Spirit of the Moment

Nobody would describe me as spontaneous. It’s not that I desire my life to be ‘planned out’—I don’t operate that way either. It’s more like a new idea always hits me as a surprise, which in some part of my brain I take as a potential threat, I think. So the idea has to be vetted and examined and evaluated and deemed sound and safe. Then maybe I can proceed….

Chris has been ‘dealing with’ this trait of mine for over forty years. Yes, bless him. And bless him for not giving up on the idea of spontaneity. Last Tuesday he came home from work, walked in the door, and dropped this bomb on me—“Let’s go camping somewhere tonight!” Yes, a Tuesday evening when we were going to eat supper, go for a walk, take a shower, watch something, you know, really important on Netflix, and go to bed. (The Routine.) I was in the kitchen making supper, and he knew enough to drop the bomb and leave it in my lap—he said he would be outside getting some rays. So in my shock and surprise, I kept making supper—it really was a beautiful day today and is supposed to be the same tomorrow—and then I washed all the baking dishes—IF we go, I’d have to have these dishes done and I’d better sweep the floor—and then I scooted over to the computer to see if Father Hennepin State Park had any open campsites—IF we go, that would be a pretty close, pretty place to go—and then I checked the cupboards to see if we even had any food to take with us—IF we go, we would need to have something to eat with minimal effort—and then I ran outside to ask Chris if he could really get the day off tomorrow with such short notice—IF we go, we really shouldn’t be breaking any rules—and then supper was ready—I really didn’t get out to enjoy this beautiful day as much as I wanted to—and then, much to both of our surprises, I said, “This is one of the craziest things I’ve ever done, but let’s do it!” Lol! (It is not beyond my understanding that the ‘crazy’ part may not be the part about spontaneously going camping, but ‘C’est la vie’ says this old folk.)

So we ate, reserved a campsite, packed our tent and sleeping bags, put some food in the cooler, packed our toothbrushes and a few other clothes, and left our Tuesday evening Routine and drove north and east to Father Hennepin State Park on the shore of Mille Lacs. (And truth be told, I was a little giddy with our crazy actions as I informed the kids to prove to them I was not entirely a ‘stick in the mud.’)

We pulled into the campground, found our site, set up the tent, and then I grabbed the camera, walked a very short path from the back of our campsite to the fishing pier on the lake and was presented with a gift for my spontaneity. The gentle laps of the water reflected the subtle colors of the sunset—so beautiful and calming. Twenty minutes later when I returned with Chris, the colors had intensified, and together, we watched something really important.

After watching the sunset, we climbed into the tent, into our sleeping bags, but I could not fall into sleep. I marveled at how quiet it was—we were far away from any other campers, so we heard no one. The Aspen trees sang a soft fluttering lullaby, and still I resisted the Sandman. A couple of owls started hooting back and forth, and I thought how it sounded like they were telling one another about their day. I wonder if owls are spontaneous. At some point a couple of hours later, I fell asleep, but it was a sporadic slumber. The wind picked up during the night, and I could hear the waves hitting the rocks on the shore and rocking the squeaky pier. Three (too many) times I crawled out of the tent and saw stars and clouds through the tree tops. When dawn arrived, I was ready to start the day, despite my lack of sleep.

Cold coffee and tea and bowls of granola nourished us for breakfast. Then we hiked along the lake on Pope’s Point trail. The eastern sunlight shone through the trees to the trail, lighting up a mass of mushrooms growing on a large tree.

Many backwater channels contained wetland plants and some standing water. Large-leaved Arrowheads bloomed on tall, stiff stalks, their delicate white flowers almost orchid-like. Another name for Arrowheads is Duck Potatoes—the edible tubers are a favorite food for muskrats, geese, ducks, and swans.

We saw a number of interesting rocks that were piled along the lakeshore. This one looked like it had cuts through it—was it an artifact from another time?

The choppy waves were creating foam along the shore, but then we saw a river of foam snaking through the middle of the lake. There must be a change of current or direction that is stirring up the water.

At Pope’s Point, the trail ended, and Mille Lacs stretched out in front of us like an ocean. The water pounded against the rocks and the trees hardy enough to stand it.

Look closely at the water horizon about one-third of the way from the right side of the photograph. The tiny speck of white is Hennepin Island, one of two small boulder islands that make up Mille Lacs National Wildlife Refuge, one of the last nesting places in Minnesota for the Common Tern.

Closer to shore are the ducks who hid out in the Bulrushes that provided some shelter from the wind and waves.

We dubbed this rock the Green Face….

and this one, the Leaf Rock.

After our backtrack of the Pope’s Point trail, we circled around the park, through the forest, past this bed of flowing Sedge grass…

and a Common Saint John’s Wort, whose leaves and petals have tiny sacs of oil that can be used in a herbal remedy for infections and depression.

Once we were in the forest, the mosquitoes started to bother us for the first time since we got to the Park. When we entered the Pine forest, a mosquito spontaneously flew into my ear—all the way into my ear. What a weird, creepy feeling to have a mosquito fluttering its wings inside your ear. Chris couldn’t even see it, but it kept trying to fly while in my ear, and I kept trying to shake it out. The rest of the hike back to the campsite was not quite so peaceful, though finally the fluttering stopped.

We tried to entice it out with the light from a headlamp—fly towards the light, little mosquito, but that didn’t work. I could still feel it in there. So Chris googled ‘How to get a mosquito out of your ear,’ and we weren’t the first to do that. “Pour mineral oil in your ear, let it set for ten minutes, then drain the oil out of your ear.” (Hopefully with the bug.) Well, we didn’t bring any mineral oil on our spontaneous camping trip, but we had passed a little grocery store in the little town outside of the park. We were lucky to find mineral oil there, and with the picnic table as the exam bench, Chris poured the mineral oil in my ear. He never saw the mosquito come out, but when I sat up, there was a flattened mosquito on the picnic table. Was that my ear dive-bomber?!

We ate a picnic lunch, Chris grabbed his fishing pole, and we returned to the pier and to the great Mille Lacs water at midday. It was such a beautiful day!

Spontaneous is defined as ‘impulsive, instinctive, automatic, acting without deliberation or premeditation, not planned, an open, natural and uninhibited manner.’ There are qualities about spontaneity that I eschew—acting impulsively doesn’t seem like a productive way to live life. I also know I can be bogged down in my routine of safety and miss out on some wonderful aspects of life. Surprise is one of our six core emotions—it contains the emotions of startled and shocked, which are very close to another core emotion of Fear. It’s no wonder my hypervigilant brain gets activated by something that surprises me. But on the other side of surprise are the contained emotions of amazed and excited, which are close to the core emotion of Happy! So once we actually acted on the spontaneous trip, I felt a surge of excitement and joy. But I still did a lot of examining and evaluation of the idea in the time when Chris left me alone while I was preparing supper. Another definition I came across for spontaneous was ‘spirit of the moment,’ which felt much different from ‘impulsive’ and ‘automatic.’ ‘Spirit of the moment’ reminds us to live in the moment and in doing so, we are living with Spirit! Once we were on the shores of Mille Lacs, it was easy to do so. The sky, water, plants, rocks, and trees all became something really important to notice and appreciate. Even the mosquito in my ear honed me in on the present moment! Perhaps my current of Fear is changing. Perhaps I can swim out of my bulrushes of safety to experience the larger world. Perhaps Spirit is leading me towards Happiness.