Tag Archives: adventure

Little by Little

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“Old age” comes little by little, I think –
little surrenders of who we are
to the experts and authorities,
to convenience and comfort –
someone tells us we need to stay out
of the sun, to eat only certain foods,
to travel only at the right times
and to the right places,
and to wash our hands after every
handshake and human touch –
and we listen and obey.

And so we spend our days in “preventative”
exams – counting the pills into our trays –
hoping to increase the number of our days.
And little by little we relinquish
the small pleasures that make life
meaningful –  the joy of adventure,
noon-time lunch  with our faces turned
towards the sun,  whipped cream on
our cocoa, shaking hands  with new friends,
and listening to our own hearts to create lives
worth living.

And we lose our lives in a fear of death.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

Dazzling Days of Derring-Do

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Remembering days when we played hide and seek
in the parking lot at Mount Rainier on summer nights –
my fellow park employees and I slithering
under trucks and dodging behind cars
and laughing so hard our bellies hurt.

Or we might go looking for bears on the trails
in the evenings – hoping we wouldn’t actually
find any, but enjoying the idea of it –
my friend, Dan, pulling me in front of him
for protection, as we encountered imaginary beasts.

We were young. The world was full of adventure
and laughter, and derring-do.

Forty years have brought changes –
marriage, motherhood, responsibilities.
My body seems more matronly than springy
these days. I will be entering my sixth decade
in a few weeks. I felt some trepidation about this.

Would I never have another adventure?
Were the dazzling days of derring-do done?

I went for a walk around the lake yesterday.
I wanted more. Walked from old town to the park.
I wanted more. Walked from the park to downtown,
and back again. Then Scott came home with an idea:
Let’s walk the trail to the beach when the sun sets.

I was all stretched out from nine miles of walking,
and ready for more. A walk in the evening cool.

Darkening trail, lovely roots and rocks to climb
smell of fir and cedar and briny bay
and the sunset – brilliant reds and golds
and blue filling my eyes in the west as the full
moon rises in the east, shimmering silver on the sea.

Crashing waves, sparkling light from sun and moon,
peace and perspective from the stars dotting the above.

And then flashlights come out of our pockets
and we find our way back through the woods,
rocks and roots, joking about what we’d do
if big eyes glowed towards us at eye level  down the trail –
and we’re laughing and brave and young again.

The adventures haven’t ended.
There are still dazzling days of derring-do.

– Karen Molenaaar Terrell

Sunset from Clayton Beach
Moonlight over Clayton Beach

West Coast Bicycle Adventure

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I passed this young woman riding her bike along the side of Chuckanut. Her bike was loaded with supplies – the coolest thing she had on there was a cheery little sunbonnet. I went to The Sisters for my lavender iced tea, and as I was getting back in my car she rode by on her bike. I asked her if she’d like something cold to drink from the Sisters and she said yes, that would be great. She ordered a strawberry lemonade and we sat down at the picnic table for a quick chat. She was very cool. Her name is Kathleen (she goes by Kasey), and she’s traveling on her bike from Alaska to San Diego. (!) She hails from jolly olde England and has a wonderful accent.

Here’s the URL to her blog: https://uphilldownhillrepeat.wordpress.com/

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

Kathleen Pollitt

Karen’s Pre-School for Grown-Ups

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We all know I have enough flaws, faults, and foibles to fill pages and pages of blog posts. But… yeah… I am not going to talk about those things at this time. Nosiree Bub. I want to talk about something good I’ve discovered about myself.

My discovery began when I became aware of how much fun I was having driving Moz and Dad around on the local backroads in search of views and birds last weekend. Their glee at busting out of the retirement community for a day filled me with glee, too. I realized I had that exact same feeling when my sons were youngsters and I would take them on “field trips” and hikes and introduce them to new places. And THEN I realized I get that same feeling when one of my students grasps a new concept and her eyes light up with the wonder of it. And all this led to my epiphany: I love helping people escape.from whatever confines them. It brings me great joy.

I posted this epiphany on Facebook, and one of my friends, Allen Nelson (always thinking, that one), responded with this comment: “There’s a business model in there somewhere: Uber meets TripAdvisor. Instead of shuttling people where they expect to go, taking them on short, ‘Madcap’ adventures. I suspect that there’s a large, untapped desire for adventure out there.”

And isn’t that just a FANTASTIC idea?!! .

I’m thinking maybe I could open up a kind of “pre-school” for grown-ups. The day might look something like this:

Nine-ish: We load up in the Madcap Adventure Van and head out for a field trip. This could be a search for views and birds from the van, or I might take us all some place where we can get out of the van and go for a nice little hike ((depending on my clients’ physical abilities and general state of health, of course).

Trumpeter swan in Bow, WA. (Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)
Padilla Bay Mudflats (Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)
Lake Padden Forest (Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)

Noonish: Back to my house for lunch. If it’s the right time of the year we can forage for food – gather eggs from our chickens, pick fruit from the orchard, and vegetables from the garden – I’ve found that most people find something kind of satisfying in the idea of “living off the land.” Of course, we’re only going to actually do this for one meal, because… like… a few hours after “living off the land” we are going to be craving some actual food. But by then my clients will be back in their own lives and can take care of themselves. 

After lunch: Arts and crafts time. This is when I might bring out the fingerpaints, the coloring books, the beads and pipe cleaners and pop sickle sticks and set my clients free to create something to bring home at the end of the day to give to their parents. Or children. Or friends. Their loved ones will be forever grateful to me for this. 

 

art

Two-ish: Math. 🙂 We might factor some polynomials at this time. That’s always fun. I especially like factoring polynomials that look like this: x^2 -15 + 36.  “Ooh!” I’d exclaim, “What are the factors of 36? Remember that you can multiply two negative numbers and get a positive one, so the factors of 36 include negative numbers, too. Do any of those factor pairs add up to a negative 15? Bingo! Good job, Grasshopper!”

Three-ish: Bring out the kazoos. 

Three-thirty-ish: Time to wind down and get the grown-ups ready to return to their families. We can all sing one last song together – maybe Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life – and then bid a fond farewell to one another. I’d be sure to pin any important notes to families on my clients’ jackets – stuff like: “David played well with the other grown-ups today” and “Kathy really knows how to rock a kazoo!” 

Yeah. I think this might actually work. 

 

 

What New Adventure Awaits?

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Willingness to become as a little child and to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of the advanced idea. Gladness to leave the false landmarks and joy to see them disappear, – this disposition helps to precipitate the ultimate harmony.
– Mary Baker Eddy

Little children are expert at leaving the old for the new. They progress from crawling to walking to running to leaping without making any conscious choice to do so. They lay down their toddler toys and graduate to new fun without agonizing over the decision: Does a ten year-old remember the last time she played with her Thomas the Tank Engine, or the last time she she laid down her dolly? Nope. I’m pretty sure not. It wasn’t an event. There weren’t balloons and fireworks and parades for her when she laid down her toddler toys. She just laid them down and cheerfully moved on to something else.

The changes and progress don’t stop with childhood, do they? I mean… we don’t stop learning new things or exploring new ideas or laying down old toys when we hit twenty. Or thirty. Or forty. Or fifty… right?

Every decade holds something new. Heck, every DAY holds something new. None of us have ever lived this day before – none of us have ever lived this MOMENT before – it’s all of it new territory. A new adventure. 

What will we do with this new moment? What new adventures will we find in this new year? What new paintings will we paint or songs will we sing? What new books will we read or write? What new places will we see? What new friendships will we make? What new things will we learn?

What new adventure awaits? 🙂

new day

“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before…” – Philippians 3:13

“…progress is the law of God…” – Mary Baker Eddy

 

New You

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New adventures await! 🙂

new moment

“How hard could it be, right?”

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how hard could it be right

photo of kayaks in Deception Pass, Washington, by Karen Molenaar Terrell

“How hard could it be?”

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Do one thing every day that scares you. – Eleanor Roosevelt

“How hard could it be?” is the question that has often preceded my finest adventures.

Thirty years ago, when a woman who was scheduled to sing at a wedding came down with laryngitis and asked me to fill in for her, I remember asking myself, “How hard could it be?”  and said yes.  I’d never sung at a wedding  before, but really… how hard could it be? I mean… what’s the worst that could happen, right? I could stumble over the words maybe, or hit the wrong note, or I could come into a verse too early or too late, or my voice could disappear, or I could end up completely humiliating myself in some way. But how hard could it be? And so when the time came, there I was, singing a Beatles song at Peggy’s wedding, and there, also, was Scott Terrell, serving as the wedding photographer. And we were drawn to each other after the ceremony, and talked and laughed, and this is how I met the man who would be my husband.

How hard could it be? I asked myself as I strapped the crampons onto my boots, and looked up the mountain slope to the summit. And so I found myself on the tops of Mounts Rainier, Baker, Hood, and Adams. How hard could it be? I asked myself as I considered motherhood, and, before long became mother to one of my favorite people in the world, and, a few years later, to another one of my favorite people in the world. And, how hard could it be? I asked myself as I interviewed for the teaching job that would bring me into a twenty-year teaching career, and, later, met with the director of another school who offered me my current position.

And when the young Americorps volunteer in my current school asked me to join him and eight high schoolers for an overnight snowshoe trip, I gulped discreetly, and asked myself, “How hard could it be?”

I had concerns. Firstly, I do not seem to have the same body I had ten years ago. I know. Weird, right?  I’m not sure, exactly, when things began to go south – but, let’s just say, that the body that had gotten me to the summits of Rainier, Baker, Hood, and Adams is no more.  Would I be the weak link on this epic adventure? The person who held everyone else up? And  I hadn’t been snow-shoeing in, like, twenty years, and wasn’t sure I remembered how to go about it. Also, I didn’t know the students who were coming on the trip, and nor did they know me.  I felt a nervous weight of responsibility towards them.  And then there was the issue of the “facilities.” The cabins we would be staying in had no bathrooms in them –  an outhouse about fifty yards down a sloping hill would be serving as our toilet. And… umm… did I mention that my body is not what it was ten years ago?

Yeah. “How hard could it be?” became my daily mantra in the week before the snowshoe trip…

But ohmygosh! I had such a fantastic time! The students ended up taking care of ME – they helped me put on my snowshoes,  showed me how to dig my toes in so I could make it up that really steep slope,  and introduced me to our local radio station 92.5 FM – which has some way cool music I’d never heard before.

It was a wonderful trip – a great escape from classrooms and traffic and everyday life – and into the peace and beauty of the mountains in winter.  I’m so glad I asked myself “How hard could it be?” and accepted the Americorps volunteer’s invitation to a mid-week adventure.

And did I mention I actually got paid for this?!

Yeah. Life is good. 🙂

Fear never stopped being and its action. – Mary Baker Eddy

Photos from our epic adventure (by Karen Molenaar Terrell) –