Byline: Dan Szczesny

O P I N I O N When I was about nine or ten, not too much older than my

“Daddy…” My daughter was frozen in place, a tiny Indiana Jones unable to comprehend the wonders in front of her eyes – like those old adventure movies where the explorer stumbles into an ancient cave, stacked with gold and diamonds. “Daddy, what do we do?”

Now, it’s time to walk away from one style of writing and toward another.

“I can’t do it!” My daughter is shouting from the playground. I look up to discover her hanging nearly upside down from one of the metal spider web domes, vainly trying to right herself. But before I can leap up, two other kids come over and boost her up. Crisis averted. My services, unneeded.

I’m lying to my child. There, I said it. And it’s about something important. I don’t feel guilty about it either. Maybe I should explain.

O P I N I O N Up on the old dam, the roll of thunder bursts into a flash

My daughter reads while she swings, a book called “Town is by the Sea.” In the book, the young protagonist speaks to the reader about his home and his town. “It goes like this…” he says, a miner’s son, going to the store for milk, playing on the slide. In the background of his life, the sea is always shimmering, as the sea does. As the summer does. As life in the backyard does.

There’s that moment in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones reverts cleanly back into his archeologist-archetype and is standing at the edge of his dig site as his friends work below – completely oblivious to the fact that he’s in the midst of his enemies and is in danger.

She doesn’t wait for permission to get dirty on trips such as this anymore because she understands that getting dirty is why we’re here. In my day pack, I carry a packet of wet wipes, a towel and an extra pair of socks for both of us. My wife and I have raised our daughter to accept the natural world not as a brief interlude or vacation, not as something that is special and happens occasionally, but rather as a part of everyday living. And life can be messy. Therefore, nature is messy – and never so messy than during mud season.