Don’t anyone tell her…

…but I think my mother was right. Ever since I can remember she’s been touting her self-made motto: “I would never be under 30 again if you paid me.” Now that I’m in the middle of that decade I think I’m just starting to appreciate her perspective. I’m not sure that I’m really that much wiser than I was ten or even 5 years ago, but if nothing else I’m grateful to be just that much farther away from embarrassing memories of my youth.    :)

I’m not sure how to segue way this next idea because I’m tired, so I don’t think I’m going to even try, but I guess I want to express the idea that I’m longing for more right now. I’m longing for access to museums. Bookstores and concert venues. Interesting places to eat and I don’t know what else. A metropolis I guess. I’ve always been a chronic homebody—and I’m not saying that won’t be continued, for those of you who like consistency in your friends—but sometimes I wish I had access to more choices at least.  So this might seem unrelated, but it stems from longing for cool experiences. I was thinking about interesting things I've done and these are my top 5 favorite memories of cool things I’ve experienced:

1. I took a Japanese Art History Class (actually that could stand alone for coolness) on the Edo period and the whole quarter we met once a week for 2+ hours long at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. My professor lectured in the museum while we took notes and looked at the actual art, not just slides. It was springtime. We were right next to a conservatory and it was gorgeous. It’s a good memory.

2. While at church Girls Camp in Finland the 16 year olds were let loose with several large chocolate bars, summer sausage, a map, a compass, a canoe and our backpacks, all by ourselves for the night. It was total freedom. (Almost. A leader did check on us later that night but she stayed for about 20 minutes and then headed back to the main camp.) There were probably 6-7 of us and we had to find our way with a compass (In case you’re familiar with my sense of direction, I was following, not leading) and map to a camp site a couple of hours away from the main one. We camped next to beautiful cliffs and gorgeous Finnish lakeside/forest scenery and gorged on chocolate and sausage all night, SANS any adults. We hiked back the next morning and tried to hitch-hike when it started raining. No one would pick us up. It was one of best feelings of independence and freedom I remembering having as a kid.

3. En route home from picking Brett up from his mission we stayed the night in a ‘youth hostel’ which was really a 500 year old cottage. It was called Gnome Cottage, and if I remember right we were leaving out of London the next day to fly home. But that’s beside the point. The cottage was SO DANG fun. It was small and story bookish, we had to drive in the dark down narrow rutted, wooded back roads with our ‘torches,’ and as a 4’10” 12 year old I was the only person who could stand fully straight up when 'walking' upstairs (the breathe of the upstairs was about 5 paces wide).  ‘Upstairs’ was more like a tiny, white-washed, bed-laden closet at the end of a poky narrow staircase. When I was 12 I was obsessed with doll houses and all things miniature; this felt like a life sized doll house for me and I loved it.

4. On the same trip, while in Edinburgh, we wandered through a graveyard yard sale. Not that they were selling things needed for burial. It was more like a flee market where people sold goods, only their ‘booths’ just happened to be headstones. It was great fun. I remember buying a little leather drawstring satchel about the size of my palm, and passing my money over the hard stone countertop of someone’s grave. And later, when I was a ceramics major, I made a gigantic ceramic snow globe out of the memory. I sculpted the headstones and graveyard scene, complete with buyers and sellers, and then put all kinds of miniature goods under the glass dome (used a glass cake dish lid) to float around in water when shaken. (Sigh, sometimes I wish I'd stuck with ceramics.) 

And Mom says it was a waste of her money to take a 12 year old to Europe. Whatever.

5. I went to Rome last spring. Really, enough said, but I’ll explain anyway. We almost got robbed by a pick-pocket, just about witnessed a riot and indulged our eyes with the celestial views of the Sistine Chapel. Okay, so the theft and violence doesn’t sound enticing I’m sure, but we escaped unscathed and so it’s permeated my brain with memories of excitement and thrills. Call me sick, I won’t dispute it. And seriously, the Sistine Chapel is just about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Well, maybe also Michelangelo’s Moses with angel horns (ask me some other time). If visual sights added caloric value to our metabolic systems, those sights would have put me on a diet.

So I just realized that 4 out of the 5 involve Europe. Oh well. This was kind of fun. Maybe I’ll write a top five every week. Movies, chocolate, restaurants, concert experiences.