#Guy stuck in quicksand full

We’ll lie them out across the mud and hold onto the ends.

“Strip branches from the trees!” he commanded the others. They were just boys and girls - stupid kids like me. No one knew what to do in a situation like this. “You guys need to help me.”įor a minute, they all stared back at me, fear on their faces. What was happening here? Was I going to sink into this stuff and die? It was already up to my thighs!

#Guy stuck in quicksand full

And now my boots were completely full of mud, which just weighed me down even more. There was something about the suction of the mud - I couldn’t lift it up again. It’ll be okay.”Īnd I did use the stick, but it quickly got stuck too. It was like quicksand - and the cold mud had already breached my boots. “Okay, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. My friends gathered on the shore to watch, and I started out across the mud. I put on my rubber boots, and fashioned myself a walking stick from an alder branch. Then one day when I was about twelve, I decided I was going to do it. My friends and I spent a lot of time mucking around this creek, catching fish and frogs, but no one had ever walked across Mud Island. There was one area where the creek slowed down and spread out, and there was a large mudflat in the middle of the water that we kids all very imaginatively called Mud Island. I spent a large percentage of my childhood in that forest - all out of view from or contact with parents or adults, since cellphones hadn’t been invented yet. I grew up in a developing suburb, and the area below our neighborhood was still a vast forest with a creek and a swamp. Well, that and smartphones and social media. Spoiler alert: as someone who was a kid more than thirty years ago, I think most of this anxiety is obviously the “helicopter parent” thing. Lately, psychologists have begun suggesting alternative theories to explain what’s happening in America - like the fact that thirty years ago, the “typical” childhood was radically reimagined to eliminate most “free time.” Now kids are constantly supervised and monitored in an effort to keep them “safe.”īut the counterintuitive result is that American kids are less likely to learn resilience and inner strength - methods for dealing with their own stress and anxiety. The problem with this theory is that Michael and I have spent the last six years traveling the world, to countries far “worse off” than America by almost any objective measure, and people don’t seem nearly so stressed out. Some people say, Well, sure ! Look at everything everyone has to deal with! Covid? Inflation? Trump?! Climate change?!! Meanwhile, their kids are in downright crisis. Apparently, a lot of Americans are currently anxious and depressed.