I’d planned on having a cook-out, since it was such a beautiful day, and also hang out another load of laundry. I loaded the washer and turned the stove on to heat water to make pasta salad, then sat down to write. I had barely started, a nagging headache making it all but impossible to think, let alone write, when my husband breezed in, full of sunshine and good cheer. “I think I’ll take the wheeler out, but I’ll be back in time, to kayak with you at sunset,” he said, kissing my forehead. I barely listened at first, but then looked up, and saw his excited face, along with the blue sky and cotton ball clouds over his shoulder, out the window. “I’ll go,” I said, shutting my laptop and turning off the now almost boiling water. He looked up in surprise, and said, “You want to? Great! I’d love to have you come!” We went into a familiar mode. I got changed into old jeans, anticipating a muddy ride and packed a backpack, which included more ibuprofen for my head. He loaded the truck and secured everything down.
And so, away we went, bumping along in the truck, causing my head to pound now, instead of just ache. Arriving at our drop off, he unloaded while I put the back pack on and started to regret the unfamiliar burst of spontaneity that made me blurt out that I’d come. “Really,” I thought, “I should have just stayed inside and wrote, that way I could lie down if my headache got worse.” Too late now, I gamely hopped on the back of the four-wheeler and we sped off, the wind in my face, my hat almost blowing off my head and tiny bug bullets pelting my cheeks. I smiled, I couldn’t help it. Being outside always makes me happy, but wind in my hair, sun on my back and a little jolt of dopamine always makes me laugh. And then there’s the smell.
Oh, how I love the smell of the Maine woods in June. It smells like hope and it is my very favorite smell. It cannot be bottled and it cannot be synthetically recreated. You have to get out there and experience it to know what I mean. It comes in wafts; sometimes you run into an invisible cloud of it, and then it is gone, only to return minutes later. Inhaling deeply, I realized the pain was gone; nature had cured my achy head, but it did something else too. Somewhere between leaping from rock to rock, listening to the water fall, and throwing my head back to admire the canopy made by the towering trees, I became thankful for looking up from my “work” to see what was waiting for me.
The first half of my life has been governed by rules, should’s and shouldn’ts and things that I have to do. While some of these things, like my job, will be necessary for a long time, that does not mean that I can’t just stop once and awhile and appreciate all that this world has to offer. God wants us to be happy, he loves to see us having fun and enjoying the earth that he created just for us. I’m sure it makes him sad to see us inside on a beautiful day, following self-imposed rules about cleaning or other chores. These things have to be done, sure. but I think we need to cut ourselves a little slack once in a while and go out and have some fun. I’m planning on doing more and more of that with whatever time on this earth that I have been given. I know that I will never wish I’d spent more time at work, or cleaned my house more when I’m on my deathbed. I plan to make good use of my time here,by enjoying it with those I love. Sometimes you just have to look up, get up and enjoy life. For me, fun is exploring the woods of Maine and it’s also being on the water, which we did right after we were finished exploring.
The river was calm; not a ripple except for the occasional fish jumping, when we put our kayaks in, and paddled upriver. The calmness of the water, reflected how I felt; content, happy and serene, my headache just a memory. We stopped paddling after a while and tied our kayaks together. Leaning back, our oars at our sides, we allowed the current to let us drift back to the boat landing. We didn’t fight the direction, we just enjoyed the ride, the view and each other; and literally sailed off into the sunset.
