It's a time before helmets were even invented for bicycles. Where a child could walk through the dirt trails several blocks away from home looking for tadpoles and adventure. When children needed to go home the neighbor kids would ride in on their bikes to let a kid know that their mother was calling for them to come home to dinner.
Years later, the road crunches beneath my feet as I look up and see the milky way above my head and my breath vapors in front of my face. I like running in the dark. It's easier to focus on the few steps just in front of you rather than seeing for miles across the plains and fields of Wisconsin knowing you have so much further to go. It's winter and past 11 PM and dark, dark, dark even though we're in the city. But it's perfectly safe. Adventuring out after dark is not much of a risk. Neighbors look out for you and there's a comfort in that.
Now away from the MidWest in modern times my niece and nephew learn to ride their bikes in the few feet between the garages of the complex they live in. They have helmets and are surrounded by adults. No child ever wanders off on their own. Adventure has a chaperone. Children are strapped in, leashed either physically or digitally, and independence has a different definition. I'm not saying safety is not important. No. It is absolutely. We now have to worry about predators and drug pushers and dangerous elements of the human nature. I do wonder what will happen to this generation of children who have never had the chance to adventure out on their own -- independent of adult eyes and ears. To imagine and create and explore with a mind that didn't have to constantly worry about dodging this or that or the other -- but could be free to explore.
It's been a long time since I've ridden a bike. I think on it sometimes with yearning. There is something about whipping through the world on your bicycle and daydreaming that sparks the creative mind. I sold mine when I moved to a bigger city with a car culture. Where it's harder for a bike to share a road with a car without concern for getting hit. It's a freedom that I miss. Something a stationary bike at a gym can never replace.
My adventures now tend to consist of traveling. I've traveled the world as a single woman several times. I've camped on my own. Hiked on my own. Gone to countries where I don't know the languages on my own and relied on the kindness of strangers so many memorable times. Each re-igniting my hope and belief in human kind. In the goodness innate in each of us. Sometimes I travel with companions. Family members or friends or acquaintances.
My sister called recently to let me know she'd been offered a trip to Iran with an archaeology group and asked me if I wanted to come along. A once in a lifetime offer. We'd go back to Turkey, a trip we've taken before, and then head into Iran.
As adults, limitations of money and time are what prevent these types of adventures. Part of me so wants to go. To see that part of the world from that point of view through the filter of that archaeological experience. Part of me screams at myself telling me there is a balance between adventure and safety. That I need to be responsible because I don't have that kind of money to spend -- I'd have to take out a loan.
With these types of trips you never know what you're going to get. Never expect fun, happy, easy. That is never guaranteed when you travel. Never.What you can expect is learning, growing, exploring and challenge. It's why we travel. To see the world outside of our own from a different point of view. To come home a different person from the start of our journey.
My fingers and toes are numb from the cold and I shed the layers of clothing and come in from the dark into the warmth of a fire burning in the fireplace. After adventuring in the dark night it's always best to come back home. Safe, warm, familiar home -- until the next trip out into the world. After all, adventure awaits....
