LOVE―to play.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw

Love to PLAY!

I have conflicting information presented to me on a regular basis.  I think life has a tendency to do that. 

In the same week (very recently), I was called “an old soul” by one person while concerns of immaturity were expressed by another.  I will readily admit that more often than not, the accusation of immaturity has been more prevalent than the nod toward wisdom. I believe the main concern at hand by those who love me is that I have held on to my “inner Peter Pan” just a bit too much.

However, when it comes to the LOVE of play, I make no apologies.  I work really hard.  I give 110% to my job for the 50-65 hours a week that involves.  I don’t always do my job perfectly,  but I do always put my patients’ needs first.  So when the computer closes on Friday afternoon, I don’t open it until Monday morning.  That’s just me.  The weekends are time for play!

Dogs teach us a lot―the importance of PLAY just being one thing. Duke in hot pursuit of a bumper...

One recent past weekend was no exception.  Since beginning my travels, I have tried to take full advantage of play.  I have hunted and fished.  I have been learning to play polo.  I have gone to vineyards.  I have paddled rivers. But this past weekend was a “bucket list” weekend.   It involved one of those “you’re insane” kind of activities like jumping out of plane.  Not for everyone.  

So it got me thinking about the why of it all.  Why do I LOVE to play so much?

Specifically, why thrill seeking?  Why does what would terrify some, thrill me?  Why am I not scared?

I am stupid.  I am an adrenaline junky.  I am courageous.  Well...not really any of that actually.  Here’s the admission: I like being scared.

It is my opinion that fear is the emotion we feel that most directly opposes the word lifeless―I dare say even more than love.  It is impossible not to feel alive when you are scared.  When you experience something that evokes fear, it produces the ancient “fight or flight” response.  For me, the feelings associated with that response are the exact opposite of being bored. 

Now tonight I am finishing this blog as I ride out hurricane Sandy inside of Fran.  I am truly scared for the first time in long while.  This is a different kind of scared.  This is not the fun kind of scared―as I am wondering if Fran will be flipped on her side in these strong winds or if a tree will come crashing through the roof.  Luckily the tree that crashed through the motorhome parked here before I came this summer was the only likely prospect within our reach as a potential landing zone.  I’m hoping the other close trees are too far away should they loose their integrity.   

The morning after I realize how lucky I was!

I did say I liked being scared, right? A dear friend jokingly accused me tonight of doing this on purpose.  

“Lucy, I bet you looked at the Farmer’s almanac and saw that it said there would be a hurricane in Virginia at the end of October and thought to yourself, ‘I bet it would be fun to ride out a hurricane in a motorhome’ so you went there on purpose...just for the fun of it!”  

My friends know me all too well.  But no―I didn’t plan this.  And no...I won’t do it again.

A near miss to a motorhome parked near mine.

Mark Twain once said, “To succeed in life, you need two things: Ignorance and Confidence.”  I am sure of both tonight.  One: my ignorance of how powerful this storm was going to be.  Two: my confidence that God is not yet done with me on this earth―so I will likely survive to seek out the good kind of being scared in the form of “play” again soon.  

EAT―It’s stew time!

"Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity".  ~Voltaire

What a wonderful thing food is. It follows seasons. It becomes tradition.  It stirs memories and nourishes souls.  

A good start on Lamb Stew!

One of my favorite things about food is how it becomes an expression of love.  I love you enough, my friend, to cook for you―to feed you.  My Mother comforted me with food when I was sick.  I ordered my favorite meal from her for my birthday.  I came home from college to favorite dishes and was sent back to school with leftovers from other favorite dishes.

In Psych 101 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs taught us all that we had basic, physiological needs: Food, water, shelter, oxygen, and sleep (the latter of which I should be trying to do right now).  Unless these needs are met we are unable to move up the hierarchy to safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. When those basic needs are catalogued―the ones the allow us to function―food is always listed first.

To feed someone is to love them and meet them at their most basic need.  I think I love that part more than anything about cooking for others.  It is why, no matter how much of a cliche´ it is, when we take people a meal when someone dies in the South, it’s a simple way to say, “I love you and I’m thinking about you.”  

When I was a child we would go “crabbing” every Summer at Pawley’s Island.  We would catch crabs on crabbing lines and in crab traps. Then we would spend hours picking the meat on the back porch while sitting in crickety wooden chairs pulled up to a metal table with newspaper spread over the top.  I would get lessons from my grandmother and aunts each year on how to  perform properly this task.  How to “release the meat” when getting the lump meat from the bodies was taught only once I was old enough and dexterous enough not to destroy  the precious cargo inside the crab body...younger children were only allowed to pick the claw meat which was more of “an appetizer.”  

The whole process―from start to finish―was so involved.  Catch the crabs.  Boil the crabs.  Pick the crabs. Put the meat up in the freezer.  Not to mention launching the boat, packing the cooler so us children would have all the proper provisions, etc.  The summer process was then followed by the winter one...(which is where I was going with all this).  We would take the meat from the summer crabs, thaw it, and then start the process for the Christmas crab casserole (which is a whole other process!).  The crab meat became this symbol of tradition in our family―of how the years would come full circle―but we would all still be together in the same place each year on those two times.

So there it is.  Food is all about tradition to me.  Comfort. Memories. And a hearty goodness that is meant to be enjoyed.  As Voltaire states, a pleasure―and may I add “in every way possible.”  

There's Something 'Bout a Green Truck!
(the name of the wine if ya can't see it)

When you eat you must also drink.  So food is often accompanied by this other pleasure we call―wine.   

So it came to be that on the first cold weekend here, as my dog was sick and I was at home tending to him, I made a good stew.  Oh, how I love to eat a good stew! This concotion was not just any stew either.  It was a lamb stew.  Oh, how I love lamb!  Sometimes I get so excited about food I feel like I must look and sound like my nephew on Christmas day.  “Oh, it’s just what I wanted!!!”  He is so excited and appreciative of each gift.  I will often find myself doing the same thing when eating a good meal as I make my way around my plate.  “Oh, these field peas are the best I have ever had!  What on earth did you do to them?!?”  Then I few bites later I am asking for the recipe for the squash casserole I’m inhaling.  

Enjoyable.  Yes.

So for Fran’s (the motorhome) first big stew I went all out.  I bought a good leg of lamb and made sure there would be an abundance of meat available in the stew―for there is nothing more disappointing than for a dish to advertise a main ingredient but then have only minuet portions of it present.  To a red wine, tomato, onion reduction I added carrots, plump golden raises, the lamb and almost an entire spice bottle of curry.  It was delish I must say...  And more than anything I was amazed by how well I functioned in my little kitchen on such a shoe-string budget of counter space.  Since the bathroom is two feet behind me, it made for nice “spill-over” when I feel behind on the “wash dirty dishes as you go” effort I tried to maintain.  Other than that...flawless execution.  

"It taste so good..."