The Thrill Of Doing A Back-Handspring And Other Physical Feats

Generally speaking, I am not what you would call a thrill seeker. However, there have been several times in my life when I have experienced such an adrenalin rush when I did something physically outside of my comfort zone. They stand out as moments when I felt so in my body, so filled with happy energy, and so glad to be fully awake and alive to life.

As a girl, I wasn’t adventurous though I liked change and was usually game to try new things. I went away for summer to YMCA Camp Ralph S. Mason camp in Northern New Jersey and did two amazing activities that pushed the envelope of what I would normally do. The first was rather modest—yet important. That summer I really found my water-legs and learned how to swim like a fish. In fact, the names of our levels were names of fish. Minnows, flying fish are two levels that I recall. I had always been fairly comfortable in water, but that summer I learned the real strokes—crawl, breast, back and butterfly. When I became one with the water, I felt so thrilled and calm at the same time. The calm came from feeling comfortable and completely safe even though I was in deep water and using new strokes. And because I passed a certain level of swimming skill, I was automatically entered into a drawing for an activity that only a handful of campers would participate in towards the end of the camp session.

Wouldn’t you know it, my name got pulled out of the hat to go for a day-trip rubber rafting on rapid waters. Just thinking about it now makes the hairs on my arms stand up. It was a good thing that I didn’t have to put my name in the hat on my own or I might not have gone on that important trip.

I was really scared. I was with a group of kids I didn’t yet know—none of my friends from my cabin or other camp activities were on the trip. And I couldn’t quite imagine what rubber rafting was. And then when we arrived at the rapids at a section of the Delaware River, I couldn’t imagine getting into those waters. We learned that we were to straddle the side of the raft. “What,” I thought, “we aren’t even safe inside the boat?” The day was long and I got a little less scared as I got more acquainted with the raft and the paddle. Mostly I was feeling the adrenaline rush of fear and less of the calm exuberance of excitement, but even so I had moments of feeling happily thrilled beyond my imagination.

Several years later when in High School, I took gymnastic classes at Alts in Princeton Junction, NJ. Although I had been taking gymnastics for a number of years on and off starting at the Y with Peri during the Olga Korbut Gymnastics craze (see Streaming Memories—Flea Markets), at this point I had a young adult body and a young adult mind with a little less fear. I remember vividly the moment I finally was able to do a back-handspring without spotters. Any activity that requires you leap backwards requires a huge amount of blind belief. Your mindset must be comfortable believing that when you leap backwards your hands will land on the floor because your legs are already in the air and you really are blind to the ground. There is that moment of letting go and knowing that your body will indeed catch yourself. That is the awesome moment of calming, thrilling, amazing liveliness!

I can count on one hand the number of times since that day at the gym that I have felt that rush that is less fear and more exuberance. I hadn’t been able to express what I felt when I did that back-handspring. I was proud of myself and I showed my parents what I learned to do, but I couldn’t articulate what I was feeling. I am certain that I was glowing after that class when I finally did the back-handspring and I am sure everyone around me saw my glow. A more recent adult experience helped me to clarify where the juice of these experiences comes from and why I loved the thrill.

As part of a yearlong intensive personal and leadership development training, I went on retreats to Northern California that included a number of high-flying tasks. We did rope courses of all sorts that required we climb up tall redwood trees. Sometimes we walked across tight ropes and sometimes we jumped. We leaped to grasp other ropes, we jumped to get down with the help of belays, we did trust falls where you fall blind backwards and we jumped off while connected to a swing (see Free falling and improv up on high). I was very nervous at first but I learned that the fear was all about my mindset. Once I experienced being able to accomplish something, I could relax and let go into the bodily sensations on the next turn. I couldn’t get enough of the activities when I finally found my air-legs. Just as when I got my water-legs in summer camp, a certain amount of physical and mental mastery was all I needed to enjoy and even crave the adventure. I understood from that moment why skydivers and trapeze artists and other thrill seekers in the sky are junkies for their death defying highs. The instant of aliveness has never been so intense as it has been for me when I am in the air—suspended for a moment in my body and mind, present to life.

I just looked up Camp Mason and it still exists. In the 70s camp was to a certain extent about personal development and conquering fears, but there is so much more available these days. The camp now has a whole category of activities under the umbrella Adventure: Teambuilding, high ropes (zipline, giant swing and more), climbing wall, survival, nature hikes, aerial silks, outdoor cooking, day trips into the surrounding area. Would I have taken up skydiving as an adult if I had the opportunity to do all those high-flying feats as a kid? Perhaps…

XOXO Rachel

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The Joy of Harvesting

From childhood summers in Roosevelt picking vegetables to my recent years of gathering the delights from our Cold Spring garden, harvesting is a simple joy. There is nothing quite like the feeling of bare hands working in soil, the pleasure of pulling out a carrot or radish root or the treat of snapping off a cherry tomato from a winding vine. Best of all is popping the sweet tomato still warmed from the sun directly into your mouth. As a young girl I loved to join my grandmother (Coco) and great grandmother (Hani Mama) in their garden behind their house on Farm Lane. I remember well how much I loved collecting string beans and pulling up carrots. Although I was presumably helping them in the garden, mostly I was just along for the ride while they worked and I got my hands dirty and ate a fresh vegetable here and there.

At my great aunt Ellie’s house on Valley Road, the harvesting was of fruits. We picked fresh gooseberries, raspberries, and cherries and baked yummy pies and made wonderful jams. I treasure those memories in Roosevelt and had forgotten how much I enjoyed vegetable gardening until a few years ago when Andy built us two beautiful large raised vegetable planters. I have been tending to my flower garden for twenty years at our house so I certainly have known the joy of gardening. But I had forgotten the great pleasure of picking your own homegrown vegetables and savoring their fresh flavor within minutes of harvesting.

All of our vegetables have been wonderful, but basil wins this year’s prize for most abundant. I have made eight very large batches of pesto since August. Each batch I altered the ingredients and they have all been divine. My recipes are simple: basil, evoo and vary the cheese and nut. Parmigiano-Reggiano and walnut, almond with no cheese for my vegan friends, pecorino and almond, pecan and parm and I even made a mixed basil-parsley batch. Sometimes I add garlic and other times I add lemon. And of course you can’t go wrong with the traditional pine nut and parm. I have given away a few batches and I have also given away tons of the fresh basil for others to make pesto. The rest of the pesto is in my freezer waiting to be enjoyed over pasta on a cold winter night! We are in pesto nirvana.

Fall harvesting is often the most abundant time for a garden in the northeast. It takes time for many plants to reach their peak so it is natural that September is a great time to enjoy the vegetable crops. This year, however, has been a strange year for our garden. Warm weather came late in the spring so our garden got off to a slow start. Then August was a particularly dry month and September particularly warm. The upside of the unusual weather is that we still have vegetables in our garden at this late date in October. Yes, it is not unusual to have colder weather veges like second plantings of hardy root crops like radishes, beets and turnips—we have all of those at the moment. But here it is in October and in addition to the root vegetables we have zucchini, celery, parsley, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and even cucumbers. Amazingly we even had three basil plants that I finally pulled out a few days ago to make our last two batches of pesto. Truly unusual for October. Lucky us as we enjoy the fruits—vegetables that is—of our labor and create delicious farm-to-table meals from our fall harvest.

XOXO Rachel

My Head Is In The Clouds

Ah, the summer. It is a time to relax and unwind and do nothing. I have been doing a lot of nothing this summer and loving every minute of it! Of course, my nothing is still fairly active with regular exercise and yoga and our DIY house painting room-by-room project. But I have slowed with work and I have indulged by reading many romance novels and murder mysteries and taking trips to the Jersey Shore (see Magical Moment Mondays Jersey Shore) and a trip to Saratoga Springs (see also At The Races).  And I find that my head is in the clouds, both literally and figuratively. By literally I mean that I am perfectly content to watch the clouds roll by and do some cloud hopping (see Cloud Hopping) if the conditions are right. Lately the sky has been very clear but today I am enjoying the drift of fluffy white clouds just asking to be leapt into. When I engaged in cloud hopping, I feel a lightness and thrilling sense of freedom as I jump from cloud to cloud. And that moves me to then have my head in the clouds figuratively.

When I go up into the clouds figuratively, I am very removed from the world and my body. It is as if I can peer down upon me and my own life with a new perspective—almost as if I were a different person. It is very calming because that view is always magnificent and optimistic and persuasive. From the cloud view I am able to look over the past of my life, the present of my life and the future of my life without fear and without judgment and with love and kindness. It is serenity. It gives me clarity.  What a great place to live!

Sometimes I figure out a problem up there. Other times I get new ideas and run back inside to write them down. Almost always I want to write after I am up in the clouds because I have so much pouring out of my head that I must release. And writing is a wonderful method to release and cultivate my thoughts. Even as I type away at the keyboard, I feel removed from my physical self when I am downloading post cloud time. The words tumble from my head and I feel soothed and completely at home. As I sit here attempting to make sense of it, I would say that for me nature and writing are curiously intertwined. I don’t always need to be in the clouds or in nature to write, but nature moves me. Being outside pushes me into the clouds, which then pushes me into thoughts and then pushes me to write. I say push because it is as if an energy field is surrounding me that compels me to write. Yes, inactivity leads to boundless activity! The inactivity of having my head in the clouds is actually one of the most powerful ways for me to get into action—the action of writing. I say let’s all get our heads into the clouds and see what we create!

XOXO Rachel

A Nature Child Of The 60s In Small-Town USA

Although it is easy to wax poetically and over-romanticize one’s childhood while looking back decades, my childhood days really were glorious. I lived in a tiny town of about 1000 people located in one square mile of New Jersey, very much in farmland. Roosevelt is located in central Jersey where relatively large areas of undeveloped land remain and there are still farms left. Sure, there are tract housing developments near my hometown now that did not exist when I was a kid, but it is still a wooded borough surrounded by plenty of nature.

I got to thinking about my experience with nature as a child because of a book that I just read for my book club, Last Child In The Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. I have been in one book club or another for more than 20 years. This time I have rejoined a club that meets at the library in my new small-town—new in the sense that I have only been living here full time for about 5 years and part-time for only 20 years. A club member, Annie, who works in ecological education, suggested the book. She also happens, coincidentally, to be married to the son of Becky who I grew up with in my hometown of Roosevelt. Although it is possible that knowing Annie’s connection to my town primed me to recollect these nature experiences, the book on its own was remarkable in how much it elicited my memories of being a child of nature in the 60s.

One of the themes of the book is that children raised before the early 70s had a different relationship with nature than most children do now or during the intervening years. As I read the book I realized how lucky I was to roam the small streets and woods of my town and commune with nature. My whole perspective on life, in retrospect, was influenced by nature when I was a girl. To me, being in nature is paradise—heaven on earth. I assumed everyone felt that way and I am sure many do. But I actually did live in Paradise. Well, it was once.

Roosevelt was originally Jersey Homesteads and before that is was an area named Paradise. I have the map to prove it!  In winter I often sled down Paradise Hill, a steep paved road that was the only remaining nod to Roosevelt being Paradise. In the adjacent woods, if you dared, there was a path through the woods called “Steeple Chase” where you had to dodge trees as you speed down the slope. I think the first time I tasted Jack Daniel’s—just a sip—was on a cold evening as a teenager sledding on Paradise Hill. My mom grew up in the same town and during the early 50s, she sled there too (though I have no idea if she sipped whiskey).

So many of poignant childhood memories are outdoors somewhere in town. Near our school there were many great opportunities for outdoor exploration. In “the enclosure”, a tree and grassy square lined by hedges, friends and I played many different games including hide-and-seek. Even though that area was relatively manicured compared to the woods, I loved running around and under and sometimes climbing through the big trees or just lazing on the grass in the enclosure blowing blades of grass to create sounds.

I was devoted to the paths in town (I walked many paths outside of town too—see Walking Around A Lake). There was the formal path between the school and Tamara Drive where I even found wild asparagus growing. I can almost taste the raw thin sweet stalks to this day. I often walked along the path beside the creek that ran through town. The creek meandered and crossed roads at several locations including Tamara Drive, Rochdale Ave and an unpaved road that we simply called “the path”. I loved stopping on any of those overpasses to play with the creek. I’d place a leaf on the upstream side of the road so that I could watch it float under the road and pop out the other side. What quiet joy!

I wandered all the paths in town alone or with a friend or my brother any number of times just to explore. Or to use as a shortcut. That was a common word I used to describe the routes on paths I found between places in town. I took a shortcut through people’s backyards, front yards, or the woods—all ways imaginable including just about going through someone’s house—to get between my home and somewhere I wanted to go. I took shortcuts to school. I took shortcuts to my best friend Peri’s house that was across the street from my grandmother Coco’s house so therefore a shortcut to her place as well. And I took shortcuts to my great Aunt Ellie’s house. Most of the shortcuts were through the woods on hardly what you’d call a path in some places. They were more just routes through bramble and prickly bushes, some with blueberries or raspberries, or slimy rock lined routes with colorful moss.

Moss stands out prominently in my love of nature. Very close to my house, above the Pine Valley Swim Club, was a path into the woods where I made a secret hiding spot in a moss-covered embankment. I kept a metal box that held—I don’t know what—tucked under rocks and moss. I loved to go there and sit and think and smell the earth around me. I’ve apparently known forever that flora sights and scents are essential to my livelihood. Not that I didn’t like bugs. I really liked bugs a lot! Whether playing with lighting bugs by putting them into jars as lanterns, or pulling off the lighting part just when they flashed on and squishing them on my finger to imitate a diamond (gross), or collecting bugs as specimens for a science classification project, I definitely was one with bugs.

So now when I think of Coco’s and my great grandmother Hani mama’s vegetable garden and the sweetest peas imaginable from the brightest green pods possible or I remember the wonderful feeling of my hands pulling carrots from the earth or I envision dancing around Ellie’s cherry trees and gooseberry bushes and the baked goodies that we created with them, I recognize how much my childhood was chock ‘o block with good times in nature. And I recognize that those good times in nature have influenced what I consider good times now. I’ve been a flower gardener from the time we bought our home 20 years ago to today. Now that Andy built us a vegetable garden, we are also vegetable gardeners. I often dream of that wild asparagus in Roosevelt, so much so that I am considering planting some in our garden even though it needs lots of space and years to establish. And not surprising, one of the first things I did when bought our property was create paths (and a labyrinth—see Revealing the labyrinth on our land). I need only step outside to be surrounded by our 3 acres of woods to regain the calm and quiet joy that I have known since childhood.

Several years ago I rambled on about how nature soothes my soul to my life coach. From the clouds above (see Cloud Hopping) to the earth below and all the flora and fauna in between, I spoke of my sense of awe and love for nature. He paused and thought about what I said and then characterized me as deeply spiritual. I had a momentary confusion having been raised non-religious. Me spiritual? I never learned anything about religion so what does spiritual mean? I was unable to fully reconcile my feelings of transcendence when I commune with nature with what I think of as religion. But now I recognize that through nature I was first exposed to the sense that there is something more than me as an individual. In nature, as a child and now as an adult, I feel connected to all forms of life and I have a need to use my hands to connect with my evolution on earth. This isn’t a theological perspective but rather a personal spirituality perspective. Now I understand that to me nature is a perfect place to get replenished because it embodies love, beauty and peace. I will always be a nature child of the 60s.

XOXO Rachel