’s worth it to hold the boundary, or when the boundary is arbitrary or superficial. It’s about recognizing when the benefits of messiness and exploration outweigh the risk of minor injury. It is our job to protect our children, but it is also our job to give them the tools to be able to learn about the world—their world—themselves, without intervention from us (someone please remind me of this when C is a teenager). It is our job to help create an environment where our children can feel at home in their own bodies. We need to trust them to learn from their mistakes and develop attunement to their inner voice.

So, this week, I invite you to choose to stand aside at least once. Not in a situation involving serious danger, but in a low stakes situation. Observe what happens in your body.

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Thank you for reading!!