Phenomenal: A Hesitant Adventurer's Search for Wonder in the Natural World Read Online Free Page A

down here.”
    “I guess you’re right. I took a picture. I’m going to show my kids. They’ll believe it’s him,” Dan said, shaking his head, amazed. “Think of how many days we take for granted in our lives, but this is one day we will never forget. We will never be able to take this for granted.”
    The hours we spent with the butterflies passed quickly. Just before we left, I looked down and noticed the monarchs were casting shadows on the earth. They were turning the mountaintop into an inverted carousel night-light, their shadows moving slowly across the land.
    Overlooking the surreal scene, I began to wonder how something this marvelous could take place year after year without millions of people clustering in these mountains along with the butterflies. I made a mental note to research nature’s most spectacular shows, questioning:
If I’d never heard of this phenomenon, grand as it was, what else was I missing?
    When we departed, there were still millions of butterflies overhead. I opened my hand as if to touch the gliding creatures, even though I could have reached them no more than a star. There were so many monarchs at the top of Cerro Pelón that, when we began our descent down the mountain’s trails, the butterflies seemed to chase us as we left, horse by horse. They followed along in the air to our right, gliding over the abyss I feared.
    One of the guides, knowing my trepidation about horseback riding, looked at me, glanced at Flor, and then said, “It’s amazing what we can do when we have to, isn’t it?”
    But when we hit our first acutely steep stretch of trail, I started to clench up. I called out to my fellow travelers, “I can’t do this. I couldn’t have made it up without my horse, but I think I’m going to have to walk down.”
    From behind me a voice called out, “You can do it. Just take a few deep breaths and get comfortable. Your horse knows what to do.”
    I took a deep breath. I considered how much farther I’d get if I had faith in my horse, just as monarchs have faith in the invisible breezes that carry them across the continent.
    Flor struggled to find her footing on the rocky path. I wanted to scream out when she raised her head to express her own uncertainty, but I didn’t. Instead, I released my grip on the saddle and placed a hand on her wiry mane. I leaned in to whisper, “
Gracias
.” And together, we stumbled forward, into the unknown—which, for me, turned out to be motherhood.
     • • • 
    I’m now nearly thirty-two years old. I’ve traveled, explored, adventured. I’ve built a house, married a husband, had a baby. I’ve done it all, happily, in that order. None of it felt forced; all of it was welcomed and celebrated. But there is an untraditional glitch in my very blessed, traditional trajectory. I can’t get the travel, explore, adventure part off my mind.
    Those things weren’t just part of my youth; they are part of me.
    But all the years of my life I’ve been told that motherhood means I’m finished with hard-core, challenge-myself-to-the-hilt adventuring. I’m married with a child. That’s the adventure. Those roles will do all the challenging I need. Sure, there will be worthwhile things ahead of me, but, really, I’m in for the winter, and by winter I mean the season of discontent that will last the rest of my life. It’s only natural to allow myself to become a little embittered now that my familial roles don’t allow for the all-encompassment of my personal pipe dreams.
    For a split second, I bought into this. But then I remembered how a friend once shared with me the fallout from her mother telling her, over and over again, about the sacrifices she’d made to have children. She’d reiterated them like tiny mantras, stories of personal loss offered as proof of love for her daughter. But the comments always made my friend think to herself:
Wow, she probably shouldn’t have had children
.
    Parenting is about sacrifice, that is for