Calls to Adventure

In a post published in April 2017, “O’Yonder,” and in previous posts, I shared that I’ve been thinking quite a bit about time and age lately. Explicit or not in earlier blog entries, hopeful belief that I’m still young underlies my time-oriented thoughts. I am fifty years four months and maybe a week or so old. I want to believe I’m 25. Even as I aged and tallied up seven orthopedic surgeries, I always recovered and found my way back to the things I loved to do. In short, I’d go hard, fall down, get hurt, get back up, recover and start out again. And it was no problem.

An early view of Alaska, June 2017

Recently, our family traveled to Alaska, a first for the five of us. We had a day in Anchorage before our lodge picked us up, so we rented bikes to ride Anchorage’s Knowles Coastal Trail. The paved trail connects  downtown Anchorage with Kincard Park, 11 miles away, as it winds along the coast, beneath the flight path of the airport’s runway, and through dense forests. (We saw a baby moose right off the path, munching on leaves, and it’s wary mother nearby.) The path’s rating is “Easy.”

Calf we rode right past

The trail is indeed easy, except for a short, semi-steep and curved section inside Kincaid Park. After lunch, we set back to explore the city. My 18-year-old and 16-year-old took off like greyhounds down the trail. At 25, I was up to the challenge. Screaming along, I passed both boys, looked ahead, saw a curve I couldn’t make, so off the trail I went, braking hard. Happens all the time mountain biking, so why would this be any different? I planned to approach a stop and then ride back onto the trail.

The log

A stump had another idea. It stopped my front wheel dead and catapulted me at 20-mph over the handlebars and onto a nearby log. Depending upon how you look at it, my experience was an “epic fail,” something worthy of YouTube (according to my sons), or it was what I choose to accept as a wake-up call: 50, not 25. “Fifty, not 25,” will be on my lips moving forward for every mountain bike ride, ski run, or high-mileage hike. I have a good friend whose mantra has become, “I ride to ride another day.” I get that.

Five weeks later, I’m still recovering. I fractured two ribs, broke the collarbone, and cracked the humerus. (That word is too close to hubris for my comfort.) My wife snapped a picture of the log, and I marvel at it. Had I flown a few inches lower, I wouldn’t be here. It’s definitely good to be here.

So thanks, 50,  and to an anonymous log in Kincaid Park, for smacking me upside the head. You knocked some sense into me.

“Here is the world.

Beautiful and terrible things will happen.

Don’t be afraid.”

Frederick Buechner (1926 – present): writer, philosopher, theologian

So, my two oldest returned safely from their Outward Bound mountaineering trip to the Maroon Bells in Colorado. I think some of these pictures are cool. Enjoy.

McLean

Elliott

The Maroon Bells, CO

McLean below freezing temps

El in tropical weather

River Crossing

Rushing River Falls

Base Camp

The Summit

The Summiteers

Returning to Camp

This small framed quote traveled with me from my one of my first jobs all the way here – now – in my office on the side of a filing cabinet, eyesight, and to my right. The words come from the late Raymond Carver, one of the short story masters of the 2oth Century. He penned this passage after he got sober near the end of his life.

Raymond Carver

Exhibit 1: AARP Mailer

As a kid, I made jokes about Geritol, prune juice, and Depends. Aging provided rich fodder for humor…until the joke turned on me. Note Exhibit 1: a portion of an elaborate membership envelope that recently arrived.

Even as I marched through the decades — 20’s, 30’s, 40’s — I never thought of myself as old. And even as the hair right down the middle of my head empty-nested me, I never attributed it to aging. (I just blamed 20p11, the small region on chromosome 20 that sends so many in search of toupees or for membership in Hair Club for Men.) The point I’m trying to make is that getting older was o’yonder, one or two vast valleys away. Not imminent, like on your front porch.

Turning 50 almost a month ago wasn’t difficult. That said — of the previous 49 birthdays –none has made me think more about time and change than the fiftieth. My journal  holds a dozen recent musings about all measures of time — past, present, future. I think a lot about the growth of our three sons, how fast they’re aging and maturing. I wonder how life will treat them, and if they’re ready. I think about my marriage, which has mellowed into a mature friendship and fine partnership. I wonder what it’ll be like after the third son goes to college, and if we’ll be ready. And I think about how much I’ve enjoyed my career and how I love what I do now and how I’ll carry on until 65, perhaps longer.

I am, of course, aging whether I acknowledge it or not. Pictures on Facebook show childhood friends gathered at 50th birthday parties; many have aged considerably. “I’m not that guy,” I think, zeroing in on the oldest, heaviest, least-haired fellow. But I am that guy, regardless of appearance. We’ve bonded by the rite of surviving 50 years. Fifty years. (Recently, driving a swim carpool and listening to the conversation about a teacher, I heard one boy say to another: “He’s so old. He’s like 40.”)

I accept the passage of time. What else can I do? I even accept the arrival of the AARP mailer. After all, the discounts you get as a senior are pretty darned impressive. And to join for three years? Forty-three dollars? That’s actually not a bad deal.

Consider me aged.

North Davidson & East 36th streets

Sunday, I had nowhere to be. Nothing to do. I did have a means of transportation, so I set out with my journal/daybook on a sunny day with temps in the low 70’s. It’d been four or five years since I’d spent any time in NoDa. I began at the headwaters of now-entrenched art district: South Davidson Street. After tooling north along Davidson, traffic began to build and slow.

I rolled toward the center of the district, and more and more groups of people appeared, walking to or from. The Smelly Cat Coffeehouse requires one right turn off North Davidson onto East 36th and one right turn into the Smelly Cat parking lot.

The Smelly Cat view of the Neighborhood Theatre

Outside, coffee in hand, I took a table across from the Neighborhood Theatre, where I’ve seen some fine bands. The building is a show itself: colorful, entertaining. Passer-by made people-watching engrossing when I wasn’t busy writing. I took pictures. I took an afternoon that I would otherwise have spent grading and turned it into a mini-walkabout. The rest can wait, I reasoned. And it did, just fine.

Lax season again.

The Defensive Wait