Wild Gone Girl

Yesterday's post got me thinking about some of the crazy stuff I've done. My life has been kind of backwards. I clung to the straight and narrow when I was young, then discovered my wild side in my 40s.

A guy I was dating went out of town on business. He asked me to pick him up at the airport when he got back and I said I'd
"be there with bells on." That night, I met him at the gate covered in dozens of little jingle bells safety-pinned to a trench coat. (And a completely decent outfit. I hadn't gone over the to Dark Side. Yet.)

4th of July. The Counselor and I had been dating for about 4 months. We packed an elaborate picnic and hauled my canoe to the St. Croix River, one of the most popular and well-traveled rivers in Minnesota. An hour or so down river, it began pouring rain. We pulled over onto a sandbar and sat under some trees. After a bit, I told him we could let the situation ruin our day or turn it into an adventure. We voted for adventure. I'd never skinny dipped in my life and had not taken off so much as my scarf in front of The Counselor or any man other than my (former) husband for 17 years. We ditched our soaking clothes, swam to the far end of the sandbar, and drifted downstream to the other end. We did that over and over in the pouring rain, laughing and splashing like little kids. Then the rain let up and we heard someone shouting, "stroke, stroke, stroke." We scrambled up the sandbar and behind the trees, where we clutched our clothes and tried not to draw attention to ourselves as a rowing crew glided past.

Hiked and biked my way across Alaska for 10 days or so. Made it to Valdez and then kayaked around Shoop Bay and the glacier there. The glacier calves 13 million ton of ice a day. Every once in a while we heard sounds like gun shots and saw spectacular explosions of ice and water. In the morning, the bay contained hundreds of icebergs. By evening, we were surrounded by thousands and thousands, from the size of dinner plates to the size of houses. The tide was beginning to carry them out and we had to run rapids to get out of the bay. A water taxi met our group to ferry us back to Valdez. We loaded the kayaks and hauled our tired butts onto the boat. As we were getting ready to leave, I suddenly could not stand it that I'd spent the entire day trying not to find out how cold that water was. I talked to the captain and he agreed. They lowered a plywood platform over the side of the boat, I shimmied out of my layers down to my long underwear and leaped--LEAPED--into that water. Coldest thing I ever felt. Heart-stopping, mind-numbing cold. I bobbed to the surface and threw myself onto the platform, which they hauled back up to the boat. The guides and a couple other intrepid souls decided they had to do it, too. When we were all back in the boat, the dry folks stood in a circle around the wet folks to "break wind" for us. No one there will ever forget a moment of that afternoon.

Pink Boots Guy invited me to a "Gala Red Tie Affair" and sent a package containing "appropriate attire for the evening," which turned out to be a red scarf and a bottle of perfume. On the appointed night, I drove to his neighborhood, slugged down some chardonnay, and slithered out of the sweats I was wearing. More chardonnay. Changed from tennies to killer heels. More chardonnay. Drove the remaining 100 yards to his house and presented myself at his door, wearing a full-length faux fur coat over the "outfit" he sent. Found out much later that I was parked in front of his mother's house while swilling wine straight from the bottle and contorting myself to pull my bra through my coatsleeve.

Good times. And not that long ago. How and why have I let go of that part of myself? ahhhh. Mysteries.