She's Got An Icy Grip, That One

This winter has contained everything you can imagine: whipping winds, blizzard white-outs, sub-zero weeks, slipping and sliding, and certainly the occasional power outage.  There was a time recently when the temperature, from one Monday to the next rose a full 70 degrees.  And I can't quite remember, but I'm pretty sure that it dropped at least 50 degrees again in the next two days.  The weather has been awesome.

Beautifully terrifying.  Terrifyingly beautiful.

Terrifying as an icy river, while you sit bobbing in your kayak, taking a momentary break to float gingerly downstream, perched just so, knowing that you are always on the verge of catching an edge and embarking on an arctic triathlon (paddle, swim, mountaineer), minus the survival suit.  But beautiful.

Beautiful, like a friend described at lunch the other day, is that moment when you need to venture down from your bear stand deep in the woods. But terrifying, with the nerve-wracking knowledge of the sow and two cubs milling around somewhere beyond your eyesight.  Don't worry though, they can see you just fine.

It is standing at the altar - beautiful.  Or rather, waking up a week later in bed to the realization that you had better get used to the pulsing aroma of that particular vintage of morning breath, because it is a gift from your soulmate, offered to you, forever.  Terrifying.

These are the sort of things to which we pay pretty sweet lip service, in hindsight.  After we survive them, of course.

How cool!  
Adventure of a lifetime!  
You wouldn't believe...!
What a story!

However, in that moment of the thrill, as you float down a river at 11PM with the sound of an upcoming rapid pounding against your eardrums and a full moon illuminating the surface foam, you can't decide whether it is literally-the-coolest-thing-you-have-ever-done or if it will literally be the last thing you ever accomplish in this lifetime.

The weather is that sort of deadly mistress.  My husband was in a car accident recently, and for me, the most alarming feature of the incident was not the rolling of the vehicle (no), the speedy launch into the woods (no), or even the potential for strandedness on an what used to be an old logging road to Canada (no).

By now, you are likely questioning what kind of wife I am.  Unnerving, isn't it?

What was most terrifying to me was the -15 degree evening temperature, plus windchill.  That fact, combined with the others is what still gives me a sour feeling in my stomach when I recall the day.  Would he be able to make the one mile walk to our driveway, then the three mile hike home?  In the dark?  In the biting, snapping cold and the snow?  This is the kind of cold that wraps its icy hands around the base of your neck and threatens to squeeze out your last breath as lightning fast as falling out of a tree knocks the wind from your lungs.  It's so cold that you gasp instantly as if you were standing naked in a shower of ice cubes.  You blink often because the mucous covering your eyes tends, like every other liquid, to freeze.  Your cheeks don't sting at this point because the surface nerves have stopped functioning, and you can't zip the neck of your jacket because the dexterity in your fingers is reduced to what would be playing the piano with ten blocks of cheese tied to your hands.

Thankfully (miraculously), C arrived home unscathed, thanks to a humbling amount of timely provision (friends, emergency personnel, kind sheriff, snacks), but the occasion serves as another reminder of the awesome dual nature of our weather:

it's terror, it's beauty.

This is precisely why we love the river.

Being in nature.

Living in the woods.

Taking risks.

Why exactly? Because, simply put - we cannot control these things.  The river, nature, the woods - they exist outside of our reach, and the moment you or I think that we have them under our thumb - the second the paddler lifts that blade out of the water and relaxes her grip - these things will level us with the strength of a thousand man-made engines.

And why on earth would this be good?

Because it reminds us of the greatness of what we've already been given in relation to the smallness of what we try to please ourselves with.  It reminds us that there is a great symphony being played around us all the time, but that we are busy banging on a piano with cheese block fingers.

And it promises that we will hear that beautiful music

if only we would stop making such terrible noise.

Down The Rabbit Hole

As I was sweeping cabins earlier today,  I got to thinking, "Good-night, M, if you don't post something on that silly blog of yours soon, they'll all suspect you've gone off the deep end".  They'll wonder if you've finally become a forest dwelling, ax-swinging nut with a propensity for off-roading in inappropriate vehicles and having long [audible] conversations with herself.

Phew.  Glad I've avoided that.

My brainchild occurred only a an hour or so after Helen, a new (and awesome) year-long staffer, pulled a mouse out of the washing machine.

And the thought came just a little while before my husband and two of our neighbors/co-workers/fellow woodsman went outside to try and shoot a skunk that is living in our woodpile.

A woodpile located directly below our front deck,

which also happens to sit right outside my office window.

Fine, the woodpile basically is my office window.

While the chase ensued, I tackled my own challenge: eating half of a watermelon.  This comes to no one's surprise.

Why is no one surprised?  Because eating entire melons and chasing woodland creatures is beginning to feel normal.  The strange-but-true reality of life here has slowly pulled a foggy haze over my perceptions of what to should expect out of a day.

For example, I've recently managed to:

• overflow the pot in the Bunn coffee maker, multiple - ok, dozens - of times.  
• shake someone's hand while holding a pirate's hook in my sleeve (we'd never met before)
• spray water all over the dish pit, ceiling included.  

         [Since we're on the subject, here's a brief life lesson:

    In the battle of human dishwasher vs. ladle, 

there are no winners - only losers.

It looks so harmless.

 

    I'd compare it to running an ultra-marathon naked, 

in Manitoba, 

in February

 or 

to drinking questionable milk]

I've also managed to...

• stay upright in a kayak through most of the Kennebec Gorge (read: most)
• drive a four-wheeler 
• pet a black bear.  It actually felt quite like my cat, only larger and less alive.
• plunge the single-most-foul toilet I've ever encountered.  If I close my eyes, I can still see it.
• shoot archery with a gaggle of sweet Dominican grandmothers.
• start wearing hats.  Thank you to my friend Cathy, state food service laws, and that one retreat guest who left me a fedora.  Her fedora.  On purpose.  I look too much like a little boy to pull it off [without looking like a little boy].
• stop sleeping in.  This seems simultaneously gluttonous and tragic, and yet I will probably attempt to return it to my skill set pronto.
• take one day off in a month.  Though it may sound like I'm flaunting some big accomplishment here, what I'm really saying is that this kind of behavior is particularly unadvisable and likely a result of your own bad planning.  Plan better next time. 
• live in a state of heightened anxiety and panic (see above).
• remain in wedded bliss weddedness.  Considering the previous truth, this is a miracle.  I'd have banished me.  

I keep thinking that I should maintain a list of the unique happenings that that take place here in the woods, and perhaps I really ought to, but as time goes on, the instances themselves become less and less unique and, consequently, more and more everyday.

In conclusion, I suppose I will start on that list...

providing something really weird happens.

They Are Who We Thought They Were

An hour ago, my husband was in our den, sitting on the floor inside a brand-new Fun-series Jackson Kayak.  On the floor, in his kayak, with his paddle, practicing his bracing.

On

the

floor.

And he couldn't have been more excited.  He was over-the-moon, more-than-a-clam, teenager-in-love happy.

Why is it that things make us feel good?  Even as I write it, I have this instinctual desire to turn up my nose at the idea that a kayak could spark inner cheer.  I want to make some qualifying statement, like

"it only seems like happiness",

or, spoken like a true New Englander,

"material things will always let us down".

Don't you feel it?  We're fixed in a mantra that trains us to overlook the little things.  We don't even take a proper moment to revel in the small delights that are easy to come by, simply because they are just as easy for us to lose.  

Yes, you're right - a fresh flower bouquet is sort of already dead.  

Yes, that glue on the back of your new insurance card will lose it's stickiness after a minute or two.  

Yes, the tiny marshmallows on your hot cocoa will get squishy.

But they're crunchy right now, aren't they?

So come on, admit it - it's possible that this kind of thing can make us happy.  I'm talking about simple satisfaction, high spirits, endorphins -  stuff that makes you laugh and shoot Jello out of your nose (not that I've done that).  I'm not going to give material goods some crazy qualitative value, because hopefully we all know that the better part of life is not actually found in what we see and touch, but is beyond and around it. However, in the day-to-day of walking this earth, there are lots of things that make me sprout a smile:

• Kiwi, the black cat, who's off licking her hindquarters somewhere
• Vanilla soft-serve ice cream
• Daffodils, and imagining the existence of spring somewhere 
• Large animals with small legs

We went to find this guy ten minutes later and he was gone... but how?

• Mixing stuff with my hands
• Nights when it's so dark that you can't even see your arms in front of you
• Temperatures above 30* F 
• Wicked awesome cards that my friend Jenn makes

• Freeze-dried bananas
• Mud [that I can mix with my hands]

Now, I know what you might be thinking: But M, finding happiness in temporal things can really mess us up, and yeah, you're right.  I totally agree.  Lets each hope that our small delights are the right ones, like puppies and pine trees rather than crack cocaine and cheap gin.  Or Jersey Shore and circus peanuts, for that matter.  If those are your happy things, you should call someone.

Right now.

By this point, C has finished his stint as an indoor kayak dynamo, and is washing a steel pot which held the beef stew we had for dinner.  A fire is crackling in the woodstove, Kiwi has returned to languish on a chair in the corner, and the marshmallows in my hot cocoa are still crunchy.  These are good things.  Temporary, but good.

And I am going to enjoy them.   One happy, crunchy bite at a time.

Paradise Found

 So, I'm a bit ashamed to share this with you, but here goes.

We live in the woods.  

That's not what I'm ashamed of.

We do live in the woods, and this is an incredible gift, a gift I'm certain that I don't deserve.  My shame stems from the fact that I don't take advantage of this gift the way that I should.  We live on the doorstep of wilderness, and though every single day we could be out snowshoeing, hiking, whitewater kayaking, flatwater kayaking, canoe paddling, road biking, mountain biking, trail running or rock climbing - almost all from our front door - I have discovered that far too often I find myself in a lifeless and unholy union with our living room couch... like herbed butter melting over a grilled steak, my arms and legs drip sluggishly off of the cushions.  Limbs that are also increasingly composed of butter, my diet would suggest.

If you are feeling any pang of empathy for me at this moment, keep reading.  The following glimpses of forest life should shock you into proper rage at the grand injustice of my slothful existence.  I guarantee that you'll be gearing up to hunt me, armed with envy and a pitchfork, in 90 seconds flat.  And I, in true form, won't be running, so it'll be easy for you to find me and fork me to death for my crimes.

So here it is.  This is life:

We wake up to this view from the front lawn (during summer, that other season).

We get to go down giant slip'n'slides with our friends,

and play in the mud.

We can canoe,

or go whitewater rafting

[at night].

We can paddle rivers,

or sometimes just look good standing next to them.

  

We can snowshoe,

and take snowy, flannel-y Christmas photos.

But I don't do these things very often.  Instead I seep into the furniture... like a spilled drink.

Miraculously, despite my persistent attempts at shameful lethargy, yesterday was a day that gives me hope - hope that maybe... somehow... I'll collect my drooping limbs a little more often with aspirations of grasping the wealth of adventure found in our vast backyard.  About this time yesterday afternoon, along with a group of friends, C and I took our snowmobiles part-way up a nearby mountain.  From there, we strapped on our snowshoes so that we could hike the remaining distance to the peak on foot.  This was a day to employ what I believe to be a crucial life practice, which is to recognize the incredible nature of what you are actively doing, in the moment that you are actively doing it.  It is when you whisper quietly to yourself or shout to the birds, "this is awesome", and you know it to be true, right down to your bones...

right then...

         as you live it...

as you do it.

So now you can see why it is such a shame to let the smallest opportunity for adventure pass me by.  Because at the end of the day, what story have I written?  What awe have I experienced?  What risk?  What reward?  What part of this incredible created world have I let soak deep into my being and stir my spirit?

Here, where I could throw a rock from our deck and unintentionally kill a brook trout, there is no excuse.  Only opportunity. And as I strive to take hold of mine, I will also hope that you are out there, searching, finding, and fully discovering yours.