In Search of Exploration

For children, exploration is a default setting. As writer, blogger and literary critic Maria Popova points out, “it is often said that we are born scientists — naturally curious, tickled rather than daunted by the unknown, unafraid to experiment and to stumble in learning the world.” Children love to ask questions, throw themselves into new experiences, and explore the unknown. It’s the core of being a child. Whether living in the country or the city, exploration during the childhood years is a given.

When I was a kid growing up in the Thracian valley of Bulgaria, south of the Balkan mountains, a street flanked by eight two-story houses--five on one side and three on the other--represented my world. Not far from my house, a patch of linden trees marked the border of my small world and happened to be the place of many adventures. When the linden trees bloomed, heavy with bunches of fragrant yellow flowers, we climbed up to pick some under the watchful eyes of our grandmothers, who would use the flowers for tea in the winter.

On summer days, carefree and unbothered by homework, my neighborhood friends and I would come outside and play hopscotch, dodgeball, or hide and seek well into the night. And as night descended upon us, we would flock together on the low, wooden benches in front of our houses and turn into space explorers, gazing at the bright stars, challenging our knowledge on Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to have travelled into space. On occasion, we would catch lightning bugs and glue them to our sweaty foreheads, pretending to be planes crossing the dark sky.

One such summer, my cousin Mitko broke his leg and had to spend forty-five days in a cast, waiting for the broken bones to heal. Fully aware of my constant search for adventure, my aunt suggested I stay at her house to both keep my cousin company and experience a different part of our village. I agreed, of course. Cousin Mitko, three years older than me, was a natural troublemaker, hyperactive and always leading the charge to do something he wasn’t supposed to do. Staying with him for a month and a half, I knew, would quench my thirst for adventure beyond any book I had read at that time.

The next day, my mother walked me to my aunt’s house, just around the corner from my street. Yes, my aunt lived exactly one kilometer away from us and the journey took about ten minutes. And although I had completed this very trip many times before--to visit my aunt and other family members--on that day, I sauntered next to my mother, wide-eyed and smiling, seeing anew the main road splitting the village in two almost equal parts, the main road leading to a new world, not unlike the rabbit hole Alice fell into. On that day, I was an explorer venturing out into unknown territory, not a child visiting her aunt and cousins.

I knew I would miss my neighborhood friends but was ready for the excitement the new location would bring. During the forty-five days at my aunt’s, I played in a new area of the village with different children. Many of them were in my class and definitely in my school as there was only one school in the small village, yet it felt as if I had traveled far. In my eyes, I had encountered a new civilization with their own culture, customs, and way of life.

After spending my days as a second in charge in the imaginary battles cousin Mitko fought with his toy soldiers, dusk couldn’t come soon enough for us to join the neighborhood kids outside. My cousin’s neighborhood lacked a bright green patch of linden trees, but it did offer a large, flat empty area where children would gather every night.

On one such night, cousin Mitko hobbled over to the play area with me by his side. As soon as we left the house, a pungent smell and the loud voices of his friends suggested the possibility for an unusual experience. As we approached, we noticed the dancing orange flames of a bonfire, right in the middle of the empty area. My heart started racing. Up until a year ago, I had had regular nightmares of my house catching on fire and as soon as I saw the bright glow, I tuned out and immediately felt the need to go right back to the house.

“Come on! Why are you stopping?” Mitko’s voice echoed in the quiet of my mind. I didn’t realize I had stopped at the corner of the empty field, staring at the fire. In that moment, I had a choice. I could go back or I could face my fear. Then I tuned in and heard roars of laughter coming from my cousin’s friends, sitting on logs around the fire. Nothing to be afraid of if they were laughing that much, right?

I ran to catch up to my cousin who had already reached the circle around the fire and joined in on the laughter. As I got near, I noticed the fire wasn’t even that big and the smile on each child’s face glowed even brighter than the fire. I sat next to my cousin, just as Ivan, my cousin’s classmate, started telling a story of his fishing trip with his grandfather. That first experience listening to stories around the fire in my cousin’s neighborhood engendered my love of camping trips, storytelling, and adventure.

Reflecting on my childhood, I realize how every activity, from the most basic to the most significant, represented an opportunity to spark--literally, in the case of the bonfire in my cousin’s neighborhood--the thrill of exploration. Nowadays, when I go back to the small village of my childhood, it’s through the eyes of my cousin Mitko’s two daughters, ages 6 and 2, that I transport myself to the excitement of my childhood years, full of wonder, exploration, and imagination.

The last time I visited, I walked over to my aunt’s house and Martina, my cousin’s older daughter, welcomed me at the gate. Before I had even greeted her, she grabbed my hand and pulled me inside the yard. “Quickly! Quickly! I want to show you something.” Next thing I know, I was in the midst of a grand tour of all the bounty my aunt’s garden had produced. It was hard not to feel excited for the cherry tomatoes when Martina, the garden explorer, explained we had to wait for them to be just the right color red before we could pick them. What looked like a simple veggie garden to an outside observer had been transformed into a place of stories and wonder. And then and there, I became an explorer again.