A cockamamie adventure in a corn nuts world

I’ve been studying alternative swear words. Some of them are truly wonderful: holy llamas, bullspit, blangdang, crab cakes, fragdaddle … and so on.

Many of those words are coming to mind as I contemplate an adventure that a young friend of mine is embarking on this first day of the new year. She’s a horse person and for a year or more, she’s been planning a long-distance ride to raise money and awareness about domestic violence. It’s a crazy long-ride but she has it all mapped out: four years, 48 state capitals, beginning here in Grass Valley.

Her ride starts today, in spite of the rain, in spite of the forecast of the biggest snow storm in years, projected to drop 8 to 12 inches, in spite of the lack of overwhelming financial support she’s received for the project.

When I first heard about the project, my spirit leapt up and shouted, “Wow! You go girl!” I spiraled into the adventure, admiring her courage, her determination, her willingness to break out of the box.

Then the practical part of my nature got caught in the stickers: winters, traffic, showers, snow, rain, food, bathrooms, loneliness. What would she do if she got sick? What if her horse got hurt? What if she needed to go home in a hurry? What if  …. ? What if … ?

Today I’ve been invited to see her off and it’s making me a little crazy. Not long after I heard about her plan, my skeptic kicked into gear. It's a cool idea, but it’s never going to work. She launched a rather outrageous Kickstarter project which didn’t work. That’s the end of that. She launched a gofundme project (The Centauride) which has only raised a few hundred dollars. This is never going to work. 

But, now she’s actually getting on her horse and riding away. I don’t know if she will make “It.” But I do know that she has impacted me and my thinking. So what if she doesn’t “make it?” She has an outrageous idea. She has passion and purpose. She has the guts to get out the door, make the first step. That deserves my awe-filled respect. That deserves my support. So, I’m dropping a few more dollars into her gofundme account and going out on this rainy morning to wish her well.

Then, I’m going to come home and figure out how to be more like Meredith. I’m going to find my own cockamamie project for this corn nuts world. I think we all need at least one of these in our lives.

 

To follow Meredith and Apollo on their ride: https://www.facebook.com/MsMeredithCherry/?fref=ts