Idyllwild, California

As an extreme sport, child-raising has been terrifically underrated. In fact, parenting is like a visit to Yosemite in a couple of ways: just because others think it's popular doesn't mean it isn't worth doing, and there is always someone climbing the walls.

An idyll in the wilds living a mile high in the pines and cedars, surrounded by forest and huge rocks of the San Jacinto range, affords me the opportunity to recharge psychic batteries and reacquaint myself with what life is really about. Our street, 'Double View Drive' affords a view of nearby 10,000 foot peaks on one side and, for a few weeks a year, the Pacific Ocean on the other. After nearly half a century on the planet, this migratory bird seems to have finally found a nest.

As an extreme sport, child-raising has been terrifically underrated. It's rapid-fire moments of alternating agony and ecstasy equal those of any mountain expedition. In fact, parenting is like a visit to Yosemite in a couple of ways: just because it's popular doesn't mean it isn't worth doing, and there is always someone climbing the walls.

Parenting provides the kind of challenges I never imagined possible without expensive equipment, wild topography or the imminent likelihood of death. It is two parts bliss and one part guerilla warfare. Yet, if it is true (and I believe it is) that the most gratifying experiences in life are the most demanding, then parenting is, beyond a doubt, the ultimate adventure.

Besides having a reason to make a living, I now have a reason to stay alive. I have something and someones - to live for. An old Native American blessing was to soar like an eagle but to have roots like an oak. A family provides those roots. Sooner or later in life we discover that, contrary to conventional wisdom, living in pursuit of our own selfish dreams cannot lead to happiness. It is not in the getting for oneself but in the giving to others that our soul experiences true joy. Not only does the love I have for my family keep me from making the foolish climbing move that would bring my life to a hasty conclusion, it has become the source of my creativity, vitality and hope.

It has been said that there are three kinds of philosophers: cynics, realists and people with children. Parenthood invokes a sense of optimism and commitment. I want my daughter Yeshe to have an opportunity to know this sweet blue-green planet as I have known it and for my son Jacinto to run freely through the mountains and wilderness for which he was named. I am confident that they will. In my mind's eye I already see life on this vibrant orb floating in space becoming more enlightened, more compassionate and more beautiful every day.

Hey, I'm not a dreamer. That's "apparent".

Cadaques, Spain

Ultimately, we discover that we can rely on the Muse to meet us half way. All we need to do is trust that there is something of value within us, open the spigot and let it flow.

My family spent the 1998-99 holiday season in the ancient walled city of Cadaques on the Costa Brava.

We should have grown suspicious when we easily found a centuries-old villa to rent right above the cobblestone beach. The area around Cadaques is called the La Costa Brava, or "the wild coast." Despite it's deceptive location on the Mediterranean Sea, in winter it is blustery and wet with winds stronger than anything I have ever known, outside of a hurricane in the Caribbean or an Ice Cap in Patagonia. There was a good reason we were the only tourists in town.

Kate was pregnant with our son. I was pregnant with my book. While I knew that Kate would deliver within the next six months, I wasn't at all sure I could. I had been laboring for decades. I hoped the uniqueness of our location would help with the birthing.

Cadaques had been home to Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso. Albert Einstein once played his violin in the town square. Perhaps the Muse was still lingering and might favor me and, with a sprinkle of fairy dust, help me culminate what had come to feel more like a curse than a labor of love. I would awake at 4:30 each morning and stand on our balcony in the dark. Waves thundered onto the beach below, crashing on the cobbles. Wind roared, whipping through my hair, pressing my clothes hard against my flesh. Air rushed past my nose so fast it was hard to breathe. I sucked in all the elemental force I could handle... and I then set down to write.

And write I did. Like a maniac. From dawn till long past dark. Five in the morning till ten at night most days, I remained pajama-clad, hunched over my laptop. Hunting and pecking my way toward my mountaintop. Kate proofread each page. Jana, my saintly niece ran interference with my two year-old daughter. I squirmed, I moaned, I cursed. The isolation and bad weather worked to my advantage. There was nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. I stayed glued to the desk chair that felt as attached to me as a hermit crab's carapace until, on the day before we were to head back to the States, I hit the save button one last time. I was done.

Unlikely as it may sound, writing the book was as tough an adventure as any I have ever undertaken and, like most of life's most worthwhile experiences, had I known at the start what it would entail, I never would have begun. Writing the book taught me about the magical equation of creativity being the addition of perseverance and focus over time. But most of all it taught me to trust. Rather than submit to writer's block, I would begin typing with little idea what I would say and even less of an idea how I would say it. Time and time again, the words flowed.

I simply had to force myself to begin - overcoming fear and inertia by brute force, by sheer power of will - for the creative urge to transport me. Ultimately, we discover that we can rely on the Muse to meet us half way. All we need to do is trust that there is something of value within us, open the spigot and let it flow.

This is all life demands of us.

This is what life demands of us all.

I raised myself from my faithful desk chair, my knees creaking, elbows stiff, back aching. I had trusted till I had rusted. The biggest challenge for an adventure-addict is to stick in one place long enough to accomplish anything.

It was time to get unstuck once more. Time to seek the unusual, the challenging, the place of greatest demands. It was time to go home.

 

Outer Mongolia

If frequent laughter and contentment is any measure of success, these were some highly successful people. It took some getting used to, but just because things were strange didn't make
them wrong, just... different.

My best buddy and favorite travel companion, Stephen Meyers and I had a simple goal...

to take a month and plunge ourselves as deep into the middle of nowhere as possible. That turned out to be the Hangai Nuru range of Outer Mongolia.

Stephen and I rode our horses for weeks through a wilderness of rivers, meadows and forests. We subsisted largely on the local diet of roasted marmots washed down with Kool-Aid from home. According to Nudi and Zuloo - the two young Mongolian nomads who played twin Sacajaweas to our Lewis and Clark - we were the first outsiders to glimpse this hidden world. Life in Mongolia turned everything we knew upside down and yet, despite its unique through-the-looking-glass logic, functioned perfectly.

Instead of cows, it was horses that the Mongolians grazed. Fermented mare's milk - not cow's - was the libation of choice. While sheep were a staple, the fat was prized, while the meat was often thrown to the dogs - or to Stephen and me. When it came to hunting marmots, another favorite food, instead of sneaking up on them, Nudi would dress up in a white outfit and white hat and dance in the meadows. Curious marmots climbed out of their holes, amused by the show. Nudi then plugged them handily between the eyes with his trusty .22 caliber rifle. At least they went out happy.

Perhaps most unusual was the Mongolian annual migration pattern. While nomads the world over graze the highlands in summer when they are snow-free and linger in the sheltered lowlands in winter, the nomads of the Hangai Nuru have their own ideas. They prefer to spend their summers in the huge low grasslands grazing their livestock and in the winter turn to the forest where they can find both shelter and fuel.

The good news: this has left huge alpine areas completely virgin. We rode for days through a dreamscape of wildflowers, purple, yellow and red. The flower fields were endless and so deep that our legs and the saddle blankets were drenched by dew, water running down our legs and into our boots. The large dog that accompanied us was visible only as a moving ripple somewhere beneath the sea of color through which we moved. In the evening we would play cards with Zuloo and Nudi or wrestle. Mongolians love to wrestle.

In the tent at night, Stephen and I would talk about how both topsy-turvy and sweet we were finding life in the middle of nowhere. The lives our Mongolian hosts were living could be no more different than our own, but if frequent laughter and contentment is any measure of success, these were some highly successful people. It took some getting used to, but just because things were strange didn't make them wrong just different.

Strangeness is a good thing when it wakes us up, makes us question beliefs we've too long taken for granted. Strangeness becomes a great thing when we discover the delight of doing things differently ourselves.

After our horse expedition across central Mongolia, the four of us returned to Nudi's yurt. Netmitt, his tent-sized mom welcomed us as new members of the family. Quaking with happy laughter at her son's safe return, she clasped us each in turn to her ample bosom. There was fermented mare's milk, marmot and plenty of sheep fat. Life just doesn't get better than that.

Chinese Turkistan

Only experience can create depths of friendship that transcend politics, race, and time. Relationships that danger and shared sacrifice have bonded - no force on earth can rend asunder.

Who knows where and when dreams start? For some unknown reason, one of mine had long been to ride with the Khazaks of Central Asia.

Devoted to horsemanship and falconry, living loose and free in one of the least visited parts of the globe, the Khazak belongs more to previous centuries than to this one. If cultures that are the most different from us have the most to teach, a stint in the saddle with the wild-riding, yak-herding Muslim tribesmen of Turkestan was bound to be instructive.

Tracing the route of the ancient Silk Road across China was a shock in itself. It was the mid-Eighties and travel in the Middle Kingdom was still an exercise in sensory deprivation. There was nothing of interest to eat or see. Massacred in the Cultural Revolution were not only intellectuals, but the best artists, architects and chefs. I was a foreigner lost in a swirling sea of humanity whose wardrobe consisted uniquely of a Mao suit in either blue or green, (clothing designers had also been targeted). Foreigners were suspicious, dangerous and when it came to entertainment, fair game. I was poked, stared at and alone. It only got worse when I arrived at my destination, Urumuchi, capital of Xinjiang province. Communist China is a free country, the local police chief informed me for the Chinese. When it came to foreigners, however, the entire region where the Khazaks lived was officially bu kifan - closed, totally off limits.

In other words, I'd have to be really tricky.

Under the guise of a folklore project, I commissioned a traditional saddle from a local craftsman. I made furtive outings into the nearby Celestial Mountains and arranged for the purchase of a horse. Back in Urumuchi, I cached food and other supplies. I also made friends. Rixat and Xue Di were an unlikely pair to begin with. Rixat was a fair skinned, Mid-Eastern looking, Islamic Uyghur. Round-faced Xue Di was pure Han Chinese. Add to these races already in conflict a bearded foreigner, and we were the most unlikely threesome in all Xinjiang.

My preparations complete I caught a ride before dawn and headed for the celestial hills. I based my multi-day expeditions out of the yurt of the family that had sold me my horse. At night I slept on the carpeted floor of the felt tent in between the two youngest boys, Aldhazar and Marat. Slowly I became an accepted member of the family. Since I spoke hardly a word of the native language, Jarakhan, my Khazak "dad," penned a letter of introduction which served as my entre wherever I went. Above the forests, the canyons were choked with flowers, alive with wildlife. Frequently, my horse and I stumbled upon huge elk grazing complacently a dozen yards from us. All we ever got was a look of limited interest before they returned to their munching.

One day, returning "home" after an extended trip, I found the family yurt surrounded by plain-clothed police sent to investigate and arrest me. They bundled me into their jeep and carted me off to Urumuchi for questioning while my family looked on in shocked and tearful silence. I cried too, for I knew it was unlikely that I would ever see them again.

It turned out reasonably well. My family got their horse back plus my brand new saddle-small payment for a month of incredible hospitality. I got a free ride back to civilization and the Chinese police got their man.

It didn't take long for the officer in charge to recognize that I was definitely not CIA material, but I had broken the law and would have to leave the country. I was only back in my hotel a matter of hours when the phone rang. It was Rixat. Could I be at Xue Di's house tomorrow for dinner?

I'll never forget that final meal and how the two of them, filling our glasses with beer, brought me over to the radio. They cranked the volume several decibels, but it wasn't the song they wanted to share; it was a secret.

"The police have been here," whispered Xue Di, "and they have said we should not associate with you any more. That we cannot be your friends." He laughed. "But the three of us are already friends. We will always be friends. No matter what!"

Only experience can create depths of friendship that transcend politics race, and time. Relationships that danger and shared sacrifice have bonded - no force on earth can rend asunder.

We lifted our glasses, the Uyghur, the Chinese and the foreigner. "Forever!" we pledged in unison. And we drank.

Kathmandu, Nepal

Travelling to strange lands pulls off the blinders we never knew we were wearing. Adventure raises questions we were not previously wise enough to ask.

That first night in Kathmandu, just off the airplane, I discovered I had not just flown around the planet - I had entered another world.

It was the early Eighties and my life-long love affair with the exotic Kingdom of Nepal had begun.

The night was filled with sounds and smells I had never before encountered: clang of bicycle and rickshaw bells and incense from a thousand corner shrines. Thumping rhythm of tablas punctuated the drone of harmoniums from roadside prayer groups. And the sights! Bizarre candle-lit images of the elephant-headed god Ganesh daubed in paint and bedecked with wreathes of flowers; Hanuman the monkey god draped in vibrant red fabric and pasted with layer upon layer of gold; above my head on garishly painted temple arches, male and female forms cavorted in full Kama Sutra abandon. Was this heaven or hell? I could not tell; all road signs were indecipherable.

Entirely disoriented, I wandered the murky labyrinth of mud and stone, wandering cows and pleading beggars. Finally, I wandered into a courtyard that seemed calmer, cleaner, quieter. It was a Tibetan Buddhist shrine. My mind reeling, I found a stone bench and realized I had not breathed for hours. The stupa, draped in prayer flags, gleamed like a giant Hershey Kiss in moonlight. I inhaled and exhaled until my mind cleared. And then I said a prayer.

It was a sacred moment. A unique opportunity. My inner-world was a strange tumult of excitement, uncertainty, and fear. I had stepped foot upon the shores of a new world and I prayed to be open in both mind and spirit to all that was to come my way. Like any true adventure, the change in geography was only the catalyst for the change that could take place within. I had arrived in a new place and now it was up to me to see it all with new eyes. I felt humble and fully alive. Lost, confused and elated all at once. I had been in Nepal a total of less than three hours.

A voice in the darkness surprised me. It was my own. "Welcome to Asia!" it said.

Life's greatest adventures begin the moment we take a first step into the unknown. It is that easy and that available. Unfamiliar destinations supply the requisite disorientation to shake us, wake us up from easy answers and complacency. Travelling to strange lands pulls off the blinders we never knew we were wearing. Adventure raises questions we not previously wise enough to ask.

Over a decade, Nepal became my "second home". Kate and I met and felt such a part of the culture that we were married in a mountain top monastery in the Solu-Khumbu. Our daughter Yeshe got both her biological start and her name there. And the friendships with my partner Gombu Sherpa and the eclectic gang of Americans with whom I trekked over the years have become the most important connections of my life. Yet, like most of our ultimately most valuable experiences, it began with a sense of turmoil and a loss of control. Successful explorers, innovators and entrepreneurs know: it is not only helpful to accept emotions such as disorientation, confusion and a touch of fear, it is essential to pursue them. Ultimately, if we do not make venturing into the unknown a regular practice, we will find ourselves nowhere at all.

Kosovo
Former Yugoslavia

Only through experience do we exchange our apathy for compassion. A stranger who has broken bread with us, who has invited us in to his hearth to meet his family, is a stranger no more. And will never be one again.

In the 1980's while backpacking through the Mokra Gora of Kosovo, my friend, Jackie Marovac, and I were adopted by a family of Albanian shepherds.

It was a poor, but beautiful family, full of kindness. Waif-like blond haired children clung to the homespun garments of their hard-working, adoring parents. We spent time in their ramshackle hut, sharing rustic meals of bread, roasted peppers and cheese, joining them on their daily rounds of herding, tending and milking the cows that were the center of their nomadic existence. They seemed to me innocent, uneducated and uncomplicated, and I felt sorry for their circumstances.

One afternoon, Deme, our gray-haired, bright-eyed host stopped by a stream and gesturing, spoke to me in Albanian. Nonplussed, I shrugged my incomprehension. He tried expressing himself again, to no avail. Finally he knelt and, tracing the dirt with his fingers, drew the symbol 'H2O' - two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen. "Water!" I exclaimed, both of us laughing. I don't know why Deme was laughing, but I was laughing at myself. There was obviously much more to this "peasant" - much more education, wisdom and complexity than I had easily assumed. I was the one who had much to learn. The fact that I had been to college and earned a Ph.D. had everything to do with an accident of birth and nothing to do with my worth or evolution as a human.

That same evening, when the kids played a scratchy Albanian dance tune on a hand-cranked record player, Deme walked to the center of the dirt floor. Throwing up his head, thrusting his arms into the air, he began to sway as if in a trance. He moved like a man on a cloud, filled with a vision, lost in the music. As I watched his slow, graceful, sinuous movements I noticed the eyes of his wife and young children filling with pride. "Here is a true man," I thought, "at home in his body, his family and his world." My pity turned to envy. In that moment I realized that it is not privilege but passion that makes us remarkable.

Fifteen years later, when Kosovo had been turned to a killing field and the video clips of massacred or fleeing Albanian families flooded our television screens, I could not help but think of my friend Deme, the intellectual sheepherder and his beautiful family. It was much more than a news story, it was part of my story. I had an opinion. A strong one. And I voiced it. Even from the platform when it was probably politically incorrect to do so.

This is one of the hidden benefits of adventurous travel. Only through experience do we exchange our apathy for compassion. A stranger who has broken bread with us, who has invited us in to his hearth to meet his family is a stranger no more. And will never be one again. We have become a part of each other's extended family. When their lives are affected in some way, so are ours. We cannot help but respond. Every time we open our heart to a stranger and discover how much more similar we are than different, we become both better world citizens and human beings. Even more importantly, life for everything and everyone on the planet gets just a little better.

Patagonia

Of all life's experiences, the most precious is the moment we awaken to our own mortality - and that of those we love. For many of us the truth is plain: only when we become aware that our days are "numbered" do we commit to living them fully.

We called ourselves the American Andean Ski-Mountaineering Expedition because we needed a name on the stationery.

More accurately, we needed the stationery because we had our eyes on a ton of skis, boots, tents and ropes that we couldn't afford to buy on the meager wages we got as seasonal climbing instructors in Colorado. So we defined ourselves as an expedition, wrote letters and made promises we were unlikely to be able to fulfill. Then we sat back and watched the gear roll in.

It was the early 70's and the world was more innocent. So were we. Four fledgling climbers barely out of their teenage years with dreams of grandeur. We would traverse the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap on skis. We would explore regions still marked inexplorada, complete first ascents of uncharted mountains and baptize them with the names of our college sweethearts. We would accomplish things others had only dreamed of. Our initial foray onto the ice of Patagonia was a staggering defeat. Staggering being the descriptive word. For a month we tottered and reeled beneath spine-compressing loads across the Upsala Glacier, the longest in South America, establishing a series of camps upon seemingly endless ice. The nameless mountain ultimately evaded us and we spent two weeks pinned down in a snow-cave while the winds above us howled like angry gods with a bad case of gas. Still, we laughed and sang Christmas carols in April, and escaped back across the glacier, wiser and unscathed. We were, after all, invincible.

Eleven months and a few mountains under our belts later, our dream expedition ended when Steve McAndrews, my best friend, died on our attempt of Mt. Fitzroy.

It was to have been the feather in our cap. We were to return to our tribe as victorious warriors. Instead, I was flying to Buenos Aires with the body of my friend in a casket next to me, trying to make sense of the disaster that had befallen us.

Of all life's experiences, this is the most precious: the moment we awaken to our own mortality - and that of those we love. For many of us the truth is plain: only when we become aware that our days are "numbered" do we commit to living them fully. As I wrote in my journal in the days after the accident, "Steve's death could so easily have been mine. One day it will be mine, and until that day I will define myself in action, in song, in dance and not just in words."

I have never been the same. I am proud of that fact. I believe that Steve would be proud of me, too. If it is true that I am just a little bolder, more intense, laugh more heartily and frolic more easily than some, it is largely because of Steve. I will forever owe a debt of gratitude beyond measure to my pal who gave me the gift of a lifetime.

After 25 years, I still miss him.

At the start of dawn
Where it all begins,
At the start of you and me,
Where light shines and darkness fades
We see the moments, splintering from moments.

May my light cheat
Darkness.
May your love break
Lies.

At the start of night
Where it all ends,
At the end of you and me,
Where light shines and darkness fades
We see the moment to be.

Steve McAndrews

New Caledonia

It became clear that, to the tribal people of New Caledonia, making a "living" was not about earning money. "Living" meant finding creative ways to survive and then simply enjoying every day immensely.

I turned 18 in the jungles of New Caledonia living on vampire bats.

Besides the obvious culinary attraction, Caledonia seemed like a great place to be with the Vietnam War going on, when it came time to register for the draft. I left a forwarding address with Jacques, the bar owner and postmaster in the shantytown where we traded extra bats for whiskey. Curiously, I never heard from my draft board again.

The people of New Caledonia taught me that I could "do better without." Since they spoke only French and I spoke none, I learned that—when travelling—I could do without a spoken language. In fact, I quickly learned that fancy words can actually interfere with communication from the heart. Since the tin mines had closed, the local population had been forced to revert to a subsistence level. Dugald and his family, into whose hut I stumbled one day, taught me how to dig for roots and make lemony tea from leaves. At dusk, when the vampiros (huge bats with six foot wing-spans) filled the sky, we harvested protein with an old shotgun. Dugald did the shooting. My job was to club the snarling creatures to death with a big stick after they thundered to the ground. It became clear that, to the tribal people of New Caledonia, making a "living" was not about earning money. "Living" meant finding creative ways to survive and then simply enjoying themselves immensely. If there was money, well tres bien. If not, it was just as easy to do without. In fact, the more you could afford to do without, the simpler and better life became.

I gradually learned to enjoy doing without language, without money, without plans and, finally even without clothes. One afternoon, while Dugald and I were hunting for dinner in the steamy jungle, it began to pour. I put on more clothing—a waterproof parka—while Dugald took all of his off. While Dugald ran unencumbered through the tree ferns, the rain bouncing off his black skin, I felt like I was dying. Sweat poured off me, condensing inside my impermeable raincoat. My steps faltered as I began to overheat, drowning inside my clothing. Dugald turned, stopped in his tracks and began to laugh. He motioned for me to take off my parka. My shirt. My pants. The rain beat upon my bare skin. Soon I was bounding along next to him, laughing. I never knew that doing without could feel so good.

We are rich in proportion to the things we no longer need. One way to become rich is to work hard enough to purchase everything in sight. The other, far more time-efficient, is to decide we simply do not need those things.

"Simplicity of life and elevation of purpose," prescribed Henry Thoreau. "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail." These words ring truer today than 150 years ago when they were written. In a time of hyper-accelerated expectations and multi-tasking measured in nanoseconds, it is up to us to consciously limit our involvement to things that truly matter. To purposefully rededicate our efforts to activities that contribute to our genuine success. "Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize!" must be our cry at the millennium's turn. Or we shall exhaust both ourselves and our planet long before it is time.

Going within helps us discover exactly how much we can go without.

 

New Zealand

It is a truth as old as humanity, that to be touched by grace, to have one's life plan revealed, to discover life as it is - not how we think it is supposed to be - it is only necessary to head out, alone, into the wilderness.

In 1970, after a year of studying rock climbing at Prescott College in Arizona, I spent six months hitch-hiking the length of New Zealand. The outside world seemed yet to discover this remote island paradise. Working on sheep ranches, studying ice climbing, washing dishes, playing my harmonica and practicing my yodeling skills in the company of cows while waiting hours by the side of the road for a passing car.

One day, camped alone in my tent, in the rain in the Arthur's Pass wilderness, reading Island by Aldous Huxley, I had a "satori" experience. Perhaps it was the discovery that this brilliant man seemed to perceive the world through the same strange lens that I did, and that maybe there was hope for me after all. Or perhaps it was the three days of living on nothing but rice and dried figs but I suddenly felt that as isolated as I was, I was not alone. That just maybe I was on the right path after all and my path was actually leading me somewhere important. For whatever combination of reasons, I leapt from my tent and danced in the cold twilight rain, laughing and scampering like a wild man in the middle of nowhere.

In the words of Uvnuk, an Inuit woman shaman recorded by the Scandinavian explorer Knud Rasmussen in the 1920's, "I think over again my small adventures, my fears, those small ones that seemed so big, for all of the vital things I had to get and reach. And yet there is only one great thing: to live and see the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world."

It is a truth as old as humanity, that to be touched by grace, to have one's life plan revealed, to discover life as it is - not how we think it is supposed to be - it is only necessary to head out, alone, into the wilderness. As effective as it is uncomfortable, those of us who thirst for a vision need only to go into the wilds alone and ask. And wait.

 

New Jersey

Move toward fear, not away from it. Insist on wakefulness and discover that the dawn that greets you is even more brilliant than you dreamed. I became an adventurer because I was a timid child who knew that unless he did something, he would become a wallflower forever.

My home was loving and solid and easy. Just like the homes of my friends. And nothing like the wild world of movies and imagination. It was comfortable. I felt protected and soft. Numb.

One day, with just enough money hidden inside my hiking boots for the ride home, I hopped the #77 bus to New York City and spent the night wandering Central Park, frightened and alone. Long after midnight, I fell asleep on a bench in Grand Central Station. Awakened by a Billy club in the ribs from a cop on patrol, I wandered 42nd Street in the wet, gray pre-dawn hours. Without enough change in my pocket for even a cup of coffee, every door was closed to me. I could imagine how it would feel to go through life like this. I felt compassion for those I passed, still asleep in doorways, the truly homeless ones. Tears rolled down my face. I felt awful, but I felt something. I was determined to feel more.

By age 16, I was gone from New Jersey, off to attend a college in Arizona whose orientation week began with a 6 mile run, a rappel over a 150' cliff, a dip in a freezing cold swimming pool, followed by a ten-day wilderness hike and a kayak traverse of Lake Powell. I never looked back. If it was a choice between ease and numbness or uncertainty and aliveness, I vowed to choose uncertainty every step of the way.

Our life becomes an adventure every time we opt for the unknown over the known. It is not through ease and comfort that we experience our aliveness, but through adversity. Life's greatest moments do not drop from the sky, we must actively create them. The key: move toward fear, not away from it. Insist on wakefulness and discover that the dawn that greets you is even more brilliant than you dreamed. Choose adventure, push off from the shore and delight at how the river of life carries you headlong into the dance.