Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Daydreaming, Part 2: Adventure

One time, I sailed as a deckhand from England to the Canary Islands on a tall ship. It took about a month, and we had to cross the Bay of Biscay, otherwise known as the "Bay of Sickbay" because of its stomach-lurching effects.


It was a really amazing trip - one of the biggest adventures I'll ever have, I'm sure. Things I best remember: drinking hot chocolate on the deck at midnight when I wasn't on watch, the brightness and density of the stars over the pitch black ocean, getting chased down the hall by a misplaced vacuum cleaner during a gale-force storm (one of two we experienced), getting hit so hard by a wave during the middle of the night that the water rushed into my Wellies and soaked everything I was wearing, learning to tie knots and stow rope, climbing up to the top of the main mast (terrifying), the weird things the British cook made us for breakfast and dinner.

It was pretty fantastic. I think I was happy and focused for 99.99% of that trip. Except that one time when the first mate yelled at me for not tying up a tarp as taut as it needed to be. Oh, and the time the cook made us eat hard-boiled eggs wrapped in stuffing and cornflakes. That was weird.


I love what I am doing now because I still get to have adventures. I get to spend time in the middle of nowhere and hike around for days on end. I get to travel. Sometimes I get to see places that I couldn't see as a tourist, simply because my studies give me a kind of "all access pass." I get to eat food cooked over a campfire. Every now and then I do things that don't seem very safe at all, which I both hate and love. Usually, at least one odd and unsettling (but ultimately harmless) thing happens on every adventure, and it makes for a good story later on.

And then I get to come home, be a mom, hang out with my kid and husband, go to school, work out, clean my house, go to the grocery store, fret over the balance in the checking account, and make dinner. All that is an adventure, too.

What are some of the adventurous things you do, either in your everyday life or once in a blue moon? What are the things that make your life awesome, that give you meaning, purpose, memories, adrenaline?

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