Things We Found In the Creek

As we sheltered-in-place in California in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, to keep our three kids busy, we cleaned up a local creek as an impromptu homeschooling project. Each day, we picked up one bag of trash while I taught them every biology fact I could remember from forestry school. I painted outdoors while I could not visit my professional studio. This series is the story of that time and what we learned.

One day, my son looked over my shoulder at my painting and said “Mom, you’re making it look better than it really is.” He’s not wrong - I took out the power lines, the chain link fence, the trash in the creek. I added blue sky, and omitted the intermittent rain. I think we are often guilty of this as parents - we tell our kids the best possible version of events, for the best possible reasons.

It’s April 2020, schools and parks have closed, and my husband and I are scrambling to navigate this unexpected and scary situation, and work with three small children at home. Maybe I am making it seem better than it is, but I still see good things everywhere I look. I am so thankful we are healthy and together, and grateful we have work that is flexible. 

My dad sent me an interesting take on CBC about the classic Winnie the Pooh books being stories about isolation. Learning that AA Milne wrote them for his only child in the aftermath of the 1918 pandemic shifted my perspective of these childhood stories from that of the child to that of the parent. Parenting in a pandemic 100 years later, I wholeheartedly get Milne’s desire to create a safe, imaginary world for his young son, away from the news. This little urban creek became our family’s Hundred Acre Wood.

At first, it was something I was just doing to get the kids out of our little townhouse for a few hours, but something magical happened. I fell into the fantasy as well, as the creek became a respite for us all. I looked forward to picking up trash. I spent hours taking photos of bumblebees and trout. I became highly invested in the wellbeing of a family of ducks. I got totally obsessed with finding the broken pieces of a blue and white bowl - to the point where I was dreaming about it at night - and my kids shouted with joy each time they found a piece. We lived next to this ordinary place for ten years, but had never really looked at it before.

When I shared our creek adventure on Instagram, something even better happened.  People began to send me photos of their own neighbourhood cleanups. After we moved home to Canada, several families took over cleaning up our creek, and one friend sent me the pieces of pottery she found. Someone I know only via Instagram even dug out one of the buried shopping carts and returned it to the store.