Ups and Downs

I grew up with active siblings, in a neighborhood with lots of kids our age, at a time when parental supervision consisted of:  Be home for dinner and stay away from that horse farmer with the rifle.  I spent a lot of time on the couch, reading,  lured outside only by the thought I might be missing something fun.  Like being chased by the guy with the rifle.  

In those good ol’ days of children’s play toys built with absolutely no regard for safety, we had a Tower in the yard.  You’d climb up the skinny metal ladder to the wooden platform which had a hole in the center.  A nice big, kid-sized hole with a pole dangling down the middle.  We would grab the pole and slide down, swinging around, knocking into the platform with our knees, then waist, then shoulders, to the ground.  

One day a bunch of us were up in the tower, with no regard to  “maximum capacity”.  The kids were taking turns sitting on the side and jumping down. The playset was several years old by then and the vinyl sides had long since been tattered and removed, leaving nice open sides with a little rail around the platform, waist high.    I sat on the edge, feet dangling and hands gripping the rail as the others jumped, climbed back up  and jumped again.  I stared down at the nubbly grass below.  I scooted my butt closer to the edge.  I scooted back to safety.  Writing this I am getting that knot in my tummy that I had that day.  Too scared to jump but wanting to so badly.

The cowbell rang.  Everyone leaped off the tower and ran to their respective homes for dinner.  I steeled myself.  Now or never.  I made the wrong decision and jumped, so scared I was stiff and kept my body in the same sitting position on the way down.  Landed hands first.  Ran to the house crying.  Ace bandages, aspirin.  I don’t remember anyone’s reaction to my folly, but I still remember that feeling in my gut as I sat up in that tower afraid to jump.

So what’s my point? I started this story to illustrate the importance of listening to your gut instincts, your intuition. And maybe the young me should have done so.  To this day I’m still really good at climbing up things, and not so good at getting down.  But if someone is around to let me hold their shoulder or tell me where to put my feet, up I go.  I don’t want to miss out on the view.  And look, I’m still in one piece!   Thanks for the help, guys!

(Carolle helped me down.)

Butterflies in November

I was watching the National Geographic channel last night -- a show about migrating animals.  Here is an interesting fact about Monarch Butterflies:

It takes four generations for monarch butterflies to complete their round-trip migration.  First batch leaves from Mexico in the spring, lays eggs and dies somewhere in the southern U.S.  Second batch hatches, eats, cocoons, emerges, and takes off for the upper U.S.; repeat lifecycle.  Generation 3 makes it to Canada, where they lay their eggs, and when Generation 4 emerges as butterflies, they head straight south, going the entire way back to the original starting location in Mexico before they too lay their eggs and perish. 

Why am I taking about butterflies on this cold and windy day?  Because their unfathomable migration echoes the mysteries in our own lives.  Things happen that we can’t explain, but that doesn’t mean they are less true.  And if we sometimes feel we are butterflies, being pushed by instinct instead of reason, maybe we should let go and take flight!