Mini Adventures

They are sometimes called microadventures. The term may have been coined by Alastair Humphreys the adventurer and writer. He's written about taking little adventures, stretching to the challenge of the outdoors in simple, inexpensive ways without having to head off for the Himalayas. 

I've been writing a blog over the last several months entitled Walks With Sam. Maybe you have read some of the posts, essays, if you will, based on a season of walks with my dog. I certainly invite you to. There are more than 30 posts now and I have stopped contributing to the blog on a regular basis because, I believe, there may be a book there. Going forward, I plan to occasionally post a walk or a hike, or something significant in the life of Sam and me. But my season of contemplative walking appears over for now. It has run its course. But I've learned much about me, about Sam, about the creative process, about the neighborhood in its larger sense from the people in the houses to the deer in the woods, to the skunks, and rabbits, and the squirrels. It's all been a series of mini adventures.  

With all those words and all the observations behind me, I have retreated to the writing shed to try to shape something, to figure out how all those walks come together, how they fit into each other, how they resonate, why their collectiveness should mean something bigger than a single walk. I am reminded of great literary walkers and of great books about walking. A colleague suggested I read Ted Kooser's book of poems, Winter Morning Walks. I have started. It's brilliant and beautiful. 

So, here I am, in the shed, writing, shaping, thinking. This, in many ways, is yet another mini adventure. Not a physical walk, but a mental one through all the walks that came before. It's a good place, this shed. With its books and its painting of Dylan Thomas' boathouse, and art and photography from my sons and stepdaughter. 

Some night I will work late in here and maybe sleep inside these walls among all the essentials of a another mini adventure and dream, dream about this story, this book of walks. 

Surely something will rise out of this place. Something will be born here once again. For this is another mini adventure, a search for some tender wisdom, because an adventure, as Alastair Humphreys has written, is "only a state of mind."

Visit: Walks With Sam
And: www.davidwberner.com