I guess, to answer the ponderous question nagging at a few, these memories might make me proverbially old as dirt. And that’s OK, because someone had to be. I’m still about 19 in the cognitive arena; though my body feels assured I am just the Queen of Denial and need to get a grip.
But what all this brings me around to is this: I’ve always been a (1) person and (2) woman who went her own way down the road of discovery. I believe I’ve observed in a previous entry what an awful salmon I would have made – although the swimming against the current thing sounds just peachy to me. But the idea of group behavior… well that’s another can o’ tuna all together.
And so, you politely wonder, what has all this to do with recycling? Fear not, fretful reader. The question will be answered shortly.
Alhough I’m technically not old enough to be old as dirt, I am sure getting there inch by inch. And along with that realization comes another: that there is no such thing as aging gracefully. And so I’ve decided that I had better get a tad more active if I intend to keep my wits about me. I decided to take up geocaching after watching a show on National Geographic about brain elasticity. Good show, great information. Research shows that brain connections can continue to grow throughout a lifetime if given the proper motivation. Indeed, use it or lose it.
I, for one, am not comfortable with the latter. My mother had Alzheimer’s, and I am freaked out beyond belief by what happened to her.
Interestingly, part of the show dealt with the positive benefits of geocaching, an activity for young and old alike that gets you outdoors, gets your ticker pumping, puts you in comfortable social situations. And you guessed it: promotes brain elasticity because of the need to combine GPS technology with good ol’ common sense. Quite a brain healthy soup, as it turns out.
The nice thing about caching is you can do it alone or with friends. And you can do it in a rural environment fraught with wilderness areas (and recently, more wildland fires than I are to acknowledge) or you can marshal your troops in a more urbane environment.
Interestingly, I find geocaching to be much like yoga in its approach: you aren’t competing with anyone but yourself. The only satisfaction at the end of the process is a job well done.
And so I am caching here and caching there and really digging it. I recently finished out one of our local mountain parks, and was on my way back to my 4Runner to head back to the casa. I decided to make a pit stop first, and headed to the portajohn. I’m not necessarily enamored of those places, but it sure beats being butt naked in the woods when some hiker, geocacher, or disc golfer decides to take a gander in your direction. The woods ain’t so woodsy as they once used to be….
Being a height-challenged individual, I tend to look all over the place at my surroundings to make sure I’m not missing something. So as I sit myself upon the portable throne, I notice something that sets me off belly laughing. Didyaknow that portapotties are made from #2 recyclable plastic? I kid you not. Thus saith the embossment on the portadoor. I was personally engaged in a #1 when I made the observation about #2.
It just wouldn’t have had the same impact if the door had been a #3.
