There are some things in your life you get tired of repeating to people whom you’ve just met: how you spell your name, what you do for a living, your town of origin. For me, I’ve repeated one moment in my life for more people than I can count. I have yet to tire of it.
The moment starts with the hiss of a botanical lemonade’s cap being twisted off. I was sitting on a lichen-covered picnic table beside some family’s pond. A rock, engraved with the name of the pond, was lumped beside the table, and next to that was a ladder. I think there was also a rope attached to a tree for the express purpose of swinging into the pond on a good warm day. It wasn’t warm that day. But it was good. Armed with one of the last remaining CD players, I was listening to Stephen King narrate his epic The Gunslinger. I sat. I watched the trees reach themselves upward, arms from the body of earth, curious to touch the howling wind, but cowardly enough to bend when the crying picked up. I downed half the bottle of the juniper and lemon drink before I had to stop the CD. I heard something close to me scream. I listened. It screamed. It sounded like a ghost.
It was just the wind running through the neck of the lemonade bottle. An accidental windchime. I started up the Gunslinger chapter again. I think I ate a bagel. I left. My hands were getting cold.
I think it happened two years ago, around Passover. I can say without a doubt that that one moment, those brief minutes, was one of the most beautiful and rewarding experiences of my life. I don’t remember what homework I had that day—heck, that quarter. Adventuring, however you want to do so for however long you want, is the best distraction against school, life; everything. I don’t want to leave this high school without more people heading out with their backpacks and hiking boots than when I came in.
Whatever you want out of life, there is some way that adventuring can give it to you. I like to use my time efficiently and try to be a jack-of-all-trades. In four hours, I can get great exercise, take both documentarian and artistic photographs, explore off-trail/road areas, get a better internal compass or mental map, listen to high-quality podcasts (possibly learn how to impersonate Ira Glass?), meet strangers, go to exciting events (yard sales?! Barbecues and pancake breakfasts, strip malls and craft shops), figure out how to pack and eat efficiently, birdwatch, cloudspot, people-watch, and live a life worthy of a story. Wow. Nearly twenty brilliant activities and I could keep going. Additionally, once I bring a friend, mentor, or significant other, more options open up. Classy picnics in the deep woods? Swimming (responsibly) in a lake for your second date? Botanical research with your future boss? I mean, c’mon!
Want to scare yourself and practice your endurance (again, responsibly)? I know no better activity than adventuring, during the course of which I may have had to run away from a motorcyclist wielding a chainsaw, hidden in a bee-infested pipe from a toddler, and walked through a courtyard full of animal skeletons.
Want time to think about the problems in your life, or perhaps time to forget about them? The meditative combination of asphalt, pine trees, roadkill, and granola will get you somewhere. It’s like being in a world all unto itself. Pair that with deep thought, good conversation, books on tape, or just silence, and poof, you’ve entered another reality.
Want to gain skill in a craft of your choosing? I’ve adventured into forests and gathered vines for basket-weaving. I’ve brought a sketchbook and drawn whatever I see. One time, I brought a poetry anthology and let stanzas reverberate from the top of a hill.
Please do tick checks. Please do tick checks. Please go only where you’re allowed. Please pack well, especially with lots of water, money, and a charged cell phone. Beyond those pleas, there aren’t really many rules to adventuring. It is what you make of it. On my first adventure, I walked to a gas station, bought some honey-roasted cashews, and walked back. The next day I went a bit further, to a graveyard, and returned. The next day, the same thing. Years later, I’ll go hours out—counties out, even—and I’ll still have a fantastic time.
Remember those Calvin and Hobbes stories where they’d try to walk to the Yukon, or sled seemingly forever, or walk over a babbling brook on a downed tree? This mix of wanderlust, nostalgia, and shinrin-yoku, it’s gorgeous. It’s timeless. It’s right at your fingertips.