TobyWhether I’m hopping continents or battling insects in my jungle house, life is always some kind of a wild ride… or a microadventure!
These days, I’m not moving around much. Between organizing events, being a full-time masters student, and working on the amazing NuMundo platform, I haven’t had time for big travel.
And I feel pretty great about that, because every day is already an adventure.
I read an article once about microadventure that meshed perfectly with my own vagabondish philosophy. According to Alastair Humphreys, microadventures are “short, simple, local, cheap—yet still fun, exciting, challenging, refreshing and rewarding.” I would expand that definition even beyond planned experiences; to my mind, a microadventure occurs anytime we approach a situation with a spirit of “I am here,” “anything can happen,” and “might as well play in the rain.”
Travel, adventure, exploration—they’re not about taking that one “trip of a lifetime.” In fact, if we only make one grand tour and then spend the rest of our lives in mundane monotony, I think we’ve lost the plot…
Below are a few microadventurous snippets of pura vida, Costa Rica style. I hope you will try slipping on on some adventure-colored glasses and looking at your own days through a similar lens:
Trickster Monkey
There is one particular monkey who likes to play in the banana tree just outside my porch. One day, I ran to see what was happening when I heard him thrashing around through the palms, then watched as he tore all the white petals off the top of the purple banana flower, then nonchalantly dropped them to the ground one by one. ]
I don’t think he wanted to eat them, was only making trouble. The monkey thrashed away just as loudly as he had come, and I was left laughing to myself about the absurdity of the scene.
Insect Wars
“Can this kill me?” I’ve never asked this question so often before, but the diversity of small and threatening wildlife that appears in my jungle house is really unprecedented. One night a baby scorpion appears on my cutting board when I turn my back for a minute. The next, a freaky, sneaky-quick spider flashes along my wall. And the next? Could be a millipede in my shoe, a black widow spider under my table, or an army of ants in my sink. I check my shoes before putting them on. I catch and release bugs, whose names I’ll likely never know, on a daily basis.
When I think or write about living in attunement with nature, this is the part I always conveniently omit. I don’t like these critters—especially when they fly up my nose or bite my ankles, but I do coexist with them. And then, these bugs are the part I conveniently omit when I talk about how much I love living alone. No one is going to deal with the dead lizard, the spider eggs, or the creepy flying creature if I don’t. But that is a good thing.
Sunday Morning Gratitude
Sunday morning hammock time. I’ve managed to crawl out of bed without my dreams, which slipped away too quickly. I thought about going down to the river after a long rainy season hiatus, but my body is calling for a slower start. I sit in my hammock and catch the sun through my eyelashes.
Jungle mornings. It will be hard to live in a city again. Wake up to birds, green-tinged sunlight catching the steam rising from my tea, yellow-flowering bushes pushing their noses up against the porch screen—and sometimes raccoon creatures too. Sure, the spiders and lizards and stupid flying beetles win some battles, but if the war is to live a good life, then I think I’m winning.
Gratitude—for this home, this body this earth, this opportunity to honor it all by living. I don’t write about it every day, but it is always there. The roadblocks don’t even register against the generosity of it all. It is a blessing, this steam rising in the sun. It is a blessing, this exuberance of birdsong. It is a blessing, this gentle rocking, this skin, this heartbeat, and this one, and this. It is a blessing.
On my way to Guatemala this afternoon—will report back with tales of Lake Atitlan, Cosmic Convergence, and anything else microadventure… or macro! 🙂