My best friend Deneb just returned from climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. She is now full of tales of mountain lions and zebras and that special light they have in Africa. Just a year ago she spent a month at sea, sailing to Hawaii with two strangers. Each winter she lives for three months on a snowy Utah mountaintop trapping birds for scientific study. And what am I doing while she is doing all that? Painting pictures. Cooking meals. Doing laundry. Feeding the cats. Getting the mail. Writing this blog. Jeeez, what a loser I am!
Okay, so adventure is not my strong suit, but I do make a mean cheesecake. Still, I look for some excitement that goes beyond the hiking, biking and kayaking so readily available here in Maine. Shall I take up hunting? Too mean-spirited. Hmmmm, what to do, what to do, to transcend the everyday? Apparently I am not alone in this desire; a "YouTube challenge" currently popular with young people involves applying salt and ice to various body parts until the pain becomes intolerable or the skin falls off, whichever comes first. Somehow that doesn't speak to me.
So, determined to do something exciting to enliven my obituary--which according to a friend who just completed hospice training, we should all have ready in a drawer somewhere--I investigated the possibility of spending a year on Monhegan Island. After reading about the inevitable hardships--no town water in winter, wind and ice storms every few weeks-- I downgraded to just a month in the fall. But after learning there is no doctor on the island, which is 10 miles and 75 minutes by boat from the mainland, I abandoned that plan in deference to my wildly fluctuating blood pressure and slowly disintegrating hip.
There is still time; anything could happen. After all, I've already seen that movie three times--the one about the old people retiring to India. Besides, who doesn't like cheesecake?
My husband of four years and I decided at the get-go to make life an adventure. Three weeks after our first date was a surprise roadtrip from Nashville to Mrytle Beach to NYC. We bicycled 550 miles last August. We now live full time in a motorhome. We can have all the adventures we want and I can still bake my cookies and bread!
ReplyDeleteThe "adventure" part for us is meeting and talking with as many different people as possible.
Alexandra, turn that motor home towards Maine and come visit. You sound like someone I want to know better!
DeleteI was disappointed when I discovered that Hawkeye Pierce's Crabapple Cove, ME, wasn't real, so I had written the state off all together. I may have to change my mind. ^_^
DeleteI love it when you call me your best friend. and I wish I could paint. and write.
ReplyDelete