thirty days to thirty

While many of my students in China wished they could be eighteen again, I've always felt happy to be as old as I happen to be. I'm grateful for the years and experiences that have twisted and taught me until I can hardly believe the changes. And I would not trade any of it for fewer wrinkles and gray hairs. I like my wrinkles and gray hairs.

So here I am at 29 with thirty days to thirty and counting. And I want to DO something. Something to mark the occasion. Something to remind myself that life is there for the taking. Something to make me little more like this baker-blogger. Except maybe not quite so ambitious as thirty different things. Just thirty of one should do me fine. For thirty days.

So . . . thirty days of what? Should I give hugs to strangers? Write emails to old friends? Learn new songs on the guitar? Give away cupcakes? Study new Chinese idioms? Yes, yes, and yes.

And write blogs. One a day, for thirty days. With the vague theme of "things I've learned" - today, last week, last year, in the last almost-thirty years. It's a broad theme. I sometimes have trouble with narrowing. But I'll try not to dwell much on the things I have trouble with (I spend enough time doing that already). Instead, I want to write about what inspires me, what excites me, what has challenged me to become better and different and still curious.

Like today, for starters. Catherine my beautiful New Zealand host went to work and I went to the Otago Museum. Otago is the name of the southern region of the South Island, where she lives. At the museum I learned things about cultures of Polynesia. There are 700 languages spoken in Papua New Guinea. The tatooist held an important place in the feudal hierarchies in Hawaii and Tonga. In the Santa Cruz islands, tumeric was believed to have supernatural properties. Yams were treated like currency on another island, and all Polynesians, it seems, ate breadfruit, a fruit that tastes something like bread?

I learned about Sir Edmund Hilary, the first person to climb Mt. Everest. Even though he was born and schooled in Auckland (in the North Island), the Otago Museum claimed the former beekeeper as a New Zealander. I learned that not only did he get to the roof of the world first (thanks to a mixture of ambition, planning, and talent, and lots of sugared lemon drink for hydration), but he went on to do a whole of lot of humanitarian (and diplomatic) work in Nepal and India. He continued on to ten more Himalayan summits, an expedition to the South Pole, a jet boat trip the length of the Ganges . . . all the while seeking approval of local Buddhist leaders when adventuring in their land. According to the exhibit, he was well-known and respected by the Sherpa people, and he returned each year to continue his work there with the Himalayan Trust for fifty years, until he was 86.

I hope I may have a tiny bit of his dedication. And sense of adventure.