“Part of the urge to explore is a desire to become lost.”
Snow is coming on Monday. Wow, I’m just so excited. We haven’t had any in at least three days. The weatherman also says it will be cold for most of the week. What a surprise! I was getting so tired of those high 20 degree days.
Today looks washed-out with light but no sun and some blue but mostly gray skies. The breeze is brisk and chilling.
I make all these plans to go places then I decide that being home and warm is the best place to be. Today I haven’t a choice. I have some must do errands. I will, however, award myself in some way for being fearless in the face of frigid cold and winter’s mighty hand.
I am an explorer. Even when I was a kid I explored. On my bicycle I rode all over town. I’d go down roads I hadn’t ever ridden on before. It wasn’t ever to find anything. It was just to see what was there. From high school in Arlington, it was a dime bus ride to Harvard Square down Mass Ave. It was the best of times for Harvard Square. The Orson Wells Theater, the old kiosk and the Wursthaus were still there. Book stores were everywhere. My friends and I explored the square time and time again. We went down one way streets resembling alleys and found hidden places to eat. We walked Harvard Yard. We never tired of spending a dime to get to the Square. We knew we might just find someplace neat, someplace new.
In college, I was no less an explorer but hardly explored. Books and classes took far too much of my time, and each summer I had to work. I was stuck in one place for what seemed like the longest time. I had a few interesting adventures in college and they helped but weren’t quite enough. My need to explore had expanded well beyond my bicycle and Harvard Square. I wanted new places. I wanted to need maps and hear a foreign language. I wanted the chance to be lost.
I am still an explorer, but my boundaries have expanded well beyond what I dreamed when I was ten. I have been lost several times, and I love finding my way. That’s what explorers do.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: bike riding, boundaries, breeze, chilling, cold, college, explorers, getting lost, Harvard Square, Snow, summer work, washed out day, Wursthaus, \exploring
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
March 1, 2014 at 1:26 pm
We are having a Yo Yo winter. Yesterday the high was 84 degrees. I drove home from work with the air conditioner on in my car. Today should be a close repeat but tomorrow the clouds return and the temperatures will drop to a low for Monday morning of 21 degrees. Hopefully any precipitation will have fallen before the surface temperatures freeze.
I was always an explorer as a kid. When I was ten or so I would take my bike on long journeys, by kid standards, to explore the North Dallas area. I would follow back streets to see what those neighborhoods were like.
When I moved to NYC at 13 the subway system became the conduit for my explorations. For the fifteen cent fare I used to spend Saturdays exploring most of the five boroughs. Of course in those days I avoided areas like Harlem or East New York in Brooklyn where a white kid might not return with his wallet or all his teeth. There were definite racial boundaries and people knew when to lock their car doors when traversing across those borders.
I still enjoy exploring when I travel for business. Unless I am in a place where getting into a wreck entails jail time, I rent a car so that I can explore on my own after work.
March 1, 2014 at 6:00 pm
Bob,
I’d take your weather in a heartbeat. We have celebrations when it hits 50˚ which isn’t often. I would love a day as warm as even 70˚ never mind 84˚.
I was the same way riding my bike-going to neighborhoods on the other side of town just to see them.
I also went into the city on the subway, but I had to take a bus first to Sullivan Square then the world was mine from there. I remember my mother would take the 4 of us to visit our grandmother, and it had to be the most roundabout way on the bus then the subway then another bus. She always said if we got separated to get off on the next stop.
I love exploring wherever I am.
March 1, 2014 at 6:56 pm
Celebrating warmer weather reminded me of a line from Joe Garagiola’s book, “Baseball is a Funny Game.” Joe wrote that when he played for the Pirates, in the 1950s, they were the pre Met, Mets. They were so bad they threw a victory party when they were rained out. 🙂
A baseball story should warm up the day.
March 1, 2014 at 7:28 pm
Bob,
That’s a great baseball story and I laughed. Too funny!!
Thanks!!
March 1, 2014 at 1:29 pm
I don’t think it would be right to call myself an explorer but I am sort of. I want to know my destination and have always wanted that but I have always taken different routes to get there. I like taking detours and as long as I have the right direction more or less I like to look for new places along the road.
Warm again today but with some rain every now and again. I didn’t mind though. I think I heard cranes in the air this morning and I know several already have arrived to the lake. I guess it’s just a matter of time until they all arrive unless this warm weather changes to cold again.
Have a great day!
Christer.
March 1, 2014 at 6:12 pm
Christer,
On the cape the everywhere is limited by the ocean so I go down unfamiliar roads just for the fun of it. I knew fewer places up-cape so that is where I sometimes go.
Cold again today and snow coming on Monday. This has been the worst winter I can remember. We never usually have this much snow. I’m tired of it. All I want is one warm day.
March 1, 2014 at 2:45 pm
Hi Kat,
I have a habit of going down roads just to see where they go. I call it getting creatively lost. It doesn’t worry me because I know eventually I will come to someplace I recognize. Even if it’s the Canadian border, I think I will know that I have gone too far in that direction. 😀
Today started sunny and low single digit cold. It’s hazy and much warmer now. Just above freezing. Rocky has gone to daycare to run off some energy. I was supposed to be doing errands but I have only done a couple. Dishes and laundry are still hanging fire.
French Toast Alert is saying not so much snow for me but still an appreciable amount for you. Today is the beginning of meteorological spring (except for Sweden) but who can tell, really. I’m ready for real spring with flowers and budding trees and warm sun.
Enjoy the day.
March 1, 2014 at 6:17 pm
Hi Caryn,
I do the same thing. I enjoy the old houses, the marshes and the views. I’ll warn you, though, that in Rhode Island it seems every road ends at the ocean.
I actually got 4 errands done including a trip to Siberian aka the Dennis Dump. The wind whips through there, and it is so much colder than anywhere else near it.
I saw the forecast and we could get 8 inches of it. I think that is enough for suicide by snow! I heard about meteorological spring yesterday on Channel 5’s news. Any news of spring is a huge exaggeration!
March 2, 2014 at 11:01 am
The first time I visited Brooklyn ME was very long ago when it was still a fishing village. It’s not like that anymore.
My friends were not in when I arrived at their little cottage so I decided to explore the road it was on. I drove a bit, saw not much but scrubby trees and then there was a high meadow with a doe standing in the middle of it. Beautiful.
I passed a large white house on the right, went around a bend in the road and ended up on a boat slip where several fisherman gave me a look indicating that I was, at the very least, a foolish person from away.
Some days later my friends took me to visit the interesting elderly lady who lived in the white house. I told the story of driving down the road to see where it went and finding that it didn’t go anywhere. She sniffed in a disapproving way and said, “Of course it goes somewhere. It goes here.” I said that yes, now that I knew who lived here, I knew that it went somewhere. She was only somewhat mollified.
Suicide infers an active method of doing away with yourself. This winter would be closer to accidental death by snow overdose.
March 2, 2014 at 2:51 pm
Caryn,
I probably would have said much the same thing and be given a disapproving ;look or comment. I suppose every road goes somewhere. It is just that some them stop at the somewhere.
I would be throwing myself into large snowdrifts on purpose out of a total loss of reason brought on by too much winter.
March 1, 2014 at 7:02 pm
A Wursthaus??? Only sausages or also something else?
Btw, what is snow? I nearly forgot.
We’ve had a concert today and I’m exploring my bed now…
March 1, 2014 at 7:27 pm
Birgit,
It had all sorts of sausages, all kinds of German food and beer.
Funny! Beat a woman when she is down and covered by a mound of snow!
Sleep well!