TJ Hirst

Our neighbor, Paula, is spontaneous. She likes to borrow our children and introduce them to new activities and adventures in Minnesota. She’s been trying to get us to Crow Wing State Park along the Mississippi River for years. Still, our family has visited at least ten other state parks but not this one which is less than 10 miles away. (Maybe it is because most of her invitations to that one seem to involve winter camping in one of the sleeper cabins.)

She called with her latest scheme for an evening activity just as I started fixing dinner—to go geocaching in Crow Wing State Park. I had no idea what geocaching is; she had to explain. Apparently we were going to use a handheld GPS, global positioning system, to locate a hidden box at certain coordinates. (I found this informative explanation for GPS novices like me).

I think I caught on, but I always have to learn by doing. When I told my kids where we were going, they had to explain to me that it is not geo-CATCH-ing. Yes, I knew we weren’t going to try to catch a GEO, but rather than look even more dense, I just piled in the car with Paula and Mark (her husband) and my family.

They had printed out the coordinates and clues at geocaching.com and the kids unscrambled the clues on our way to the park. Once we were on the riverside trail, I never had the chance to look stupid; everyone wanted to be the leader who figured it out. Several of our family members, who will remain anonymous, took hold of the GPS with exuberant confidence and began walking in the “right” direction, until we had to turn around and head the other way. At one point I succeeded in slowing them down long enough to teach me how it all really worked.

We swatted and scratched at mosquitoes along the right path and the lead searchers lightened their interest so that we all walked together down this historic trail, which was originally the Red River Ox Cart Trail, used by fur traders traveling from Canada through primitive Minnesota to St. Paul. Even earlier, “according to historian William Warren, this was the scene of a major battle between the Dakota and Ojibwe Indians in 1768,” (see Crow Wing history).

The history markers about Crow Wing, a 19th-century frontier town at the confluence of the Crow Wing River and the Mississippi, attracted me away from the other searchers. I lagged behind with my camera reading the signs and taking pictures of the restored Clement H. Beaulieu mansion. That was fine since they had sent NH running back 1/2 mile to the car to grab a Minnesota state quarter to put into the box when they found it.

When NH and I caught up to them, the explorers had just discovered that they had been following the minutes and seconds, not degrees, and overshot the correct coordinates by a mile or so. Oops. We all turned around and retraced to the right site where we searched and searched like we were little kids playing hot potato at a kids party.

NH spotted some flattened grass. And he and Paul waded through waist-high tick-infested grass to discover the box together inside a hollow log. The contents of the box disappointed KH—random trinkets and a 40%-off coupon for a new GPS at Best Buy.

True, we came away with coupons and a a mess of mosquito bites, but this grown-up version of seek and find not only taught us a history and geography lesson along the banks of the Mississippi but how fun it can be to solve something together. More pictures on our neighbor’s site. Thanks, Mark and Paula, for adding your spontaneity to our family.

My nine-year-old daughter, KH, has an artist’s eye. She see images of beauty in her mind that she wants to create, but the challenge comes in making those images real with paint and paper, a computer or just an ideal setting of physical surroundings.

I can relate to her quandary, not only in my creative world but in the practical one, too. That is why I don’t like to shop. I know what I want but I can never quite find what I am looking for.

When KH and I had to replace her nice dress shoes because the old ones were beat up and mysteriously missing, I felt that same perfectionist pressure rising in me. Time became tight and shoes she wanted were too. But, minutes before we had to leave the store for another outing, we tried the clearance racks and found shimmery gold flats in her size for $2.99. Ah, sometimes we do get perfection. Or at least satisfaction.

Ingenuity: n. 1. Inventive skill or imagination; cleverness. 2. Imaginative and clever design or construction.

Our home sits on unique triangular-shaped, one-acre lot with a steep hill and undeveloped forest. We chose it because we could position the house up high to take in the views but also enjoy the trees. We built the home right at the front of that pie shape and left the woods natural.

When we were at my parent’s farm, Grandpa loved showing us his planned projects to improve their property. We also took a short hike through a state park that everyone loved.

When we returned home, I wondered aloud with my 11-year-old son, NH, if he wanted to build a hiking trail through our forest to a fire pit/campsite and make a nature loop back to the house.

He’s nurturing that idea as his own summer project with research on the Internet, sketches and notes the site plan, and initial marking of where the trail will go. I love to see his mind catch hold of this idea and know that he is old enough and skilled enough to carry it through with our help. Now, he’s the leader on this one, and we will post his progress along the way.

Intention: n. A course of action that one intends to follow. 2. An aim that guides action; an objective.

I wanted to make blueberry muffins for the 6:45 a.m. youth religion class I teach. It was Friday and we struggled through Jeremiah and Lamentations all week. I wanted to reward their effort and acknowledge their work. I envisioned combining a spiritual feast with a home-baked one.

At 9 p.m. the night before, I decide that I have too much on my plate and try to be content with the lesson I prepared.

At 6:05 a.m., dressed and ready, I say, “There is enough time; I can still do this.”

At 6:07, I heat the oven and began doubling my favorite blueberry muffin recipe. I need to get them in by 6:15 for this to work.

At 6:12, I stress a little, stirring the blueberries into the batter. What was I thinking?

At 6:17, I am lining muffin tins with paper wrappers.

At 6:19, My family comes in for prayers while I am filling the muffin cups. My husband looks at me funny. He says, “Do you have enough time to bake them?”

At 6:20, I stick them into the oven and set the timer for 15 minutes. Perfect. 15 minutes to cook. 10 minutes to get there.

At 6:33, I load up my car and start it—minus the muffins, which are still baking.

At 6:35, the toothpick comes out gooey. Overfilled the cups. Going to take longer. I set the timer for one more minute.

At 6:36, I take the muffins out, set the hot muffin tins on two larger baking sheets and grab them to leave. I burn my thumbs in the process.

At 6:45, I am halfway to the building. Ok, only a few minutes late. I am never late, and they always are. Should work out fine.

At 6:49, I drive down the road to the building. I see a familiar minivan coming toward me. I hope they were just dropped off.

At 6:50, I pull up, and one boy gets out of his car. No one else there. I am juggling the muffins and my lesson materials. I ask him for help, and he tells me three other students were here but they left. “But I made them muffins.”

At 6:51, I open the building and turn on the lights and set the muffins down in the classroom. I can’t just teach him myself. I tell him that and then say, “Wait right here, maybe I can let them know I’m here.” I grab my cell phone to find some phone numbers, but the battery goes dead.

At 6:53, I am in my car, back on the main road, driving the short distance to the high school. I make it a block and see another student’s car coming toward me. Good, we can have class, now. I turn around and head back to the building.

At 6:54, I watch that student drive right past the nearly empty parking lot.

At 6:55, Back in the building, I tell the one original student, “We’ll wait five minutes.”

At 7:02, I hand him two muffins on a napkin and cancel class.

At 7:10, I am walking the halls of the high school’s south campus trying to bring muffins to my students. The halls are empty except for the cooks in the kitchen preapring school lunch.

Plenty of food. Just no one to eat it.

This is why I am not spontaneous.

When I was just a young wife without any children, my husband took me to visit his mother’s homeland in Finland. We toured familiar places where he lived and visited. He shared his favorite food at the train station in Helsinki, grilled makkara with mustard eaten from white paper envelopes as we rushed to our train. He showed me the characteristic arts and design from Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, composer Jean SIbelius, and artist Akseli Gallen-Kalela. He gave me the beauty and solitude of the forests at a mökki on the Kemi River. And I knew when he introduced me to his Mummi, his mother’s mom, it was like he was going home and bringing me with him.

My heart and my cultural sensitivity expanded. I attempted to memorize every piece so I could adopt it into our eventual family’s life. About 13 days into our trip, though, my inspired perspective waned, and I longed for the familiarity of my actual home. I desired conversations without translation and cool water from a drinking fountain. I wanted to replace the foreign lifestyle with the routines I knew.

When we arrived at New York’s Kennedy Airport, the environment felt nearly wholesome to my travel-weary body. Another long flight and a short recovery restored me to home. It was nothing more than a basement apartment in an old house, but it was home to us. There I unpacked our vacation purchases from iittalla glass and set a vision of our future home alongside our eveyday reality.

We haven’t taken many far-off adventures since our children were born, but whenever we leave home, I always bring back the souvenir of a wider perspective. Whether we spend a few days camping nearby, cross the country to visit relatives, or travel to another time and place while watching a movie together, my new eyesight gives me insight. The return trip is a journey home again, connecting what I learned to what I will do.

Our family began like many others, in a struggle between the nostalgia from two childhood homes. While we built on the foundation of these traditions, our individual circumstances and goals also required an expanded vision. I found that when I step outside my own door to seek solutions, the windows of my mind open to receive new truths that I can bring home. Through the years of collecting, displaying and using these mental souvenirs, we have built a home of our own on this pattern of inspiration.

This post is an entry in the April Write-Away Contest at Scribbit.