You Never Know: A Thousand Tries to Find a Thousand Islands…

 

Like most people, I try to keep my life interesting by trying new things from time to time. Last fall, I tried ballet (!). This weekend, I am going to try kayaking on the Rio Grande for the first time. On a recent road trip to the southwest corner of New Mexico, I took the time to visit Pie Town, a place that is entirely famous, you guessed it, for pie. 🙂

Most of these things I try — occasional workshops, lectures, new places — will not “take.” I’ll do them one time, and that’s it. This can get a bit deflating. I sometimes seem to myself like a non-committer: I try lots of things, but little sticks. And then I try something else.

And, I know this isn’t true. For most of us, it’s a healthy thing to keep trying new things, even if most of it we won’t do more than once. It prevents us from getting into a rut, and perhaps avoids a life that might get dull and routine.

However, once in a while, these attempts at variety do “take.” In advance, I don’t know which ones will, but I was recently struck by one of these “variety of life” activities that substantially changed my life. First, some background, so with me you can begin to marvel at just how chance-filled our lives can be, even as we are making specific choices that might transform our life paths.

For most of my adult life, I’ve carved out two weeks a summer to visit a marvelous place called Block Island, Rhode Island, where my parents bought a summer home in the 50s. Even living in California — quite a long trip, involving flights, rental cars, and ferries, all expertly timed — I made the time. Generally, this constituted my formal “summer vacation,” and they brought me great joy. But in 2014, that came to close — we sold our home, and trips to Block Island ended.

In 2015, I was for the first time, faced with the question of what to do for my annual summer vacation. For many years — more as an environmentalist than as an outdoors-person — I’d belonged to the Sierra Club. Their magazine always had a section for upcoming trips which I’d never more than lazily thumbed through. That year though, I decided to take a more serious look, and I signed up for an eight-day hiking trip into the High Sierra, to a magical place called Thousand Island Lake, just north of Mammoth Lakes (see pictures above).

As it turned out, I wasn’t really fit enough to make the trip, but somehow, I got up there! One evening, I sat on a rock at the edge of the lake, unable to get cell reception, miles from any cars, and looking at one of the most dramatic spots I’d ever seen and thought: I think I need to do this more — a lot more.

And I did. Since then, I’ve usually gone backpacking 2-3 times a year, for four or so days, on my own, discovering new places, being nourished by solitude in nature, and finding out I am much stronger than I’d realized. And that I’m creative and resilient! I regularly hear from people who are amazed, as a bit-older woman, that I do this at all. And to me, it’s just not that hard, like someone’s been telling a story about something that’s very difficult, and I’ve found out it just isn’t.

I was reflecting on my nearly random decision to join a Sierra Club trip, and how it could have been the last time I did anything else like that, and instead how it’s transformed my annual lifecycle completely. I think of all the places it’s taken me. I just got back from a four night totally magical backpack in the New Mexico Gila Wilderness (see photo to the left), swimming every day in one of the wildest rivers I’ve ever enjoyed; I thought back to my 2015 self, and tip my hat to her. I don’t think I’m going to do ballet again (all that bouncing on the toes! ouch!), but camping in the back country? It’s here to stay.

Do you been surprised by a thing you tried that “stuck”? That sounds like a great story. Share with us on my blog, below!