Swimming in Stars and Water

I want to share with you a revelation I had this week, which was brought on by the mothergiver of all revalations: Nature. This week I went to the Brooklyn Botantic Gardens with Bob Choiniere and Nick Pangakos and then to Fire Island with those same cats plus Nick Lazor. The Botantic Garden was absolutely wonderful. Flowers, beautiful lawns of green, and impressive habitat-controlled rooms.

For those of you who have never seen it,
this is what happens when Bob gets around flowers.
Yeah....

Fire Island was equally fun. I woke up at the time I was supposed to join everyone on the LIRR because of the horrible decisions we make when we're tired, but I arrived only an hour behind. The sun was out but not too out, the sand was warm but not scalding, and there were plenty of good-looking guys out without feeling like they were on the same beach towel as you. When I arrived, I was told by all three of my friends that the water was frigidly cold, and if you know me, you know I can't go to a body of water without actually spending some time in it. There was only one viable solution: drink as much vodka as possible to numb the cold before I went in the water. Several drinks later, I ran down the beach to embrace Poseidon for the first time this summer. I had prepared for ice; what I got was a pleasant chill. After I got out from the water, I admonished Nick Panagakos for losing the tolerance for cold water we had built up back when we were training for Tough Mudder, and soon we all went to eat and drink and dance before catching the last ferry home.

Those were the days, Nick...

But while I was out swimming by myself in the water everyone else preferred to be out of, all of these little tastes of nature caused me to remember my most recent megadose: the stars from the night of Christen Madrazo and Jason Williamson's wedding upstate in the Catskills two weeks ealier and what wonderment I was filled with at seeing so many stars in the sky. It was among the most I'd ever seen at once, and it was enough to make you wonder which end was up and down, which was the sky and which was the ground. Add a little wine and you've got a borderline mystical experience, my friends, and I began to realize how much of the second half of my life I've spent living in and traveling to urban areas, and how little I've spent going to small towns. When I take a vacation or want an adventure, it's always DC, Chicago, Indianapolis, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Amsterdam--you know, cities whose names you recognize pretty easily--and I realized that in my insatiable quest for more adventures in unfamiliar places (the emerging theme of this third stage of my life) doesn't always mean going to these giant places. They're exciting, for sure, and there's adventure to be had there, of that there's no doubt, but there are plenty of adventures to be had in Centralia, Taos, Ash Fork, and other places you and I have never heard of. The adventure doesn't come from social caché of the locale nor from the attractions it offers. In fact, I think attractions are often in the way of people having adventures when they travel. Adventure comes from talking to people you never would otherwise and seeing things you wouldn't see if you stayed in your comfort zone. It's the stimulating conversation you have about Galicians sharing ancestry with Celtic people or the assault of the millions of stars on your eyes that leaves you standing literally starstruck while a bonfire blazes a few yards away. It's can even be watching a flower bloom if it strikes you the right way at the right time. Or it can be waiting for your friend outside Burger King when a group of strikers forces it to close on the spot and lock everyone inside. (Think I'm kidding?.... Click here and see a video.) Adventure is everywhere, and I'm only now realizing that ignoring these smaller towns is doing myself a great disservice on this quest I've set myself on.

That being said, I've got to figure out a way to harangue Samantha Wier and Danny Monteith, my sister and her boyfriend, in to taking me to somewhere in Indiana where I can see all those stars again..... They're calling to me just as strongly as the ocean these days. Poseidon, meet Asteria...