Anna S. E. Lundberg - Blog on career transitions and other adventures

Travel with a Purpose: Finding your “why”

8 April, 2016 By Anna S E Lundberg 3 Comments

I’ve written before about the different reasons why people travel, provoked by a friend who claimed that “of course everyone likes to travel as it’s just going on holiday”.

Langkawi, Malaysia — Nothing wrong with a holiday!

Travel can of course be “just” a holiday, or perhaps an escape from something back home. It can also provide some much-needed time and space to process things that are happening and to gain a new perspective on a problem or a situation. It can be a way of getting out of your comfort zone, putting yourself in unfamiliar situations so that you continue to learn and to grow. It can be a way to meet interesting people that you’d never come across back home; and it can be many other things too.

Do you know why you travel?

It’s impossible not to notice all the messages we see these days about quitting your job and becoming a digital nomad, working from the beach on your laptop, travelling long term without a care in the world – but this isn’t for everyone. Likewise I’ve come across all sorts of sporty types and professional adventurers who do things like cycling backwards through the Amazon – and this definitely isn’t for everyone either! When you haven’t defined your own reasons for travelling, your own purpose, I find it’s easy to get caught up in other people’s plans and approaches to life.

I wonder if we might not also get lost in meaningless activities or distracted by things that aren’t really that important. There can be a manic urge to tick the boxes, to “see everything”, to make the most of our time while we’re in a particular city or country. We may rush around or flock to the popular sights and miss out on richer, more subtle experiences.

On my current trip to Japan, I’ve been struck by the absurdity of TripAdvisor and other similar reviews of sightseeing destinations.

Inari Shrine — Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine in Kyoto. Getting there early, we were able to experience the shrines before the hordes descended…

Who is really to say that Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine (sitting at the base of a mountain, it encompasses a long corridor of distinctive red shrines, which were soon infiltrated by hordes of tourists from all over the world) is #1 of 847 things to do in Kyoto, while Sanjusangendo Hall (a Buddhist temple that includes a long wooden building containing an awe-inspiring one thousand life-sized statues) is #4?

Or that Rokuon-ji Temple (a beautiful Golden Pavilion where we were herded along the path in a Disneyland-type queue system) is #2 and the Gion neighbourhood (a historical geisha district that is lit up beautifully with lanterns at night) is #14?

I never set myself a clear purpose for this trip, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t “see the top 10 ‘things to do’ on TripAdvisor for every city I visit”.

I’ve also been swept up in what I can only define as online hype and PR gimmicks. These make us go out of our way for experiences that can simply never be as epic as it is claimed, whether on TripAdvisor or in travel magazines, or on one of the many blogs from intrepid explorers around the world.

In Kurashiki, I queued for over an hour for a “happy pudding”. This small vanilla dessert was very nice and, sure, the smiley face on top was a cute touch – but was it that much better than the smile-less pudding from across the street? A friend of mine here in Japan topped this with her own story of waiting for three hours for shave ice at some presumably celebrated café. And I have since exceeded that again by staying up all night to be one of the lucky 120 people who got to visit the early-morning tuna auction at the Tsukiji fish market.

We often chase these unique, “once-in-a-lifetime” experiences, ticking things off our bucket list, looking for things to do that will give us stories to tell.

As Richard says in The Beach (a film that was made 16 years ago, when the whole backpacking scene in Asia in particular was really thriving):

“Trust me, it’s paradise. This is where the hungry come to feed. For mine is a generation that circles the globe and searches for something we haven’t tried before. So never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite and never outstay the welcome. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. And if it hurts, you know what? It’s probably worth it.”

It definitely hurt lying on that cold floor for three hours on Wednesday night as I waited for the tuna auction to begin… but was it worth it?!

Of course you could say that it’s through accepting all these invitations, trying new things, that we get to have the very experiences that we’re actually craving – even if they’re not what we were expecting.

The happy pudding may have been over-hyped, but it still makes me smile when I think about it – and the hour we waited was spent outside in the sunshine, watching people go by and chatting to others who were similarly lured by the pudding. The tuna auction was not the captivating experience that had been promised, but the hours that led up to it in the company of a new group of friends (involving chocolate bread and an impromptu karaoke session up on a bridge in goodness-knows-where) were all the more unforgettable. And, of course, I now have a ridiculous story to tell people about the time I stayed up all night to walk around a wet and cold fish market at five in the morning…

Having a purpose can help to remind you why you travel, when you find reasons to start to question yourself – and help you to decide when it’s time to stop.

open road — On the road again – but where are you going?

You may be missing important milestones back home, away from your family and friends; you may have to say no to job opportunities that require you to be in a particular place at a particular time; and although I think you increase your chances of meeting your soul mate when you travel, it can be hard when you have to say goodbye before you’ve worked out if it could be him.

All this being said, maybe it works in the other direction as well: maybe you can actually find your purpose by travelling.

Maybe you fall in love with a country and decide to move there more permanently. Maybe you fall in love with a person and decide to move to be closer to each other. Maybe your discovery has nothing to do with the act of travel itself but it’s simply a realisation that manifests itself during your travels.

Maybe the point is this: although travel on the surface looks like it’s about the packing of your suitcase, the flight to the other side of the world, the names of the cities and the sights that you’ll see… it’s not about that at all.

Like all of life, it’s about those moments: the laughter and the intimate conversations you share with fellow travellers whom you may never see again; the delicious meal at the little restaurant that someone takes you to and that you never would have found by yourself; the stranger on the street who gives you his umbrella and then continues on in the rain; the new ideas and insights that come to you that will change the way you look at things when you get back home.

These moments may be harder to pin down than the top 10 sights on TripAdvisor – but I think that’s why they’re worth treasuring; and, in the end, I think that’s why I travel.

5 Life Lessons From 3 Days of Boot Camp

11 March, 2016 By Anna S E Lundberg Leave a Comment

I’ve just returned from my first-ever boot camp, feeling a little sore but full of good intentions and with plenty of things to think about. Thanks to a couple of very stubborn colds and an also-very-stubborn runner’s knee, I haven’t been exercising much since December. Recently I’ve been putting much more focus on my health and wellness, so what better way to kickstart it all with a week of exercise out in the fresh air, nutritious food, and lots of sleep?!

We arrived in Gobowen, Wales, on Monday and so had three full days of circuits and hiking, with healthy meals throughout. A typical day would look like this:

7am circuit training (tabata / high-intensity interval training)
8am breakfast
9.30am circuit training, boxing, running with a snack break
1pm lunch
2.30-4.30pm hilly hike with a snack break
6pm dinner
Optional yoga (using my iPhone app), sports massage and/or hot tub session
9pm bed!

Here’s a little video from our final day, a full-day hike through the beautiful Welsh countryside: snow, waterfalls, and, of course, lots of sheep:

We burned an average of 4,000 calories a day and each of us has lost both pounds and inches. More importantly, however, I think we’ve been given a lot of food for thought (*hoho*) that we can take home and continue to reflect on. Our instructors, both with over 20 years of experience in the military and really lovely guys, were full of wisdom and positivity. I think their little maxims are applicable not just to fitness but also to life.

Here are 5 life lessons from our 3 days of boot camp:

1. “Visualise your goals”

Welsh countryside — Some of the views during our full-day hike on the final day

If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of goals. Goals can give you a sense of purpose in life, focus your limited time and energy on what’s really important, and motivate you to achieve something that is meaningful to you. This week at boot camp, we were asked to define our goals on Monday, and encouraged to remember them and to really focus on them throughout the week. If you don’t know what you’re aiming for, then how can you ever get there? Visualising what you’re trying to achieve, and keeping it top of mind, will make you work that little bit harder and help you not to get distracted.

2. “You won’t be an achiever if you’re not a believer”

I’ve written about this before, too: although you may have set fantastic goals with the best of intentions, you might be held back by your limiting beliefs. You have to believe that you’re going to achieve your goals, or you’ll never get there. Maybe you tell yourself you don’t have time, or your job is too stressful, or you can’t afford it, or some other justification for why your goal is just too hard to achieve. Whatever the reasons – excuses – you give yourself, you need to break these down before you’ll make a breakthrough. Reframe your beliefs in positive terms: I can make time, this is a priority, I choose this over that, I’m strong, I can do this!

3. “The only thing that stands in your way is you”

HIIT exercises — A few of the circuits we were put through

It’s definitely easy to blame other factors for your own weaknesses: you can’t say no when your colleagues pass around a pack of biscuits, your friends encourage you to have another drink or to eat that dessert at the weekend, your husband says you’re being silly. Ultimately, however, these are your goals, you are the one who will achieve them, and you are the only one who will stand in your way. Nobody is forcing you to act in a particular way and you can choose to be strong, choose to resist, choose to make your own choices. It can be incredibly empowering when you recognise that you are in control of your own actions and you really take ownership of your goals and your behaviour. At the end of every day, ask yourself: did my actions today move me closer to my goals? If not, what I can I do differently tomorrow?

4. “Every movement you do chisels your body”

I think this was my favourite call to action of the week. Each and every thing you do, each time you work that little bit harder, each time you keep pushing yourself when you feel like giving up, you are having an impact on your body shape. Whatever the goal, we tend to think in terms of drastic changes, big leaps forward, good or bad. In fact, each and every small step we take will move us forwards; every single thing we do will have an effect (depending on the action, that effect will be positive or negative). We don’t need to think in such black-and-white terms, all or nothing. Knowing that every little thing we do will have an impact will help to motivate you to go that bit further when you don’t think you can.

5. “Don’t let your imagination be your limitation”

The food at boot camp — Here’s a little selection of the food we were served during the week. Not bad, eh?

We did a huge range of different exercises throughout the week, with a minimal amount of equipment. The only things we had were mats, resistance bands, and boxing gloves. The world is your gym, whether you use lampposts or trees or fences, and you can even use your own body weight. I’m definitely guilty of blaming my irregular schedule and constant travel for making it very difficult to exercise – but that’s really a poor excuse! Aside from hotel gyms you can do all sorts of circuits in your room or out in the park. Same for food: the chef this week cooked up some very tasty and creative concoctions. Why not get resourceful and invent your own solutions with the materials and environment you have at your disposal?

The overall message is very much consistent with my own position on this blog: take control of your own life and career, set meaningful goals, and take one step at a time to get there.

Prestige Boot Camp runs boot camp retreats in Wales as well as Devon, Suffolk, Spain and Portugal. They also run sessions in Hyde Park – I went last year and it was great. They really care about the participants, it’s not some horrible shouty military mania, and the results are there as well.

Survival Course in Marin County: Preparing for the zombie apocalypse

27 October, 2015 By Anna S E Lundberg Leave a Comment

So last month I was out on the Mississippi River and I was reminded of how much I’m lacking in the practical skills department. Being the giggly girl who struggles to put up a tent is funny only up to a point! I’ve also realised recently how easy it is to “rewrite” that story that we tell ourselves. I can actually move away from, “oh, I’m really not a practical person” and choose a different story for myself…

The Mississippi trip also brought with it a list of commitments for each member of the group, and I committed first of all to doing a new challenge every month – anything from drumming to dancing to improv – and secondly to filming those challenges, in a move to adding some multimedia excitement to my blog. As a result, I signed up to a survival course with Adventure Out to start building my practical skill set (and prepare for the inevitable zombie apocalypse) and I made a little video to prove it. And, yes, I know I say UM a lot. I decided to go with the first attempt, no retakes, to get a more authentic and raw feeling. And this is definitely raw….!

Now, the rest of this post is going to be mainly passing on the key things that we learned during the course – you can thank me if they come in handy when you find yourself alone out there in the woods one day! We were asked at the end to make sure that we share one of the skills we’d learned with at least one other person; I hope that this post will give you at least something you didn’t know before and so increase your survival chances in the event of that apocalypse…

Our teacher, Mark, told us that there are four basic human needs when we’re out there in the wild. These are, in order of importance: shelter, water, fire, food. The order is based on the “rule of threes”: we can survive for three minutes without air, three hours without shelter (in a harsh environment), three days without water, and three weeks without food. In addition, Mark gave us two overarching principles: conservation of energy, and physical awareness of our surroundings. The most beautiful message of the day, I think, was the idea that we need to get more comfortable with nature, that it’s not Man vs Wild, and this is the first step to surviving in what most of us nowadays see as an unfamiliar environment…

Rescue

First, a note on rescue: the first rule is to stay put – unless you’re on an exposed mountaintop and there’s a storm coming in! The international distress signal is a big X, most visible of course if you use contrasting colours to the background so it’s not brown on brown. If you do have to move, you can add a big arrow in the direction that you’ve travelled. (I read about this recently, in fact, when a British tourist was rescued after getting lost in the Australian bush thanks to writing “Help 2807” (that day’s date) along with an arrow.)

Shelter

The goal of a shelter is to provide protection; essentially, to keep us warm and dry. Our skin offers a first layer, but unfortunately we don’t have fur (well, unless you’re the “Mediterranean type”), as that would be a big help in surviving in the wild!

The first decision is the location. You want to be high and dry (though steer clear of the top of that mountain again!), as flat as possible, with an abundance of materials so that you conserve your energy as you build your shelter, while avoiding hazards like ants’ nests, hornets, bees, poisonous plants etc. You’ll never find the ideal place so you’ll need to balance the pros and cons.

We were shown how to make a “debris hut”, one of the most versatile types of shelter that can be made using branches and leaves. I won’t go into all the steps here but you can find plenty of information online. The disadvantage I see is that it took us an hour to make one small, incomplete shelter and there were eight of us. That means a whole day for me if I’m by myself and assumes an abundance of this kind of material for building the shelter. But at least I have a good idea of one type of construction that may provide that much-needed protection if I find myself out in the wild!

Fire

Carving my spindle — As it turned out, I was pretty good with a knife. In fact, I enjoyed this part the most and I think I might try a woodcarving class next!

Ah, fire. Something that has always fascinated humankind, from those early days of trying to control it through to roasting marshmallows around a campfire in modern times.

Now the method that we were taught is the bow drill method. (Again, if you want to see all the steps for this technique or explore the other techniques then try searching for “primitive fire starting”.) This seems to be a very reliable way of making fire, one of the easiest to master, but again requires a lot of prep work! We first made a spindle (a cylinder with tapering at both ends), then a fireboard with a burned-in impression and a notch; then we were given a bow (a notched stick with string attached) and a handhold (a piece of wood or a rock with an impression already created) – so in the “real world”, we would also first have to create these. We would also need to have a nice knife handy!

Bow by the fire — Sure, I can make one of those!

The sad thing is that I didn’t actually make fire. Sniff. By the time I had made all the parts and mastered the equipment my puny arms were too tired and I eventually gave up. I did make some smoke, though, and I now have a nice-smelling cedar stick!

Water

I felt that we sort of rushed through this piece; I drink many litres of water on a normal day so this one has me worried! Basically you can try to find a water source that doesn’t require purification – rain, snow, a spring* (make sure you melt it first so you don’t waste precious energy in your body) – but failing that you’ll need to boil the water before drinking it.

Wooden bowl — Yep, I can make one of those bowls too. Mmhmm!

Now here is where I feel like we went a bit too quickly! Mark told us that we can use coal burning to make bowls and spoons, and showed us an example of a perfectly carved bowl – easy, right?! That’s definitely an area where I’ll need to explore a bit more!

Top tip, though, if you do manage to make that beautiful bowl, when you come to boiling your water: rocks! You put the rocks into the fire for an hour or more, then put them into the water and tada, you have boiling water! I wouldn’t have thought of that, would you…?

Food

Mark took us through four main sources of plant food, readily available and easy for non-experts to identify. First, pine: chew on the pine needles and spit out the fibre or make tea; find the “cambium”, the layer between the bark and the dead wood; use the pollen to thicken your soup (yes, you can make soup!); and, if you can get there before the squirrels, get the nuts from the pine cones. How do you know if it’s pine? “Two to five to stay alive” – pine needles come in groups, with the five-needle white pines being the most delicious, apparently. Second plant source: grass. Third: cattail (those reed-like plants with sausages on the end). And fourth and finally: acorns. For all of these, the recommendation is to cook them first, just to be on the safe side. Ideally you would also first familiarise yourself with the poisonous plants in your bio-area so that you avoid those!

In terms of animals, we didn’t learn how to make any traps or anything like that but Mark did show us how to make a stick and throw it. Yep, that’s the official technique. Very effective, with a lot of practice I imagine, when targeting small animals like squirrels, groundhogs, rabbits, and birds. Side throw is best and you really only need to knock them out so that you can then “harvest” them in a human way. (Err, sure, I know how to do that…) Of course, you first need to creep up on the animal and with our “modern human” pace and noise level we’re unlikely to be able to do that. So you’ll also need to practice “fox walking” and the art of wide-angle vision…!

So there we have it, a first basic course in survival skills. I do feel fairly confident about being able to make a debris shelter if I get lost in the woods. Other than that, though, I’ve basically realised how much there is I don’t know and I definitely have a lot still to learn if I’m to have any chance of surviving that zombie apocalypse. Although I do now have a stake…

*A gazillion points to you if you had the same Joey-from-Friends reference in mind as me. “Paper! Snow! A ghost!”

Adventure Is Out There: My week of paddling down the Mississippi

16 October, 2015 By Anna S E Lundberg 3 Comments

“So in two seconds away we went a-sliding down the river, and it DID seem so good to be free again and all by ourselves on the big river, and nobody to bother us. I had to skip around a bit, and jump up and crack my heels a few times – I couldn’t help it.”

-The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Anna on SUP — Yep, just like on the Thames… *[Photo credit: Dave Cornthwaite]*

I had decided that I’d be going on this particular adventure already back in May when I’d heard about it at a conference in Berlin, and I’ve enjoyed the surprised reaction that has inevitably followed these past months when I’ve told people, “I’m going paddling on the Mississippi.” I’m not sure I really knew what to expect – I’d been paddling down the Thames earlier this summer but I did recognise that this would be something different. I imagined a much wider river (true), with alligators and bears (partly true), and maybe piranhas (definitely not true).

Memphis from the Pyramid — A view of the city from the Memphis Pyramid – enough to make anyone take to the water, to get away from those roads!

As I found out when I arrived in Memphis, from where we’d be starting our journey, the Mississippi River is known locally as a place of great danger. “I know some men who went out there and never came back,” we were told. As a result, we were completely alone out there on the water – except for the long industrial barges that worked their way up and down the river every day. We saw none of that danger (although the first day did see a dramatic flooding of one of our canoes, dealt with valiantly by the three girls who were in it at the time), and as a result simply enjoyed having the river to ourselves all week.

Canoes on truck — All aboard! The adventure started when we got picked up from the hotel and driven down to the river alongside the canoes. *[Photo credit: Dave Cornthwaite]*

We were in good hands with Quapaw Canoe Company and their founder, the legend that is John “Driftwood” Ruskey. You may have seen him in Episode Three of Stephen Fry in America (where you can spot the coffee pot with a blue handle that we used! A slightly tenuous claim to fame, but it got me excited…). Our transportation for the week came in the form of two beautiful canoes, Grasshopper and Kingfisher, and two stand-up paddleboards (one of which Dave Cornthwaite used when he paddled the length of the river in 2011 and the other used by his support team when he swam the Missouri River in 2012).

Telling stories

As I’ve discovered on each of my adventures these past few years, the people who go on this type of trip are by definition the most warm and open people you will ever meet. No exceptions. You feel like you’ve known each other for years even though you’ve only just met, greeting each other with a big hug and sharing your life stories within minutes. This time we did so literally, as we each took it in turns to tell our own personal stories and why we were there.

Another legend of the Misssissippi, 80-year-young Gandalf, I mean, Dale Sanders (well, they do call him the Grey Beard Adventurer!).

In fact, this trip was not “just” an adventure and we had a full programme of workshops and discussions organised by the leaders of the expedition, Dave Cornthwaite, professional adventurer and “yes man”, and Emily Penn, oceans advocate and big thinker extraordinaire. We were also joined by several legendary figures of the Mississippi River, including Dale Sanders – at 80 years of age, he’s just completed a solo Source to Sea paddle in 80 days to raise awareness and money for diabetes on behalf of his niece Anna; Rod Wellington – currently working his way through the Magnificent Seven, a source-to-sea descent of the longest river system of each continent over the next decade or so; and John Ruskey – our leader and the ultimate man of the river.

Emily Penn at Exploring Mindset — Emily holds us spellbound as she tells us what she’s seen on her journeys around the world’s tiniest island nations. Watch her thought-provoking talk at Tedx for an insight into some of the challenges and the big ideas that we discussed. *[Photo credit: Dave Cornthwaite]*

Our discussions revolved first and foremost around our own life and career choices in the individual sense, and we each came away with a “yes list” of actions to which we were publicly committing. In my case, I’m going to be doing – and filming – monthly challenges going forward, as well as re-launching my website by the end of the year. Watch this space… Beyond our personal choices, though, we zoomed out to take a bigger perspective as we attempted to address some broader questions about society and our planet as a whole.

River time

Mississippi canoe — Just me and my canoe…

We were now on “river time”: hours and minutes didn’t matter, we awoke naturally with the sun (well, some of us did) and we went to bed when we were tired. Our phones were off – except for the occasional selfie – and I had no idea what the “actual” time was; nor did I care.

Away from the city lights, with no one else out paddling on the river and with entire sandbanks to ourselves when we stopped off during the day and at night, we felt like we were alone in the world. In the afternoon, we would tie up our canoes and paddleboards, set up our tents and collect firewood for the night. I haven’t done a full week of camping since I did Duke of Edinburgh at school and that was always in crowded campsites; this was something else.

Tent on the sandbank — What a view! Best room in the house… (And Lillie and I did eventually learn how to put up our tent. Yay us!)

With the river unusually low at this time of year, we were able to camp on wide-open sandbanks. We walked barefoot in the sand and made coffee on the open fire for breakfast. We even toasted marshmallows on the last couple of nights. (“We usually only do that for the children,” they said.)

Life on the water

There’s something incredibly peaceful about being on, or by, the water. It’s the fresh air, of course, and being that much closer to nature and that much further away from civilisation; but it’s also the effortless way in which a boat will glide across the surface of the water, the sound of the splashing against the boat and against our paddles, the difference in perspective that you get on the world when you view it from the water. We even did some racing that reminded me of my rowing days at university; feeling the resistance of the water as you pull the blade towards you, the boat propelling forwards as you all row in sync (which did happen once or twice!).

Mississippi canoe group picture — Nothing but smiling faces in this canoe!

It’s not all peace and tranquillity, though. As a lot of people have found out this summer, it’s impossible for me to paddle on the river, any river, without launching into Pocahontas’ Just Around the River Bend at any given moment.

What I love most about rivers is:
You can’t step in the same river twice,
The water’s always changing, always flowing…

Other appropriate songs that we launched into at various moments include, of course, Proud Mary, American Pie and Ol’ Man River and, as John proved, any song you choose as long as you replace a few of the lyrics… (“Oh lord, won’t you buy me a dug-out canoe…”)

Getting dirty

Mississippi sandbanks — Yup, that’s a lot of sand.

As any woman who wears make-up will attest, the best thing about NOT wearing make-up is that you don’t have to take it off in the evening. Pure bliss! More than that, it’s incredibly freeing to not look in a mirror for a whole week and not worry about looking your best and covering up imperfections. (In fact, when I put on make-up again for the first time when we got back, I actually thought I had looked better without! And as I write this at Starbucks I’m mascara free…)

It wasn’t just a week of no make-up. There were also no showers, no toilets… We would go swimming in the river, of course, and I had brought biodegradable soap and shampoo to use every couple of days. You have to wonder how clean you really get, though, when bathing in that muddy Mississippi water!

By the end of the week, we had sand EVERYWHERE. You get fabulous exfoliation of your skin, darling, when you have sand in your moisturiser and in your sunscreen. Some extra crunch in your water? Yum. And a softening mudpack for your feet every time you got in and out of the boats. (Three of us took this to the extreme one day as we covered ourselves in mud from head to toe. All for the sake of art, of course.)

Magic moments

Campfire — I never know where to look at night: into the campfire or up at the stars. I love them both. *[Photo credit: Dave Cornthwaite]*

Experiences like these tend to blur into one big memory for me, but there are a few moments that stand out. There was the otherworldly Cherokee “smudging” ritual as Chris played the drum “to the beat of the river”. The evening that Zoë sang an a cappella rendition of Down to the River to Pray as we sat around the fire. The five shooting stars that I saw one clear night, the night that we slept without the fly so that we could look up at the universe as we went to bed and watch the sunrise in the morning when we awoke. And the final night when we each shared the things that made the others so brilliant and unique. Just perfect.

Then there were the various times that Mississippi Madness set in, including when we built a water slide on the banks of the river (success!), when Alexis and later Dave C appeared dressed as Batman, and when Dave A spent the night thwacking the water with his paddle in an attempt to wake up the fish. Surreal. But nice. (Name that film!)

Helena, Mississippi — Yup, we’re definitely back in civilisation now. SNIFF.

In fact, a week or so later I wonder if it ever happened. Were we really out there on the river? Camping on the sandbanks? Toasting marshmallows on an open fire?

Luckily I have photographic evidence to reassure me that it was real. I’ve also been left with a new confidence and determination to get things done after the discussions we had together, some of which I’ve already made progress on. And I’ve been left, I hope, with a new set of enduring bonds. Here’s to the next adventure, my friends!

Group photo — Leaving on a jet plane… Final group photo before the parting of the fellowship at the airport. Love you all!

Exploring Mindset: This Mississippi adventure was the first of its kind on the river, but Dave and Emily have been running workshops for a while on a 72ft yacht called Sea Dragon. Although they never do the same trip twice, they’ve promised to repeat this one next year – after all, the river is always changing (always flowing!). Find out more on the Exploring Mindset website and check out some more photos from our trip on the Facebook page.

Quapaw Canoe Company: This is John Ruskey’s company, highly recommended if you’re ever in Clarksdale, Tennessee!

Allen’s Kayaking Adventures: We were also joined during the week by Allen, who runs his kayaking company out of Memphis.

Zoë Sundra: Find out more about the talented Zoë, she of the soulful rendition of Down to the River to Pray, on her website.

Home, adventure, and something in between…

21 August, 2015 By Anna S E Lundberg Leave a Comment

High on the “adventure” axis: experiencing extreme heat and out-of-this-world landscapes in Death Valley, California.

Someone I met on a recent adventure told me that we have two desires: home and adventure.

When I first heard this, I thought it was a great insight and immediately interpreted the two as being contradictory: adventure is having no ties and travelling the world alone while home is settling down, buying a house, and starting a family. This puts me far down the end of the adventure spectrum at the moment, while some of my friends are at the other end, focusing on the home side of things.

But I don’t think they’re contradictory at all.

Home, now that I think about it, is about creating a family with people you love, having somewhere you belong and feel safe, experiencing an element of stability and balance. Adventure, on the other hand, is about taking risks, challenging yourself, being free to explore the world. And I think you can have the two together.

Home is where the heart is, bla bla bla – but it’s true, isn’t it? You can feel lonely and unhappy in a big house full of stuff just as you can feel at home living out of a suitcase. A family can be a partner and five children or a partner and a dog; it can be your dad and your brother or a group of your best friends. In the same way, you can have an adventure by grabbing a backpack and heading out into the world by yourself or you can have it with a group of strangers on a hilltop an hour from London; you can have it with your partner and you can have it with your children.

We have a tendency to see things in black and white: having a steady income in a full-time job or being poor as an entrepreneur, feeling tied down or remaining independent, creating a home or having an adventure. This kind of thinking makes every decision seem incredibly important as you decide where to live, how to work, who to spend your time with. Seeing different shades of grey (no not 50 thank you – well, that’s an adventure too I suppose), or a happy mishmash of different things, makes it all more relaxed, more of an experiment as you step by step create the balance you want in your life. It’s an individual choice, as ever, and only you can decide how much of each ingredient you want in your particular mixture.

So, yes, at the moment I’m having a whole lot of “adventure” and, yes, I feel like I want a bit more “home” going forward – but it’s not yet clear what shape that home will take, or what adventures I’ll continue to have while I’m creating this home. And I’m not going to get it right tomorrow: I’ll try a little more of this, a little less of that, and I’ll probably keep trying as long as I live. There are those who’ll give up their home to become professional adventurers, and others who’ll focus all their attention on building a home for their loved ones; but as far as I’m concerned, I’m completely confident that I can have the two together.