Adventure

I'm not adventurous. And I've never desired to be interesting nor mysterious. 

As a young girl I dreamt of living in a cottage near a gentle stream. I'd write stories and teach my sixteen children how to play baseball. I'd knit their stocking and sew their dresses and trousers. We'd wear embroidered linen aprons to butcher chickens and can okra pickles. The idea of adventure would bore us. 

"Out of all my siblings," I complained to my friend. "How am the one considered to be adventurous?" 

Naturally she laughed at me. "Because you are..." 

"Not by choice. Don't you remember how all of my siblings, but I loved moving from house to house? Yet they are the ones who are most at home now." 

Back then I feared change and hated stepping outside whatever front door we happened to live behind. I spent most of my childhood years praying we wouldn't make the worst move of all... to Montana or Alaska. 

One could say that perhaps the grandest mystery of life is that nightmares are designed to become our favorite dreams. The magic didn't really end at midnight for Cinderella but began in earnest when the clock striked and she left a shoe behind. 

I discovered an obscure podcast over a year ago. One episode talked about a dance where the men dueled over the ladies' dance cards. With real swords.

Sure, I wouldn't be allowed to witness the sword fighting. But that wasn't the point. I had to be around these men who used swords. 

I emailed the podcast host. "How might I be invited to this ball?" 

"Want to come with me?" 

I drove nine hours to dance with strangers just because they had swords. And my intuition was correct: good food, fine clothes, and the best authentic display of honor I'd ever witnessed. 

At last, I understood what Cinderella felt as I entered the ball room outlined with stain glassed windows. 

The mystery of Cinderella is that she revealed herself when it would have been easier to hide at home. 

And so, I too, showed myself.

A tall gentleman announced our names just as we wished for them to be given. Most women were Mrs or Miss. None dared disturb the sacred atmosphere with humor. I felt the anabaptist urge to be fully myself, elegant and earthy. 

"Keturah Abigail Lamb." 

I wasn't looking to be mysterious or interesting. I was curious and thirsty and present. 

But aren't those the real substances of mysteries? Isn't authenticity the most fascinating colors to paint on your face?

"But ye are a peculiar people," said Peter. 

Peculiar... not the twisted obnoxiously sort... that sort of person that offers continual sweet-smelling incense so that when bystander breathe, they sigh in wonder and satisfaction. 

The ball room was full of honor and curiosity and romance, the true offspring of adventure. 

One man, another woman's husband, said, "I know little about you. I don't even know if you're married or not--" he stared at my ruby ring. 

I laughed. My humble attempt at dropping my title backfired so that suddenly I was more mysterious than even Cinderella. 

"But what I do know about you, Keturah, is that you're adventurous, brave. Bold." 

I cringed as I always do at the word adventurous, the word that ever draws me further away from the cottage hearth. 

I said, "Perhaps bold. I really only do things because I'm scared, I'll regret not doing them, or because something else is terrifying me and I know if I don't chase it, I'll be consumed by the fear. Don't you ever do things that scare you?" 

His brow wrinkled. Then he smiled. "Yes, recently, too." And he told me a sad, beautiful story. 

With my next partner we discussed the magic me meats. I'd heard he'd lost his elder sister recently, and she was my age. Grief darkened the corners of his smile... somehow shrimp reminded him to laugh.

I was glad to leave the swords and return to my needle and couch. Even still I prefer to be on the inside of my homework. Yet this time my heart was changed a little. 

I used to travel for spite. I would prove my ambition, and that I could have success and get rid of my boring ways. There was a time for spite. But now is the time for surrender.

When we stop fighting boredom we hear the sweet thrills of satisfaction--all the most interesting people are at their best when they let themselves be boring.

Perhaps I am not just bold, but adventurous, too. Although not because I seek adventure; rather I accept the calling to live and make sacrifice.