My Mother is More Adventurous Than Me

I had a whole post-it note worth of things to write about today. I simply have to tell you about the play I saw this past weekend in Minneapolis. I have to tell you about the weekend. I should mention the two straight days of snow that will hit us tomorrow. But all that changed with a phone call this morning. Now I have to tell you my mother's story.

My sister called me this morning and the conversation went a little something like this.

Alissa: Have you talked to our mother recently?

Me: I haven't talked to her in about a week or so. Why? What's up?

Alissa: Mom's had a bit of an adventure.

Me: (worried) What type of adventure?

Alissa: Well she drove to Florida this week...by herself.

Me: Ah ah ah (that's the sound of me being speechless.

And the story only got better. My family had been down in the Turks and Caicos islands over the holidays and my mother had fallen in love with a wild little dog she found down there. She contacted the rescue league on the island and told them to keep an eye out for it. Well I guess last Monday they called her to tell her that they found the dog and were shipping it to Miami for her. Would she be able to pick it up?

So my mother did what any animal lover would do. Or maybe not. She jumped in the car and drove to Florida. By herself. She didn't take a cell phone or make any plans. She just jumped in the car and drove. After three days of 12 hours of driving, she arrived in Jupiter, Florida and picked up her new puppy. Then, without even much of a stop, she turned around and headed home.

Since my mother doesn't drink caffeine she simply didn't eat so she could stay awake, only eating when she reached her evening destination. She drove through Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Iowa. In Illinois, at a rest stop, she found another straggler. A young kid looking to get to Minneapolis and she picked him up for the drive to Des Moines. My mother!!!! My mother picked up a hitchhiker. This is the same woman who has warned me for the last 30 years not to trust strangers. Not to talk too freely with odd people. And to never pick up hitchhikers. When I asked her about it, she says that he was such a sweet kid. When she dropped him at the rest stop in Ankeny she gave him a bit of money and her phone number with the promise that he would call her when he got home. She got her call at 8 that night.

As I talked with her this evening I had conflicting feelings. My mother is more adventurous than I am. And that makes me incredibly proud. She's normally very reserved and a bit suspicious. She's normally a stay at home person. And in the last week, she's broken all of my impressions. She's had the kind of adventure that only college kids tend to have.

And at the same time I'm furious with her... for acting so rashly. For putting herself in harms way. For being so much of an animal lover that she would do something this crazy. But what can I say, my mother may be becoming a vagabond. My mother!!! If you know her you'll be shocked by this story. Shocked and a bit awed. I'm just excited for her. She's had an incredible adventure and I could hear the pride in her voice. She'd done it by herself. She did it for all the right reasons and I couldn't be more proud of her.

Procrastination and Wanderlust

I should be working on a work project but instead I've spent most of the day reading and writing. I had the evening to myself last night so I poured myself the hottest bath I could stand and settled in with a book and a glass of wine. Apparently my book choice was good because the moment I opened my eyes this morning I started reading again. And didn't put it down until it was done.

I have wanted to read Desert Places by Robyn Davidson for a long time now. I'm a big travelogue fan but this one had a further irresistible draw. It was about nomads and the desert, two things that have drawn me since I was a tiny child. Ever since I was young I've been fascinated by the desert, those hard inhospitable places where you need your wits and a bit of luck to survive. I have devoured stories about Egypt and the Sahara but I was always the most interested with the nomad people who traveled the trade routes. Like the gypsies of Europe, the Berber people have filled me with a strange feeling of longing and wanderlust. I want to be a nomad. I want to travel and move. To constantly shift scenery. We've been living in our current house for five years now and I'm dying to move. Since college, I've never lived anywhere for longer than 5 years. I'm not a huge fan of setting down roots, at least not yet.

Davidson's book follows the Raika or Rabari people of India, a camel/sheep herding nomad group who are facing challenges to their way of life. Like nomads worldwide, land is become scarce and herders tends to be driven out by the farmers and agriculturalists. Davidson decides to document the people by traveling with a family on their migration. She goes to India to find a group and instead finds a number of false starts. It requires greasing the right palms and plenty of timing to find a family willing to take her. She discusses buying her own camels, living communally, the devastating poverty of India, and the beauty of the nomad people she spends time with. It was an honest and fascinating book. And after finishing it, I'm filled with wanderlust. I want to be like Robyn and set off to explore the world. I want to see more of the planet than my tiny corner. And I want to be an adventurer.

I've become caught up in work and earning money. I've become more sedentary and afraid. I've become complacent. All that disappeared today. I want to wander and explore and see what there is to see. The book brought out the nomad in me. And while I won't be changing home anytime soon, I will be venturing further afield from home and seeing more of the world. It was a great day for procrastinating. Tomorrow will be a day for adventuring.

Guess What I'm Reading?

I read a lot. A ton actually. I've read three and a half books this week, although one of those was a young adult novel. And I've noticed that I don't write about what I'm reading very often. So I'm going to try to add a Guess What I'm Reading segment. The title comes from Unshelved, a great webcomic about a library. You can find that particular story line here (it runs for five days). I also bought one of their "Guess What I'm Reading" bumper stickers to hang in my library.

Lately I've been reading Tintin. Tintin is the main character in a series of comics created from 1929 until 1954 by french artist, Herge. The character is a young journalist who gets into all types of international adventures with his friends: a crusty old sailor named Captain Haddock, a hard of hearing professor who's brilliant but absentminded, and a pair of detectives who couldn't find their way out of a paper bag. He is accompanied by his dog Snowy and often ends up saving the day against a troupe of bad guys.

I picked up my first adventure on a whim. I'd heard a number of children's book writers mention how influential Tintin had been for them. I figured it was worth a shot. The first story I read was "The Castafiore Emerald" and although I was a bit lost on the characters, I loved the adventures. It reminded me of the old Uncle Scrooge comics I read as a child, but with more humor. The adventures are a mix of slapstick, funny dialogue, and genuine excitement. The series has only started to gain a following in the US, but Tintin is as well known as Mickey Mouse in Europe. Charles de Gaulle compared himself to the character once. Steven Spielberg is currently working on an animated Tintin adventure to be released in December 2011. This is a character that has influenced generations and I'm just learning about him.

After the first adventure, I've been picking up books from all of the libraries in the city. The stories were just released in a boxed set and I've been buying the books, one at a time. I've decided I want to own all of the Tintin adventures. I haven't gotten a chance to read all the adventures but I'm excited to get the chance. It's a fun series with great characters.