Adventure | Bethany Bassett

Tag: Adventure

4Jul

Pause

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

July feels uncertain this year. We’re finally back in Italy, recovering from a stateside vacation I didn’t know how to write about, and my finger’s on the pause button. Only, time doesn’t pause; just myself.

Is today really a holiday? I vaguely remember promising our friends a hot dog cook-out, but I’ll be caught under the tide of jet lag and personal culture shock until well after supper. Tomorrow’s a holiday for us too—our fifth anniversary!—and more than any other time of year, I want to bounce and sparkle… but I get the distinct impression I’m still going to wake up as a human bathmat. Enthusiasm today on a scale from 1 to 10: Flubbb.

I can’t be sure on this of course, but I think this vacation may have been the toughest we’ll ever have to pull off. There were relaxing bits and fun bits, and the two even coincided from time to time, but they were sandwiched between the longest, cryingest plane rides ever a Sophie was taken on.

Re: that –
6/28/08
Dear incisors,
I understand your innate need to poke out of my daughter’s tender gums; it’s gotta happen sometime. But did you really have to make my baby scream and flail and refuse to sleep for five whole days? And which of Satan’s minions possessed you to wait until our LONG LONG INTERNATIONAL PLANE RIDE to saw your way out? Thanks to you, I’m going to have to buy Benadryl for all our fellow passengers on the return flight just to satisfy my conscience.
If you need me, I’ll be in the lavatory giving myself 30,000 feet swirlies,
Bethany

So, long trip, teething, Texas. Soon after arriving, we ran headlong into some old family tension—the complicated, spiderwebby kind that leave tendrils of guiltpitydisgustangerbetrayalremorsesadnessannoyance sticking to everyone’s faces. However, there were also important conversations and Krispy Kreme excursions and rollercoasters and tiramisu and so very many activities including the extreme wearing of leather pants.

Re: leather pants –
Dear [14-year-old brother],
I want to be as cool as you when I grow up.
Love,
Bethany

Besides the teething and the tension and the lack of sleep, we had fun… but it was mostly the kind of frantic fun that requires intense scheduling and secretarial help. And then catching the 6 a.m. flight to Florida? The English language needs a new word to describe our level of exhaustion at that point. Like “death.” Anyway.

Re: vacation part 2 –
Dear Florida,
You divide my heart. On one hand, I kind of hate you. You’re freakishly hot, everything is at least half an hour away, and room-service cereal costs $22. All this, and your drivers are really, really bad. I mean, terrible.
On the other hand, I love your glittering beaches and blue, blue water. I love the thunderheads piling above your oceans and the warm nights. Your wildlife is great—pelicans and herons and ‘gators, oh my!—and you make relaxing effortless.
If you would just work on the driver thing, oh, and maybe give me a lifetime membership to Disney World, I think we could have a future together.
Sincerely,
Bethany

Time with the in-laws was great as usual—Natalie’s never had so much fun in her long three-year-old life—and Dan’s and my getaway to the beautiful Marco Island was just what we needed (even though I was lame and spent vastly more time reading in bed than sunning at the beach, but you have no idea how lovely it felt to read in bed! hello, lame).

Re: my main inspiration for reading lamely in bed –
Dear Sony “not Kindle” e-book reader,
You have just exempted me from other birthday or Christmas gifts for the next nine years, but I have only this to say: I love you madly.
Yours,
That person who spilled crumbs on you because she wouldn’t stop reading Dracula during breakfast

So we were finally so relaxed that we were smiling on a regular basis again and enjoying the last few days of our vacation when we found ourselves rushing to the emergency room, trying not to panic, praying breathlessly that we would be able to take both girls back to Italy with us.

Our little Sophie sat limply in her car seat, her face bulging and purple, eyes rolled back in her head, breathing heavily like an animal – “hunh hunh hunh.” I had never felt such a rush of fear before, terror instead of adrenaline coursing through my blood. I still don’t know how to describe that drive to the hospital except that I hope never to experience it again.

The doctors assured us later that it was no big deal—“only” a seizure, “only” a spike in fever—and I couldn’t figure out if their words were meant to comfort or belittle. Neither mattered, though, once we could look into her eyes and see our baby there again.

I don’t think anyone really relaxed after that point. Amidst the flurry of packing up, my mind swam with the image of Sophie’s purple face and the ludicrous hospital bill and all the What Ifs that I couldn’t not think about. I felt a thousand times more a mother than before yet hopelessly inadequate, and I shook the last hours of our plane trip back to Italy while Sophie wailed in my lap.

That brings me here—back, but not really. Suitcases are still piled around the house, and I fully intend to unpack them once I can drag myself out of the Twilight Zone. If only time would pause for a day or two or seventy-four…

12Apr

Bragging Rights

Posted by: Bethany in Sunday Scribblings 9 Comments

Mr. Freeze was, without question, the most horrible apparatus I had ever seen. 1,450 feet of icy blue track shot out of a dilapidated warehouse, performing grotesque twists and gyrations at breakneck speed, finally careening straight into the sky with only gravity as a harness. And THEN? A backwards free-fall, upside-down corkscrews, 4G forces yanking at the tiny magnetized cars. I involuntarily clutched my stomach. “No. No, no, no. No way, no. I wouldn’t ride that for a million dollars. Have I mentioned the fact that NO?”

As I waited on a bench for my brothers and dad to risk their lives on the deathcoaster, I considered that I probably would ride it for a million dollars. Maybe even fifty–think of all the lip gloss I could buy! But no one was paying, and anyway, twelve-years-old was far too young to die.

But! whispered an unfamiliar voice from a shadowy corner of my brain. You’ll regret it if you don’t try. You know you will.

“Uh huh. And what, exactly, about not committing 70 miles-per-hour suicide will I regret?”

The experience, whispered my brain. The adrenaline rush. The thrill of speed. The wind in your face. The chance to see the world upside-down and sideways.

“Sorry, but no. I just… I just can’t.”

Somewhere, in the back of my brain, a devious smile–Even for bragging rights?

So, for the paltry prize of bragging rights, I rode Mr. Freeze. I trembled through the entire line, sweating and nauseous and imagining my funeral, but I got on the coaster nonetheless. Once buckled into the harness and staring straight into the first tunnel, the tracks underneath me buzzing with barely-leashed energy, I died at the rate of four thousand times a second. My fears spiraled madly. I pictured my head exploding into bloody shards of stupidity or gravity suddenly taking a lunch break. I was spectacularly dramatic.

However, the instant that rollercoaster took off, I became a different person. For the first time in my life, my heart pumped more adrenaline than blood. I felt the wind–really felt it–and the speed and the movement like an enormous daredevil ballet. I felt an entirely new kind of alive, the kind that comes with risk and determination. I loved every second.

The whispering stranger in my brain found a voice that day, and I have treated it as a friend ever since. Admittedly, it is the kind of friend that mothers tell their children to stay away from, but that just makes it more enticing. It has talked me into small things like jet skiing and eating grubs, and it has talked me into huge things like traveling the world and taking off down a snowy mountain with both feet strapped onto a flimsy board. My stomach still knots up whenever I face a daring situation–I would hardly call myself fearless–but I’ve learned to embrace what scares me for the sake of a full and vivid life, for experience. And, of course, for the bragging rights.

11Feb

Globe Trotters

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 4 Comments

I’m decompressing from our weekend trip to Milan in the scrumptious glow of a strawberry IKEA candle and trying to remember where I packed my words. Or perhaps I left them behind? As always, I’m wading through the Twilight Zone until all our suitcases are empty. (On that note, grumph.) I know there’s significance in venturing out our front door. I know there’s a vast, luminous value in our impromptu travels, small children and spirits of adventure in tow, and once I’m over car lag, I’ll be able to fully appreciate these steps we take to live in 3-D.

{Gah. Also, Agh. I’ve been trying to finish this for hours, but I might as well be typing on a dinner plate. Did I lock my brain in the trunk? Also, GAH.}

The highlight of my trip was more a sensation than an event, though it was disguised as individually-wrapped moments throughout the weekend. Exploring castle ruins with Natalie–peeking into stone coffins, taunting rabid cats, moat-diving, and running in traditional medieval circles–and seeing her lit up with discovery… Wading through rivers of Carnevale confetti while more was tossed into our hair by short, giggling Power Rangers… Wandering through a National Geographic photo exhibit and suddenly starving for each exotic, breathtaking piece of the earth I’ve never seen…

All the pieces came together on the drive home when I asked Dan what was on his list, his do-before-dying-or-turning-thirty-whichever-comes-first list. He immediately said “travel,” and I couldn’t help smiling. That’s my list too, even above a hot air balloon ride.* We daydreamed the car ride away, talking about Egypt and Kenya, Nepal and Japan and Thailand, Jamaica and Brazil. Surfing in Indonesia, snowboarding the Andes. Losing minor limbs to Amazonian piranhas.

It’s one of the things that pulled me inextricably into love with Dan, our shared wanderlust. It’s why we live in Italy. It’s why we will have to work until we’re 107 because we will have spent our retirement fund on trotting the globe. Which will be worth every penny, absolutely.

*Now 2% more exciting than an afternoon nap!

(Did I say “peeking into stone coffins?” Because I meant “inhabiting.”)

20Jan

Fish Pâté

Posted by: Bethany in Sunday Scribblings 5 Comments

Q: “Can you describe the exact sensation of being a dying and/or delirious fish?”
Normal, respectable, sane human being: “No.”
Me: “OF COURSE!”

So what, you ask, led me to my proud moment of gasping and flopping on a blue plush train seat, watching the air spin giddy circles around my head, feebly moaning with my rubbery fish lips for water?

That would be my husband. See, Dan knows some things that I did not use to know, like money is not essential for a European tour. Neither is common sense. And forty-five minutes is PLENTY of time to disembark from our international flight (provided it lands on time), gather our luggage, go through customs, buy Underground tickets, cross London, and get on the Chunnel train to France which, if missed, would leave us stranded in England with neither money nor common sense (which I did not yet realize were unessential).

Dan assured me we’d make it, and I wondered if “make it” was some European phrase meaning “die penniless, delusional, and certifiably insane when we get lost somewhere in East Upton Worcestershire and fail to mind the gap.” I, you see, am a realist. But wouldn’t you know it, the stars aligned. Our plane landed early. Our luggage came out first. The customs officer waved us through. We caught the Underground just before it left. We successfully minded the gap and donned our brick-laden backpacks and ran, and ran, and died briefly, and ran some more, and flopped onto our train with EIGHT WHOLE MINUTES TO SPARE. Even though I was delirious and a fish and all, gasping for breath on that blue plush seat was one of the most ridiculously exhilarating experiences of my life.

We made it, just like Dan said, and catching the train was just the first of many marvelous European adventures, including but not limited to getting lost in Paris, ordering pâté thinking it was potatoes, getting pregnant, getting lost in Venice, hiking in the Alps, getting lost in Zurich, antagonizing cows, getting lost in Paris again, climbing 16,300 steps (I counted), getting lost in London, and being interrogated in Iceland in Icelandic about the terrorist nature of our bottled water. Also getting lost in Iceland.

In case your head has not yet exploded from the vulgar number of lists in this post, here’s what I learned from that particular trip:
Money really isn’t all that important in the grand scheme of funness.
Neither is common sense.
My husband, in addition to being right, is a fabulous person to get lost in foreign cities with.
And most important of all, “pâté” does not mean potatoes.

16Jan

The Grandmotherland

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized Comments Off on The Grandmotherland

Italy is a lot like the ideal grandmother. It possesses an old, wrinkly kind of beauty that perfectly complements antique jewelry. It is lively and friendly and bursting with conversation topics. The stories it tells inspire generations. And oh, it can cook. Not only can it boast the best food this side of Jupiter, it knows a thing or two about making people feel good about eating. Case in point: Calories are labeled as “energy.” And sugar packets are “important in the daily nourishment to maintain and restore the energy of the mind and of the body.” (Why, I’m a firm believer in energy maintenance and eating sugar by the spoonful! What are the odds?)

Unfortunately, Italy has a creepy side as well, an innocent-looking grandmother who reads her grandchildren’s diaries on the sly. Example? I’ve ordered deli meat exactly twice at our neighborhood grocery store. Thus, I was slightly surprised to hear that the deli worker asked one of our friends from church if my husband’s boss would take a look at her knee. How did she know who our friend was? And how did she know who my husband was? And how did she know who Dan worked for? And how did she get a hold of my diary? Dan tells me that when he was growing up here, neighbors would frequently comment on things his family did or talked about inside their own house. The only intelligent response I have to that is ACK! ACK! Also, oh my ACK!

So the lack of privacy takes some getting used to (my chestal region has already figured that out), but there are many other reasons to love Italy. For example, bonsai trees are readily available at local supermarkets. Conservative old ladies wear bikinis and brew limoncello in their living rooms. People can get downtown via underground escalators through a 500-year-old castle. Public preschool starts at age three, with half-day and full-day options for the same price of nothing. And speaking of nothing, that’s what it costs to visit the doctor, stay in the hospital, and get prescription medicine. Italians know that regular vacations are as necessary as life, breath, and daily naptime. Speed limits are refreshingly high. And possibly the best thing, Italian roosters say “Chicchirichì!” (Pronounced like “KEE-kee-ree-KEE.” Try it! Your head might just explode from the extreme fun of crowing in Italian!)

I can’t believe we’ve already lived here for half a year. This adopted country of ours feels simultaneously new and old, invigorating and relaxing, different and familiar. Any other dichotomous comparisons? Oh yes, friendly spaghetti-cooking grandmother and creepy diary-stalking grandmother. But I’m coming to terms with the new and the invigorating and the different and the creepy, and you can probably tell by now that if given the choice to relive this adventure, I would say “Hell, yeah!” (Also, “ACK!”)

8Jan

Mondo Beyondo

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 2 Comments

Note: I didn’t intend to post this, the results of a therapeutic journaling session, for a few reasons:
~ I feel like I’ve already bored my readers to death by writing about this last crazy year.
~ Speaking of readers, I have readers. Readers who will read this.
~ I’m still new to this full honesty concept, and it’s terrifying. (See above.)
However, reading other people’s “Mondo Beyondos” has made me feel so affirmed in this harrowing business of being human, and I want to share that feeling–that we’re all real, with jagged edges and soft, spongey hopes, and that these twelve-month blocks we order our lives around matter more than we might ever realize. So:

“What do you want to acknowledge yourself for in regard to 2007?”

I’m proud of myself for jumping off the deep end into dream-chasing mode, for letting go of control and the need for stability. I found my secret stores of flexibility during a summer of three moves–the last, a one-week dash to another continent–and I found my secret stores of bravery during an autumn of jarringly new surroundings.

I’m proud of myself for saying goodbye to handwritten journals and a new hello to online publishing–exactly what I needed to kick start my writing again. Beginning with this impulse blog project in June, I’ve found satisfaction and resolution and incredible enjoyment through writing again. These increasing pages of text have helped me explore my voice and find clarity. Even more importantly, they have convinced me that writing is my love, my dream career, and thus my aspiration.

I’m proud of myself for learning how to care for two little girls at the same time. Despite all my previous assumptions to the contrary, I found the courage to leave the house… then to drive (stick shift, on hills, with Italian drivers, oh my)… then to run errands with both of my daughters in tow. I have been a good mother, as evidenced by the perpetual smiles on my girls’ faces, and I think they will love remembering these times through photos and wisps of memory and the letters I recently started writing them.

I’m proud of myself for digging far past my comfort zone to unearth new layers of honesty this past year. I’m also incredibly proud of my decision to stop regretting my past, my present, and everything about myself. It has certainly been a challenge for someone so accustomed to self-deprecation, but it has been freeing. I’ve found myself in the shower, mulling over blunders I think I’ve made, then pulling up short–No, this isn’t me anymore; I no longer regret myself. And perhaps this will turn out to be 2007’s greatest gift to me.

“What is there to grieve about 2007?”
I grieve that my relationship with God traveled beyond doubt and anger and simply dissipated. I need to forgive myself for leaving my Bible unopened on the shelf and my questions unasked simply because I didn’t want to face the pain.

I grieve that my relationship with Natalie moved into such rough territory. I need to forgive myself for yelling at her during bouts of frustration and for not giving her enough of my undivided attention.

I grieve that I spent so many days of the year battling depression… or not even finding the strength to battle it anymore. I need to forgive myself for being chronically tired, needy, human. I also need to forgive myself for letting the “shoulds” conquer my mind and saturate me with frustration. And I need to forgive those around me for not magically making me better or knowing the solutions that I can’t seem to find.

I grieve that I accomplished so, so little throughout the year–that I didn’t learn Italian fluently or finish my book or complete art projects or practice my instruments or cook new foods or exercise regularly (or at all) or make progress on reading lists or teach Natalie more or do volunteer work. I need to forgive myself for being one person, for being unable to multitask, and for needing so much sleep.

“What else do you need to say about the year to declare it complete?”
2007 was deep and raw and intense, dark chocolate with pepperoncino eaten from the blade of a knife. It hurtled between welcome adventures and terrifying ones; it pulled us far into the joy of close friendships and then slung us away. It taught us about generosity and flexibility and courage and communication, about how we face fears and changes and the future. And even though I know it’s okay to reel in 2007’s dizzying wake for a while, I’m ready to move on.

I declare 2007 complete.

4Jan

Serenity

Posted by: Bethany in Sunday Scribblings 10 Comments

The new year is already up and running, but I’m wandering somewhere on the other side of the line with untied laces, trying first not to choke on the dust, second to figure out how the hell to catch up, and third to find serenity in the midst of personal chaos. That’s my wish-on-a-star for this year–serenity. It was conspicuously absent last year, and I’m suddenly feeling desperate.

Don’t get me wrong–last year was fun… in the way that hurricanes and tornados and seizures are fun. It was like a twelve-month play date with a schizophrenic giant. Dan got his master’s, we were unemployed, we were homeless, we moved three times, we shipped our possessions and selves overseas without any guarantees, we started a new life in Italy, we had a baby, and our two-year-old inexplicably turned thirteen–each a circumstance saturated with stress. 2007 should have come with a label: “SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: This year may be hazardous to your health; proceed at your own risk.”

I’m wildly glad we took so many risks to chase our huge dreams, not letting practicality or security tie us down. I also know that one day, I will realize how truly incredible the payoff is. But for now, I’m spent, running on a backup generator. This holiday break has been rather disastrous, with all four of us contracting bronchitis, influenza, or a hairy scary combination of the two, and I haven’t found the space to recharge. Thus, I find myself entering 2008 with my sanity tied in knots and my view of the future splattered with calamities.

If I still believed in the power of resolutions–or at least in my own power to keep them–I would make several:

To have fun with my girls every day.
To try cooking a gourmet recipe every week.
To learn Italian fluently.
To get in shape.
To reach out to new acquaintances without fear.
To rediscover God.
To make friends with new books and rekindle my friendships with old.
To write, constantly, with all the beauty and honesty and creativity I have to offer.

But I would give up these hopes, these efforts, this carousel of trying and failing and trying again if only to have a year drenched in serenity. Then, I think I could finally find the craziness to be me.

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