Adventure

Here is my Dad in Africa!  Yay, Dad!

You must keep your spirit of adventure alive.  Those are my words of advice today.  There have been times in my life when adventure bounced through my life, grabbed my hand and off we skipped - together, happily into the sunset.  BFFs.

family portrait

These days it is more difficult to grab onto adventure or at least my former definition of adventure.  I see her go bounding past but I can't quite reach her as I am pulled by many strings of natto.  You don't know what natto is, you say?  Well, count yourself lucky is my response.  It is a Japanese "delicacy" of fermented soybeans.  It has a distinctive aroma (read: nasty), a unique consistency (read: similar to snot), and a taste fit for only the most discerning (knee-buckling pungent - and not in a good way.)  Another characteristic of natto (similar to mucus and pine tar) is its ability to stick and string and not be washed away.  After my dear husband eats some and opens his mouth, like a horror movie monster, you see strings of it joining his upper palate and tongue. (He always offers a kiss at this moment and acts surprised when he is rejected.)    Again, nasty.

My husband, bless his soul, equates family with natto.  He describes it thusly:  The individual members may stretch in different directions but there is always a string of...well, snot connecting all the disparate entities. If you have some of that string connecting you to another then you have a responsibility to that person.   I suggest you find a different definition of family for yourself - but that is ours, or his, because I am not sure I claim it.  The ick factor is just too strong.

It seems as though you reach a time your life when those natto strings are especially taut and many. Primarily when your children are small and mortgage payments are high maybe. It is in times like these that you must make a concerted lunge toward it and keep it closer to you. Instead of using it all up in occasional large adventures, piece it out daily until that day comes when your strings loosen at bit and large adventures can happen more often.

Last year I went to Ireland - big adventure.

But sometimes your perception of adventure must be seen through new eyes.  What is adventure anyway?  I think it is anything that let's you see the world in a new way or even a thought that had never occurred to you. 

I try to seek out small daily adventures as they make me feel alive and invigorated. Sometimes they find me but I have to be aware, acknowledge.  The acknowledgement is important.   Why would I want this day to be the same as the last?  These moments must be sought out but are well worth your efforts. 

And I must say even though family is an adventure in and of itself  I still try to have  my own personal adventures.  Here is today's:

 I am going to try this drink. It may kill me but what is the fun if there is no inherent risk, right? 

What is most disturbing about this drink is that those flea-looking pods don't sink.  They are eternally suspended.  It looks about as good as natto but as Eleanor Roosevelt says "Do something you fear everyday."  I am truly "afeared".  Wish me luck.