Is sitting silently becoming a lost art?

Of all the things I’ve taught kids about living in the outdoors for a few days — tying knots, marking trails, packing prudently — I never knew I was skipping the two most fundamental lessons.

Be comfortable with your thoughts.

Be present with your tentmates in mind and spirit.

The omission came hurtling home on a camping trip with extended family last week in the San Bernardino National Forest a couple hours east of Los Angeles when I tried to round up the smallest kids for a rare treat. Despite the ban on open flames in most of the hot, tinder-dry mountains of the area, campfires were welcome where we’d set up my parents’ RV and pitched a tent.

The fire was crackling, but the kids wouldn’t come. They’d started “Brave” for the second time that day, and in their young judgment a replay of a fictional child’s outdoor adventures easily beat whatever was in store in our clearing under the stars.

I did talk them outside and they loved the night’s story — a favorite that brings a “Was that true?” from at least one kid at every telling — but then they asked if they could get back to the rerun.

“You gotta be kidding!” I answered.

I explained that one of the best things about camping is sitting beside the fire after a story, whiling away the night in the long conversations and sweet silence that are so rare in our lives.

I think some of the kids didn’t even have an idea what I was talking about. All the adults held firm on keeping the TV off for the night, though, and the kids chose bed over the campfire.

I actually don’t think it was ever really a choice for some of them. They’re smothered with so much loving indulgence at my parents’ house— a house where my brother and I had to carefully allot our one hour of TV a day, but where these days shows the kids might like are playing most of the time they’re awake — that I worry they’re not learning how to find pleasure sharing or mulling over quiet ideas.

Some of them simply don’t know how to sit around a campfire, how to follow happily wandering thoughts for long.

They’re skills that never had a chance to grow under the shadow of the TV and all the little screens full of apps.

So the kids scurried off from the fire ring for their bunks and sleeping bags. My folks followed them in a bit, indulging them a little more in that grandparents’ love. They spoil their grandkids, but that’s as it should be. The hard work of nudging new people to responsibly take their places in the world is finished for them, and it’s the job of us parents, not them, to instill discipline and all that drudgery in their lives.

I have a few more days with this group of kids, and I know the lessons we need to work on.

They’re in for a few drives that we’ll fill with conversation. They’re looking forward to making some survival bracelets, when I know the repetitive fingerwork will leave their minds free to roam. We’ll have a few more long walks around the neighborhood where I’ll hear about their friends and their sports.

And maybe next year I won’t have to drag them out to the fire. Maybe they’ll come with their own stories. Maybe they’ll hear the coyotes call and ask how close they are, look up at the stars and wonder how long it would take to reach one.

If they’re real lucky maybe by then they’ll know how to stare silently into the fire pit, watching the ghosts of flames lap the edge of the coals as the wood burns down to pulsing embers, lost in their own precious thoughts.

Richard Espinoza is a former editor of the Johnson County Neighborhood News. You can reach him at respinozakc@yahoo.com.

This story was originally published July 28, 2016 at 4:34 PM with the headline "Is sitting silently becoming a lost art?."