Sunday, April 7, 2019

Ups and Downs



     Children are sticky, demanding, and inconvenient.
They can also be a ticket to freedom. Your next-door neighbors will probably start checking Zillow for safer pastures if they see you out in the backyard making snow angels in the freshly fallen snow. Put a four-year old next to you and it becomes a heart-warming scene.

          You might already be noticing oncoming grey hair, but with a kid in tow, you can dig in a sandbox, play on a swing set, and chase the waves on a beach and no one looks twice. You even get bonus points.

          On the other hand, I’ve also endured heat, rain, and cold during interminable soccer games, and shivered overnight in my sleeping bag in the middle of nowhere as I listened for threatening noises while in charge of a herd of Girl Scouts.  

          I was reminded of this mixed blessing when the grandboys came to visit recently. Yes, I know all anyone from up north really wants to do here in March is go to the beach, and we did plenty of that, but there’s a limit to how much this Anglo-Saxon skin can take.  

          So we took them zip-lining.

          First we were strapped into harnesses that would have burdened a Clydesdale. Then came a video, an on-the-ground intro to how to use our harness, and then a babysteps course elevated only four feet off the ground. As I tried to steady my size 10 feet on the tiny wire below while clinging to a sliding rope, I wondered (not for the first time in my life) “what was I thinking?”


          Miraculously, I made it through the three stages, finishing up with a short zip line – even if I did travel backwards the whole way. My daughter was ahead of me and fished me up to join her on the tiny platform like an (almost) septuagenarian Wallenda.

          Yes, what doesn’t kill you does make you stronger (as I often told myself while getting my Masters, working full-time, and raising two kids) and anyway, with my 87-strap harness that had more clips and buckles than a dominatrix’s dream, it would have been impossible to fall.

The course was actually interesting, kind of a physical problem-solving exercise, but after making it through the second course I was content to stay on the ground and watch the rest of the family work through courses 3,4, and 5. (Our nine-year-old did just fine, by the way).

13 comments:

  1. Safe landing, hurrah! I think the crick in the neck is easier than what can possibly happen up in the air!

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  2. Never have done that and probably never will...OK

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  3. My inner child is frequently the healthiest/happiest part of me and I try and indulge her (despite my child free status). And now she is yearning to zip line. Thank you. And drat you.

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  4. the first photo looks very interesting. did you try it?

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    1. Nope, but I did do the walkway of widely spaced boards. Which, I might add, started with a five-foot section of only one line of cable.
      Good news was that I was so busy trying to walk on it that I was able to ignore the 20 foot drop.

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  5. I have never done a rope's course or zipline. You're brave, for sure!

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  6. It looks like it was fun in any event. Thanks for sharing this adventure! :-)

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  7. "Boy that looks like fun!" says my mind, while my joints are saying "don't even think about it!" I'd like to try, though I probably never will.

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    1. oh, me too. We have one of those near us, I just noticed the other day, and damn all if it doesn't look like fun. I said that out loud and my husband just Looked At Me. This from a man who used to ski the Headwall at Tuckerman's ravine in the White Mountains (otherwise known variously as a rite of passage, stupid, or 'are you inSANE?"
      and like you, the parts below the neck are all seizing up in unison. Hell, I can't even climb stairs any longer without a banister to cling to. But damn all it does make me quiver a bit, inside...

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  8. Looks like fun if your body can handle it.

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Thanks for stopping by and I'd love to hear what you think.