Our Family In Tents

Jada is really getting into drawing. All of her productions have something in common: she always draws me, Amy, Aaron, herself, and her dolly. The only things that change are our setting and activity: sometimes we're downtown, and sometimes we're at home.

One common setting of late is that we're all inside a tent and it's raining. Now, Jada is about as urban as they come: she lives in a big city, walks and rides the subway everywhere, and has never been out in the wilderness in her entire life. And yet, somehow she is able to conjure up images of the five of us inside a tent in the great outdoors.

The closest she's gotten to nature has been our annual excursions to a retreat site for our church's fall retreat. It is a very wooded area with a big lake, and we stay four to a room in a hotel-like structure. I think she has connoted those close proximities - after all, in our regular life, we are spread out in a big house - with a coziness that she has good memories about.

I wonder if, one day, we ever did go camping, if she would actually like roughing it, four to a tent in the middle of wilderness. Until then, she'll have her drawings and her imagination.