I signed my kids up for camp beginning pretty much the day we would be arriving on this island. I wanted them to meet kids, play with kids and generally to find moments of silence in my day.  Somehow, and I don’t understand this magic, I forget that having your children tucked away in activities does not mean you are entitled to some kind of peace and tranquility – Ha!

 Right off there is the first world issue of how much time you will physically spend shuttling everyone to and from said camps which will inevitably be on opposite sides of the globe.  Then there is that incessant list that runs all day and all night in your head of things and phones calls and musts, which are all there tapping at your car window as soon as the last kid has been kissed and sent of with their lunch box. Seriously, the moment you shut your driver door to the impossibly quiet inside of your car (except for those old French fries under the seats which are talking to you), your brain, well, my brain gets message after message from the great “to-do”.  Two weeks in and I am pretty much in the middle of exactly what struck a chord for me in the great American Southwest. I am busy again. There is no me.

 On our first week of Fairy camp –which by the way is one of the more brilliant ways to entertain a horde of six-year olds, I found myself chatted up by a mom at pick up one day. I quickly, almost defensively said “We’re new here, just got here last week,” which I think sort of took her by surprise.  I was feeling inadequate, lonely, and unsure of how we would all meet our new friends. I think my calling card, in this case, was meant to encourage kindness, or even pity. In fact this mom quickly replied with “us too,” which sort of threw my whole plan off kilter.  She had just arrived from Florida and was making all her own adjustments to this quiet and gentle new island.

 After a short walk to the park while our girls frolicked, we soused each other out. Where one found housing, where one hopes their child will go to school. Island talk, park talk, and new friend talk.  Then she said, “What did you do, before you did this?” pointing to the girls who were being cats or fish or rock stars at that moment. “Oh, I…I…”

 The question. With each move I had, not entirely on purpose, shifted my identity just a bit. Mostly it was survival, but it has to also be that I want to be liked, a little bit anyways, and sometimes what “I was” wasn’t exactly in line with where we landed. I know I sound crazy right now, but bear with me. Busting into new environments every 2-5 years means re-introducing “you” to “everyone”. Sometimes it’s easier to adapt, or that is what I have allowed.  It’s part of my commitment to this list of adventures, my want to adapt only to my true north, and I hope it sticks.

 In any case, I answered her with something like “Oh, I’m a freelance writer and I used to be a pastry chef.” This elicited oohs and awes. Everyone loves a pastry chef. Visions of pies and cakes and fancy French desserts swirled through her head and she smiled at me. Let’s hope she doesn’t expect me to bake.

“What did you do, or, um, what do you do?”  I replied to her in turn.

“Oh, I’m on sabbatical” she replied.

 Uh, yeah, clearly, because here we are at the park.  I’m on sabbatical too – from an adult life, but go on…

She went on, “I’m an Aviation Finance lawyer”.

 Jesus. Jesus Mary and Joseph, all of them in a little basket with me headed straight to the hell of my own insecurities.  What the fuck is that job? Like, she is the lawyer for people, or corporations, buying gigantic aircraft? Niche? Obscure? Brilliant? Rich!

 Suddenly my sometimes freelance, sometimes pastry chef, sometimes employed self, shrunk down into it’s proper inadequate self.  What do I say now?

 “I’m really struggling with this day-to-day mothering and driving, I feel like a taxi driver,” she said, her face contorting into something uncomfortable. I knew her face; it was mine. She had, following her husband’s job relocation, found herself doing what I had mostly done for the last twelve years – mothering.

 It’s rough. It’s exhausting and I think there is nothing quite so self-erasing as submitting fully to the “day-to-day.” From the outside looking in, a working mom wants and yearns to be part of it. Once in it, you struggle to see a way out without being damned by all of society. This paradigm has left women, in my opinion, exhausted and confused, bitter and overworked. I have only barely skated the edges of a working mom, perhaps out of fear, or perhaps out of insecurity, and probably because I don’t want to lose control. She and I had walked opposite sides of this fence and there was no clear winner.

 The next day we saw each other again, but this time she was decked out in large expensive sunglasses, hair coiffed and best summer clothes on. “I’m going to meet a colleague!” she said dismissing her pulled together outfit. Oh god, do we shuttling moms all dress so poorly we make go-to-it moms feel uncomfortable?

 “Good for you!” I cheered, because I really was glad to see her finding her north. “Go to lunch, go find you,” I said, perhaps a bit bravely.

 “I can’t possibly be a stay-at-home mom,” she uttered, more to herself than me. And I didn’t blame her for saying it. She has the guts. She has the knowing in her gut, she is heading to what will make her happy, and inevitably make her family happy.  It’s not exactly my path, an 80-hour a week career, but it’s still closer to where I want to be when I declare “me” to those I meet.  I want to say, “I’m a writer” and for those who receive it to look at me like I’m an Aviation Finance Lawyer, or the president or Steven King. They should look at me like I’m Steven King!

No, really, I am going to Europe. It is said in the Final Final list and there is no failing, right? Well, I can tell you that there is nothing quite like outward pressure to get you moving. I have been researching flights for over a month, knowing this was coming, knowing I would probably quit, give up, flake out on myself.  And I see Iceland Air as my best route.  I’m going to Europe.

 Now, will someone please tell me what’s next.  Seriously, I’m going to go put my head in a hole and you all go make my trip to Europe happen. I’ll blog about how awesome it all was, from the safety of my dark place – sound good?

 I don’t think we have the financial means to be doing this. For 14 years we haven’t had the financial means to do this, and yet we manage to buy bikes and buy organic milk and shop at Gap outlet sales.  We must have the means. We are going to Europe. This is my ostrich mantra. We have the means.

 Now, after the estimated $5,000 I will be spending for a family of four to travel at Christmas to Europe (did I mention we think we should go at Christmas?), what else must we pay for? There is a reason I’m scared out fo my wits and it’s called My Bank Account – that evil beast.

 Never-the less, I’m going. We’re going. It’s happening.

 Help.

WHAT the F%$!.  What is going on here, I am living, by choice, on a small island in the Puget Sound.  How did I get here and what was I thinking? It was just four months ago that I broke free of what we called our small rock in the Pacific, and now, here I am, on a smaller rock, still in the Pacific and this time just a short ride from Seattle and yet ever so far away when you take kids and schedules into account. I can now sit on the shore and stare at the city I long for, and then come home to my painfully peaceful new island home.

 Stop.

 Breath.

 I feel like I am in an Alfred Hitchcock film, and there are murderers dressed as afluent housewives staring at me with lots of suspenseful music, waiting for their chance to pounce. Body snatchers.  I intentionally said yes to us moving to this really small place and this is exactly why I created 13 Adventures – isn’t it.  I mean seriously, I could live in Seattle center and still get so locked into what my kids are doing from minute to minute or who needs a ride where, or picked up when, or to which doctor, that I would never actually visit the places I want to go, or try new things. I didn’t need a tiny island for that to happen. And yet, here I am – on a tiny island.  What’s the world trying to say to me?

 It’s 10:00 pm, I just heard the Ferry blare its long deep horn as it departed back from here to the busy Seattle docks. Here will shut down, it already has, the sidewalks are rolled up and the tourist shops snoozing until tomorrow. I’m a mom and a wife and really not a party goer, especially midweek, but I can’t keep from feeling just a little bit like a kept woman, locked away in her tower – on an island.

 My man is amazing, and there is no way he would support this idea of locking me away, unless of course I really wanted that I suppose. But I don’t, and I’m not, and still that feeling creeps in like I am.  I’m going to have to pay attention to that.  If the mere idea that the ferry stops running at midnight means I am trapped on this island – and I can’t handle that, then I’m screwed – we’re all screwed. If, however, I can see the adventure in this new style of living – the isolation = new perspectives, then this new place could really be a new door to a new life. We shall see.

The 13 – Final

 I am a week late in my deadline for posting the final 13.  This is symptomatic of the old me, not letting enough time into the daily grind for my creative endeavors, or in this case for my life altering ones.  Though I am torn about the formality of this final draft, I worry greatly that if I don’t pen it down and make it the FINAL, it will never be done.  In fact, the more and more we have begun to settle into our new home, the more I feel like I should knock unreasonable items off this list. Taking an art class suddenly feels daunting! An art class. So that’s it, this list needs to be etched on a baseball bat that I can swing at my old self.

Without hesitation (yeah right), here they are –

 THE 13 Adventures of Meloni Courtway  (Dated August 15, 2015 – I have one year)

•  Camp alone

•  Travel to Europe

•  Learn to Make Thai food

• Take art classes

• Hike 12 new trails

• Go Clamming/fishing/crabbing for dinner

•  Grow something

• Create a podcast

•  Feed Someone

• Volunteer outdoors

• Write a book

• Act

• Build something

Hi again, I’m Meloni. It occurs to me that I haven’t really done much introducing, and that a little back-story might make all this, make more sense.  So here’s the quick and dirty on me and mine.

 On June 1st, 2015 our family of four departed O`ahu, Hawaii after three years in paradise.  My husband’s job was relocated to Seattle and as it often is in the United States Coast Guard, we have found ourselves moving once again. Though Hawaii is now so deeply rooted in us, it was not without its challenges and we were on many levels ready to leave.  I wanted to feel sane again, and somehow those crystal blue waters and the humid thick air leave a lot of people more zombie like than human – myself included. It was strange, beautiful, and strange. Do I miss it? yes. Would I move back? probably not.

 While there, we worked feverishly to build relationships and some of those will last a lifetime. Hawaii is now somewhere we could travel without batting an eyelash – both because we have friends to visit, and also because we owned our life there – getting fully immersed despite a heavy dose of passive aggressive racism and dysfunction.  Though we love so much of Hawaii, there was an audible sigh and calm that came over me when we landed on the Mainland, and I had to digest the fact that I had spent most of the last three years being unhappy – and hiding it. Or so I thought. Our children, devastated to leave Hawaii took a deep sigh with us when we landed here, and for the most part are adapting faster than usual to our new homeland. I suspect this is in no small part because their parental units (especially their mother) are happy again, and that is helpful to everyone. Nobody wants to hear me talk about Hawaii this way, I know, and I am sorry…

Before living in Hawaii we spent six glorious years in Sonoma County, California in a town called Petaluma. That is home. It is not where either my husband or I were born, but that is a place that feels right to us.  Having only spent a few weeks in Washington I can tell you that this too gives me that warm home like feeling. That safe feeling we all want on some level, and some people journey the world looking for. Having done two stints in California, one in Michigan and one in Hawaii, not to mention lots of visiting the lower Midwest, I am going to pay close attention to level of comfort I feel in Seattle. I’m listening to me.

 For all our moving around, my husband I haven’t really put intention into expanding our traveling for fun. We are always so caught up in the day-to-day grind, and we started so young, that it’s been a game of catch up this last 13 years.  Our son, now 12, flew onto the scene 8 weeks premature to two young parents in their early 20’s, who were not quite married yet. We wouldn’t change a thing, and we were certainly old beyond our years back then, but now with two kids and lots of other obligations we need to dig out the thrills we missed a decade ago.  No, we don’t want to get high on the beaches of Jamaica (I mean, well, not really), but we would like to set out and explore our world a LOT more.

 Two kids, a loud adopted parrot, and some exhausted parents – we are planning to take the Seattle area by storm and see what kinds of adventures we can dig up on this side of the Pacific and then beyond! With 13 Adventures to hold me accountable, I plan to land in our new home with a plan to find the real me and honor it.

It’s really arbitrary that I chose thirteen as my magic number of routine-busting adventures.  Mostly it just sounded good, and maybe a little wicked.  As I spent more time thinking about it, it felt right that there are 12 months in a year, and that would equal one adventure a month, and one for good luck, like birthday candles or doughnuts.  When I explained my idea to my sister, fully expecting her most honest and candid response and probably one that included mockery of my foolish idea, she quickly responded with, “A baker’s dozen!” How appropriate.  There’s more for you to know about baking, and me and I am sure that will emerge here in my literary travels, but needless to say a baker’s dozen suits me just fine.

 The idea is that I will take on 13 to-dos in an effort not to fall into routine in the same way I do/have after each move our family has made around the world.  While we certainly haven’t been globe-trotters, we have lead a life slightly out of our control following my husband’s career in the United States Coast Guard, and because of this, or maybe because we are who we are we tend to slide as quickly as possible into a comfort zone. That looks a little bit different at each new location, but basically sits on the same skeletal frame –kids, school, work, dishes, laundry, repeat.  And let’s be real, there is nothing wrong with our routine, or anyone’s. As my “Aunty” Nancy pointed out in her most family-therapist voice “routine is good.” She’s right.  What I’m looking for however is the reason behind my routines. I’m worried I have put off a certain number of adventures over the years out of fear.  Buying our first home almost didn’t happen and I would say in great part because of fear my husband and I harbored towards such a big purchase – and a fixer upper at that. Was it hard? Sure, but we quickly learned just what value you can get from owning your own plot.  And that makes me wonder…what else do we fear?  For me it’s travel. I want it in every part of me, to travel, and yet here I am with a 12 year old and a six year old and really not that much exotic in my life as far as world-travel is concerned. Sure, living in Hawaii was exotic sometimes, and I’ve been to Mexico a bit – in a resort sort of sense, but mostly we get so locked into our routine (financially) that we find a reason EVERY DAMN YEAR not to experience the big wider world.  So, that’s going on the list.

 As we drove across the American Southwest in June, the lack of internet, and the countless hours as a passenger in a car let me ponder just what my thirteen adventures might be.  Certainly this camping business had to go on the list, and obviously some kind of inter continental travel. Ok, so those are HUGE undertakings even for really adventurous people, and I need to make sure to maintain some balance.  My hope is to be realistic, while still pushing the edges of my comfort zones. Any thoughts? What eleven other must-dos would you add?? As I explored my options, my mind sort of froze up. In my next blog post I’ll share what’s surfaced so far from the icy and foggy waters of my brain.