Lindsey Mead tagged me to share three things I’m grateful for on five consecutive days.  Thank you again Lindsey, I’m happy to be back writing.  Today’s three: the itch, parmesan crisps and “I don’t know.”

1.   I have a problem.  It’s a problem that’s been with me my entire life, like a loyal shadow I will most likely never shake.  The problem is this, whenever I’m following a crowd, a well laid out plan, standing in a line, or generally doing what I’m supposed to do, I get itchy in my soul.  It’s actually worse than that, it’s a low grade anxiety that will eventually build into some drastic escape plan if I don’t pay attention. Wanderlust, need for adventure, need to test myself in the world, a lack of contentment, none of those are right.  It’s so much bigger and deeper than that.  It has to do with honoring the sheer outrageous fact that I’m alive.  That against all odds, I exist in this present form in this time and place.  It’s a hunger so deep and so all-encompassing, I have to admit it scares me at times.  So you’d think it would manifest itself in lots of small ways, you’d think I would have been a delinquent child or divorced x amount of times or some other such business.  Not true.  But it did manifest in other big ways, like choosing to be the only girl in a boys sport growing up (and enduring plenty of opinions on that).  Like choosing to leave college after two years in the *hopes* of making the Olympic team.  Like creating my own special major when what I wanted to study didn’t exist.  Like taking off to live in India on a month’s notice, like leaving the safety of athletics for business and leaving the safety of business for life coaching and leaving life coaching for writing.  Like marrying someone not my age and using a gestational surrogate and generally doing nothing the easy or well paved way.  Perhaps I took Frost a bit too seriously when he wrote…

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

And yet, when I get to the end of my life, I will know that I chose it.  I didn’t follow some pre-ordained path.  I chose.  And so I’ve learned to co-exist with the itch and the anxiety because they prod me to question my options beyond what is right in front of me.  They dare me to think outside the box.  They challenge me to have the courage to really listen to the answers to the question, “What is it I really want?”  The answer is usually right here, right now.  Because the truth is, I love my life.  I love where we live. I love my husband. I love my kids, dog, cat, horses, I love all of it.  And I still get itchy.  And that’s ok.  And I still get antsy, and that’s okay too because the angst poses the question and every once in awhile, a new answer pops up…live on a boat with Dan and the kids for a year, travel back to Africa and India, paint (!?), expand presence, cook more, camp, plan a date weekend, go for a walk, and much weirder things that I’d never know and won’t write about here if the itch didn’t ask.  So  it’s the itch I’m grateful for because it so often leads me to take the road less traveled, which has, thus far, made all the difference.

2.  Parmesan crisps.  These delightful salty crispy bites of yum have changed my snacking life.  I think it was our friend Michele  who first had a few small pieces on a cheese plate, probably as a garnish or to add a little salt variety to the cheese and fruit smorgasbord she tends to have on hand at all times in some strange channeling of Martha Stuart.  But restraining myself to treating these perfect little morsels as garnish, not so much.  Sort of like Tom Hanks treating the caviar as garnish in “You’ve Got Mail.”  Garnish = gone, plus a next day trip to Whole Foods to purchase my own slice of heaven which lasted less than a day.  Here’s why I am grateful to parmesan crisps:  cheese in general and parmesan in particular is one of my main food groups and reasons for living. Parmesan is the reason I eat pasta.  It is the box that arrives every Christmas from Dan’s friend with a haunting variety of parmesan cheeses.  It is the reason the server always give me a strange look when I never actually say that’s enough to the fresh grated parmesan.Yes, it can be a bit awkward but it’s also quite interesting to see when they WILL stop in the absence of any noise from me. It is the best part of a grilled cheese, the overflow of parm that falls into the pan and cooks its way to nibble size brownness.  To honor my love, I’ve found various ways to extend my parmesan cheese habit (sprinkled on peas, baked on crostini, crusted on chicken, hidden in mashed potatoes) but never before with such a delectable crisp.  For this marvelous invention, I am grateful.

3.  “I don’t know.”  Momma, why is that man limping?  I don’t know.  Momma, why do dogs bark instead of neigh?  I don’t know.  Why do evil and sickness and pain exist?  I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.   I am so utterly grateful for my ability to say “I don’t know” and this is why: once I “know” something, all other possibilities are gone.  Instead, not knowing opens me to the possibility of mystery and magic. Not knowing keeps me from identifying too strongly with my psyche, ego, mind, beliefs, opinions, call it what you will — they are not me and not knowing reminds me of that fact.  The truth is, I can only know what I’ve experienced, and given I’ve experienced almost nothing in the vast ocean of humanity, I know almost nothing.  And that’s ok.  Not knowing is a letting go, a giving up of control, an easing at first and then a confident leap into the adventure of this wild ride.  I used to be different, I used to be a person who I had every single aspect of my day, people, relationships, lives, and beliefs neatly organized and safely filed.  For people like that, the answer to  “Hello morning, what adventure is in store for me today?” will never be “I don’t know” and somehow that makes me profoundly sad, like a series of deaths while living.  Where’s the mystery?  Where’s the fun?  Where’s the not knowing?  I don’t know.  It’s scary for sure.  But I don’t think we are here to “know.” I think we are here to experience and not knowing leaves me open to infinite possibilities in fulfilling that purpose.