My hairdresser has a little boy that is unusual.  That is the word people use to describe a child that frightens them.  This tot has a tendency to look through people.  He loves fire, and I wouldn’ be surprised if small animals disappear when he is around.  I think in retrospect she thinks she should have named him Dexter (after the HBO serial killer who is so polite and well mannered).  She tells me she sleeps with the doors locked and encourages her other children to do so as well.  One day she lost track of the little lamb and heard a pounding from the back of the house.  When she went into the room the noise was coming from she found…to her surprise…her son stabbing the wall repeatedly with her best butcher’s knife.  When she asked him what he was doing he looked at her and very coldly responded, “playing danger.”  He is five.

Yikes!  Right?  But don’t we all have a side that wants to play danger?  I mean I don’t go around stabbing walls…but I do love a good adrenaline rush.  That’s why I ride my horse at break neck speeds sometimes, or try to find a straight stretch to see how fast my car can go (by the way…pretty damn fast!)  These are things that I don’t talk about much because the world thinks I’m an old lady.  Old ladies don’t do such things.  We sit and read or blog, maybe take up knitting but we don’t saddle up and dig in and go galloping across the countryside as fast as we can holding on for all we are worth just because we like the feel of the wind on our face.  Kids do that…because they don’t have any better sense.  Guess what?  I don’t have any better sense either.  I don’t own a rocking chair.  I don’t knit.  I drive too fast, and I take stupid risks and lots of chances.  My husband is the old lady in this relationship, and I don’t tell him about all the stupid things I do.  He would have a cow!  My daughter and I went snowmobiling in Montana one winter.  It was just the two of us.  The guy who lent us the snow mobiles told us the rules, looked worried that two genteel southern ladies were going into the woods on snowmobiles (even though there were clearly marked trails and he gave us a map…which I gave to my daughter because I don’t do maps) and sent us on our way.  We hadn’t gone more than half a mile before I decided to try and jump a mound of snow and got stuck.  My daughter was some kind of pissed.  It was hysterical!  She filled my helmet with snow, called me an idiot, relayed the rules to me yet again (stay on the trail!) and eventually we were rescued by two guys whose job it was to rescue crazy broads who try to jump snow banks.  She took the lead.  I did a couple of more dumb things, but that’s all I’m going to say because some of you know my husband and can’t keep your mouths shut.  But the point is…I felt alive!  I was rushing through life.  I wasn’t sitting around just existing. 

When we took my parents to Yellowstone with my two youngest kids I stuck my hand in the water under one of the walkways.  I could tell way before my hand got there that the water wasn’t hot.  My children and my mother almost died on the spot because there was a sign that specifically said “Do Not Place Hands in Stream!”  I still have to hear about that.  I have always told them that I could tell the water wasn’t hot.  I was never worried about the consequences of touching that stream.  This weekend my son…the geezer…admonished me again saying “do you know how many types of bacteria could have been in that stream?  Suppose you had a cut on your hand?  Would it have been worth dying?”  Never entered my mind.  Not once.  I guess you are going to die of something.  Maybe you should have fun while you are doing it.  I think you should break the rules once in a while.  Not at the risk of going to prison, but I think it’s okay to pull the tag off the mattress.  Some rules are just stupid.  If there is a straight stretch of highway and I can see for miles and there is no traffic, and I am buckled in…why not open my car up and put the pedal to the metal.  I’m not risking the lives of others.  I love risks, but I don’t take stupid ones that endanger other people…I just sometimes endanger myself.  A little.  For grins.  No one has to know.  Right?

See here’s the thing.  This is my secret identity.  So far only you and my daughter know this.  She knows because she’s just like me.  She takes chances too.  She doesn’t have to hide to take hers, she is young and unmarried so there is no one trying to rein her in.  My husband thinks I should.  He worries for her safety and is forever after me to do this or that or say this or that to her.  I say live and let live.  Maybe if she plays danger now she will settle down later.  I don’t know.  I was never allowed to play danger.  My parents insisted upon following the rules to the letter, and as far as they knew, I did.  My husband worries about everything (he can’t help it…his mother was a world class worrier) so I have to watch what I say out loud. Sometimes I tease him at hint at things I’ve done or would like to do and it puts him in an absolute tizzy.  I’m just testing the waters to see if his attitude has changed.  It hasn’t.  I have my motorcycle license.  I have had it since I was fourteen, but God forbid I should ride a motorcycle…which I love…he would die!  I can’t convince him that motorcycles are as safe as the person on them, and if he read this blog he would be convinced that I am unsafe and become even more protective.  That’s not true though.  When I ride my horse I wear a helmet.  I wore a helmet on the snowmobile.  I always wore a helmet when I rode motorcycles, and when I drive I always wear my seat belt.  I take the necessary precautions…I just like fast!  I like horror movies too…but that is because I think they’re comical…I like to get all the kids together and dis them…anyway I digress.  Playing danger doesn’t always have to be dangerous.

I know some elderly people who are incredibly young, and I know some young people who are incredibly old.  I think the difference is in their ability to enjoy themselves, and part of that is finding what makes you happy and doing it.  For some it is playing bridge and for others it is golf.  For me it is going fast and furiously with the wind in my hair.  When I first got my car, I came in from a trip and asked my husband “Guess how fast I got her up to?”  Of course he had no idea.  “115.”  He looked at me as if I had three heads…then that vein at the right side of his temple began to pulsate.  “You know of course at speeds over 100 they don’t ticket you, they take you to jail.”  Did  I mention that the jaw was clenching as well?  “Good thing I didn’t get caught, huh?”  Sometimes, he can roll his eyes just like my mom. 

2 Comments »

1. 

   Ohhhh, you think YOU live life on the edge? I drink milk AFTER the expiration date.

   Comment by pms — March 15, 2009 @ 1:25 pm

2. 

   You also live in Flippin. There is only so much danger I can compete with.

   Comment by admin — March 16, 2009 @ 1:19 am

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