As the weather continues to warm up and students studying on the Green continue to strip down (some more so than others), your eyes probably wander to the same place that mine do -- the mountains beyond. The leaves are sprouting, summer is around the corner, and suddenly it's a good thing to be outdoors. Every day that it's sunny out, I wonder about what it would be like to be on top of one of those mountains in the distance. I can't really explain why, but let's pretend that I can so you'll keep reading.
Last term, when I was in Germany, I went for what I thought would be a long, leisurely afternoon walk in a park overlooking a river and the rooftops of a city. The day was seasoned with bouts of freezing rain and the snow, where not packed hard, was quite deep. I was walking with two friends, who thought it might be interesting to look for a ruined cloister on the hill above the park (they have such things in Europe). I nodded, dumbly, and followed the two, not realizing that they were both fit enough to compete in the Olympic triathlon -- I found this out the hard way, lumbering and lagging 12 yards behind as my heaving breath froze to my sweater. My greatest fears were realized as I watched the sun burn rubber beyond the horizon at a point where my two companions were scratching their heads.
"Looks like we ought to head back down to the city now, it's getting dark," they piped up. Sure, I thought. Brilliant idea. My sentiments exactly.
I was led unsuspectingly to a narrow, winding staircase that led downward. I was not pleased as we hopped over the chains across its entrance, blatantly disregarding the warning signs -- "Danger! Ice!" It meant nothing. My two guides sounded their barbaric yawps, defying the great gods of Winter, and tumbled down the slick stairs to their seeming deaths. Wuss that I was, I held onto vines growing on either side of the path and let myself skid slowly down on the ice.
"Hurry up, Kevin!" they shouted. I recoiled. I moved more slowly. The wiser of the two hung back and grabbed me by the wrist. "You know what? You lack a sense of adventure." Hmmm, thought I. Perhaps. Or perhaps I like all of my limbs just the way they are. All of those cheesy slip-and-fall lawyer ads I inhaled through the television growing up had taught me well. One wrong move and I would be handling David Singer, Attorney-at-Law's car payments.
So. I lack a sense of adventure, do I? At Dartmouth, there are moments that I feel I am surrounded by a bunch of rock-climbing overachievers. There are times that I wonder if there are any other students besides me that have never attended a meeting of Cabin and Trail. I know that I am one of the few members of my class that never went on a DOC trip (there!!! I've confessed!!! I-had-tickets-to-see-R.E.M.-in-Miami-September-8th-so-I canceled-my-trip-but-my-parents-made-a-last-minute-decision-to-drop-me-off-in-Hanover-three-days-earlier-than-the-concert-anyway!!!), but that sure doesn't mean that I have any less of a "sense of adventure."
I don't often tell people the story of how I went hiking at 4 a.m. one July morning in North Carolina to watch the sunrise with some friends. I was wearing Fakenstocks (I personally believe that Birkenstocks have become outrageously expensive), but I made the hike to the top of a large hill in those bad shoes. We cavorted in a cow pasture, not realizing that the cows were actually out that morning. I ran as best I could in sandals uphill on wet grass, away from the approaching cows, slipping in cow patties at least five times before we made it back over the fence. That's adventure.
Last term I visited Munich for a weekend with nine other students, and we stuffed ourselves into a room intended for only six people. I was reminded of seventh grade camp. Since we didn't get much sleep, I nodded off on the subway on the second day there, not intending to ride it all the way to the Olympic Park. I wandered. That's adventure.
I was in Berlin at a popular pub with the rest of the Dartmouth crowd last term, and I had a conversation with a '98 over a beer. She told me about a poster she had bought depicting a frozen whole chicken shoved on a broomstick with a stick of dynamite stuck in its neck and some guy about to light the fuse with a Zippo and the caption, "Alles wird gut." Afterwards we got lost in East Berlin -- it was after midnight, the subway had stopped running, and we were forced to roam the streets, then wait for a bus. We were kept company under a bridge with about nine transvestite hookers, until the blessed bus arrived and carried us to the 24-hour Golden Arches, where we proceeded to gorge ourselves on French fries. That's adventure.
I read a book on the plane trip home. That's adventure, too.
My point (if there is one) is that we all have our own stories and our own experiences to share. You don't need to place your life in danger to have an adventure. It's great to say to someone, "I went to Dartmouth. I love the outdoors. In fact, I AM the Dartmouth Outing Club. I have been to Moosilauke 1,??? times in my freshman year alone. Next year I will be exploring Antarctica." But an adventure can be a road trip, an evening downtown, or even a conversation.
I'll probably be huffing and puffing my way up some peak this summer just like everyone else ... or perhaps not.
