A Simple Joy

Growing up, we caught the sun, grabbed a bite, got outside, seldom stayed in, even on bad days. Life was an adventure. Thinking we had control, we exercised it. These days, adventure is a lost art, “getting out” a simple joy we should restart.

After supper, we would be excused from the table, finish chores, bring in wood, play, walk, wonder, feed the rabbits, borrow the car, and take in the stars.

No mystery in it, none at all, just stuff we all knew and liked, discoveries awaiting us. We loved the outdoors and made good use of it in every season.

Winters we built up snow forts and snowmen, tunneled in snowbanks, threw snowballs, then threw ourselves down hills on sleds, skated, ice permitting.

Springs were for finding what winter left behind, lots of mud, a paradise in puddles, learning to smell things, watching animals play, and planting in the day.

Summers were about that wonderful warmth, indulging dreams, damming up little streams, work but exploration, time at the lake, sand between our toes, hiking, swimming, carving a feather stick, learning a skill, doing what you will.

Fall, with school and all, was – for me – back to discipline, wood cutting, stacking, lugging, running on the team, followed by those crisp, stiff-armed walks, leaves turning, needing raking, things to be done, not forsaking fun.

While the rites and rituals change, this “getting out” stuff stuck. When my kids grew, they did it too – ran around, cycled, played, did chores and homework, but had fun cycling, scouting, climbing a tree or fence, and learning confidence.

So many stories now come flooding back, reminding me of what we should not forget, the raw joy, simple power, great uplift, and goodness of “getting out.”

For some reason, one story caught me came back to me today, an evening walking with my then young son, five or six, in a full moon, his eyes wide, everything warm – not this season, not a wintry one, but one soon to come.

Unexpectedly yet calmly, as if he had seen a frog jump, he departed the path and headed resolutely across a big patch of moonlit grass. Things being unhurried, I let him go, watched his little legs stride the lighted meadow.

After a minute, he came back and rejoined me, and we walked on. “What did you see over there?” I wondered aloud. He never missed a step, never turned his head. “I just wanted a closer look at the moon,” he confided. True story.

That reminds me of Robert Frost, who loved evening walks as much as any New England soul ever did – or any free soul anywhere.  Many of Frost’s poems are well-known. A lesser one is called “The Freedom of the Moon.” Written in 1928, it is about freedom, imagination, and what happens when “getting out.”

“I’ve tried the new moon tilted in the air
Above a hazy tree-and-farmhouse cluster
As you might try a jewel in your hair.
I’ve tried it fine with little breadth of luster,
Alone, or in one ornament combining
With one first-water start almost shining.

I put it shining anywhere I please.
By walking slowly on some evening later,
I’ve pulled it from a crate of crooked trees,
And brought it over glossy water, greater,
And dropped it in, and seen the image wallow,
The color run, all sorts of wonder follow.”

Who among us has not done that, played with the moon, reveling in its freedom and ours, returning for just a moment to childhood? This, too, is a forgotten benefit, known as a boy. Life is still an adventure, and “getting out” is still a joy.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!