Meet adventure halfway

The world is soaked in spring. It is a lovely warm day here, and the wind chimes are as happy as boiling water. (Likely as hot too.)

In some places, spring has leapt free of her winter cage and flung daffodils and bumblebees across everything. In others, she’s still waiting, biding her time in dark seeds in the deep earth, waiting to catch us by surprise.

But wherever you are—

It is always safe to dream of spring. For it is sure to come; and if it be not just as we have pictured it, it will be infinitely sweeter.

~ The Story Girl, L.M. Montgomery

And so let us dream of spring today, you and I, of warm days and early sunrises. It is a delightful thing, that nature reenacts resurrection every year—that the sun rises and the rain falls, and we are reminded that death and darkness do not last forever.

And there is so much hope in spring, for spring is only a step away from summer, when skies are lit with purple and gold for hours and the grass grows thick and wild.

It is the time of year when an adventure seems to be peeking around every corner.

But the thing about adventures, as Mole discovered at the opening of The Wind in the Willows, is that you must meet them halfway. Rarely will they barge into your house and drag you off by the scruff of your neck—even Bilbo, who infamously did not want to go on an adventure (thank you very much) first met Gandalf while “standing at his door after breakfast smoking an enormous long wooden pipe that reached nearly down to his wooly toes.”1

Only at the doorway, perhaps—and yet the door was open.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo,” he later told his young cousin, “going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”2

When The Wind in the Willows opens, Mole is busy at spring-cleaning his dark underground home. But after swallowing a great deal of dust and splashing himself in an unruly amount of whitewash, he says, “Bother!” and “O blow!” and “Hang spring-cleaning!” and whisks away towards the sun.

Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the travelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrolled and then he scrolled again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, “Up we go! Up we go!” till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.3

Then follows the happy chance (or is it chance?) that leads him to befriend Rat, the sublimely stress-free decision to leave his old home and move in with his new friend4, and all the adventures that follow.

And all of that happens because Mole abandoned his spring-cleaning and went out the door. He may not have been looking for adventure, but he allowed himself to be in a place where adventure could find him—and that was all he needed.

Mole taking a walk on a bright spring morning, Bilbo blowing smoke rings and letting them waft over the Shire—and then came adventures that charmed generations of children and grown-ups alike.

So this spring, as the sun climbs out of bed with messy hair and jackets are stashed away till fall, let’s try, you and I, to meet adventure halfway.

Let’s open the door, if only to watch snap-dragons in the garden. Let’s set down dusters and white-wash (and for heaven’s sake, if it’s at all safe, leave your phone behind) and go for a walk.

Maybe there are dragons to steal from. Maybe there are Water Rats to befriend.

Or maybe nothing particularly interesting will happen, and it will be a spring and summer of lazy afternoons and feet dangling in lakes and time to read books, of strawberry jelly and good work and good rest.

But whether there is an adventure isn’t our concern. We have only to be ready, if it comes.

• Fantasia 2000’s flawless depiction of Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite. The music is gorgeous, the animation is beautiful, and the eucatastrophe of the story never fails to wake something up in my soul.

• Lavender-honey bread. The scent of lavender is unparalleled, and combining it with the scent of baking bread is heavenly.

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney). I watched it two months ago and I’m still not over it. It genuinely may be the most underrated Disney movie of all time.

• Taking walks. Noticing things. Losing to an eight-year-old at an odd form of catch.

• Have something to add or suggest? Please do let me know.

May the soft winds freshen your spirit, may the sunshine brighten your heart, may the burdens of the day rest lightly upon you.

~ Irish blessing