As You Like It

As You Like It is certainly not one of my favorite plays by Shakespeare. Too many silly plot twists and complicated characters and story lines. But the paradox of the play's complexity is that the play is classified as "pastoral." A pastoral story is one that is set in the country among folk like farmers and shepherds, surrounded by vast, rolling fields, deep forests, and livestock among all the animals nature offers. In other words, the pastoral life is the simple life. Hence the paradox; a pastoral (simple) story of great complexity.

Over the past couple of days, I have been home for Easter weekend. It's always nice to come home. This trip is particularly unique, however. This is the last school break I will ever have. The next time I come home, I will be coming home as a college graduate. This summer will not be summer vacation. It will just be summer. This weekend is my last school break ever. And that is a tough pill to swallow.

When you approach an end, you start thinking about the beginning. I'm about to turn the page to a whole new chapter of my life. So lately I've been thinking about the things I love and wanted when I was a child. And what I loved I think more than anything as I child was the outdoors. Now I know that all little kids love to play outside. That's nothing out of the ordinary. But still, I loved it. I have such fond memories of going on all these elaborate adventures when I was a little kid. Just me and Sky Puppy, my dog, at my side. The house I grew up in was a log cabin right on the edge of the woods. We lived in the county, away from the noise and bustle of the city (and let me tell you, Elizabethton offered a great amount of both noise and bustle...except not really). Anyway, Sky and I would go outside on a sunny evening and just explore. We would find hidden glens, new lookout points to spy on the neighbors, and all sorts of private places where I could just sit and think or sing or dance or do whatever it is that little kids do when they're alone. The point was that I always felt free. I felt adventurous. I felt alive.

Luckily, as I got older I found life in new things like music, theatre, and school. I found life in the new adventures I found in those facets and with the new friends I made from them. But I've always thought back on my simpler days, lying on the grass with Sky Puppy, dreaming about being a grown up lady. Falling in love. Getting married. Being intelligent. Being happy.

Sometimes I still feel like that little girl. And sometimes, even at the same time, she seems so very far away.

It may also be worth mentioning how obsessed I was with Pocahontas. I had Pocahontas everything. Posters, dolls, bad spreads, sheets, curtains. Everything. I was fascinated with her. Perhaps it was because she was beautiful and courageous and did cool things like swam in her clothes and dove off waterfalls and had friends that were raccoons and hummingbirds. Or maybe it was because she was a real person. She lived. She was an inspiration to generations, not just to me. But I think the reason I loved Pocahontas so much was because she was free.

"She goes wherever the wind takes her."

I think that one does not find adventure. Adventure has to find you. Like it found Pocahontas. Like it found every great hero or heroine we read about in books or watch in movies. As a child, you create your own adventures by playing make-believe. As an adult, you are far more vulnerable. You must willingly submit yourself to letting the wind blow you wherever it beckons. The wind which the Lord himself blows. Who knew that we, as children, had a much firmer grasp on our dreams than we do as adults? Why is that? Because now we know our limits? We are aware of consequences? We have all tasted defeat and we fear it with our whole hearts?

Standing on the brink, I remember my childhood pastoral retreat. Watching the clouds go by. Listening to a babbling stream. Listening to the birds and crickets chirp. A car passes only now and then. The leaves rustle on their branches as a night breeze blows in. Peaceful. Still. Calm. That is my happy place. That's how I like it.

Life will be as you like it. But only if you go where the wind takes you.