My first Thousand Finds

Recently my husband and I went on a geocaching trip to Washington, D.C. While I was there, I found my one-thousandth geocache. This got lost in the shuffle a bit, because the main event was my husband finding his ten-thousandth cache, and completing the Cache Across America series. That was the whole purpose of the trip, the reason we went. My husband ranks among the top ten geocachers in the state of Massachusetts.

The occasion made me think back to when we both started geocaching, back in late 2008. Back then it was just kind of a fun thing to do with the family, a way to get outside and see some local flora and fauna, and to hike with a purpose. We shared an account. And we helped our daughter’s Girl Scout Troop, Troop 71915, find and hide a cache of their own.

At the time he and I were more equal in our interest. I even sometimes found caches that he didn’t. I particularly remember one at an airport in Germany, where the rest of the family, following their geosense, were going to give up. But I followed the GPS, and, most importantly, looked at where we’d all been, unsuccessfully. And went a different way. I found it myself on the road less travelled.

In the intervening years, though, he’s gotten more serious about the hobby, and I’ve gotten less so. He started keeping statistics and lists, and completing challenges and goals. He didn’t let wasp stings, aliens, or his GPS ending up at the bottom of a river, deter him from these goals. But I did. For me, what had started out as fun became an unpleasant chore and a source of stress and even strife. I would occasionally tag along, grumbling, but then neglect to log my finds, deeming that a waste of time.

What I decided, on this trip, on the occasion of my thousandth geocaching find, was to try to change all that. I’d already given up anxiety for Lent, and decided I was going to shed this stress as well. Instead, I would embrace geocaching my way, without heavy-duty lists, challenges, goals, or stress. But what would be different this time? What would make the next thousand geocache finds better than the first?

I got the idea to blog from the last time I picked up a long-term project again after burning out. I re-started playing the violin several years ago as an adult, after not having played for a long time. It was hard to come back to it as an adult student, especially in an instrument learning culture that values an early start and has an obsession with prodigies. No cute little “Twinkler” on a fractional-sized instrument, I. But somehow, in writing about it, I was able to keep going, and enjoy the journey. Everywhere I looked, I found something new that helped me become a better violinist.

So that is my overarching goal for this blog: Geocaching as a metaphor for life. There are many ways to find what you seek. Just keep looking.