We decided to go to a cave with the kids. Why not, right? Caves are cool. Caves are fun. Caves are adventuresome. Turns out caves also rev up the mom brain to ridiculously morbid heights.
We couldn't go into the cave through its natural entrance because it had been destroyed when a railroad was brought through the mountain in the early 1900s. That problem was solved by a savvy local entrepreneur who went ahead and drilled 240 feet into rock until he happened to hit cave. He then installed an elevator and wam, bam, thank you ma'm, there was a cave entrance. I could hear the elevator whisper to me as oddly-blithe-and-collected-spouse, our posterity and I plummeted toward the bowels of the universe, "I'm your only way out, you know? Without me, you and yours will never see blue sky again. Sure would be a shame if I malfunctioned wouldn't it?" My instinct was to yell at the elevator operator, "Turn this elevator around this instant!" But I had a feeling that might be a little ridiculous. Still if I could've, I definitely would've slipped that elevator a twenty.
The elevator opened into a biggish room and I felt I could breathe fairly happily, but quick enough we were walking down a path where the cave walls squeezed in tighter and the cave ceiling caused my jolly-but-not-so-green-giant-of-a-spouse to bend himself further and further in half. Mom brain leaned into me and said, "Not to scare you or anything, but you know just because there hasn't been an earthquake here for a million years doesn't mean that an earthquake can't happen in the next hour. In fact, this mountain is probably overdue for a real good rumbling." My blood started picking up speed through my veins.
Then we walked deeper into the cave. While we paused to listen to our cute, white-haired, jolly old elf of a tour guide mom brain decided to paint me a picture. It was a nice little portrait of a fissure in the ceiling above us shaking, causing rocks to come down in clumps around us, trapping us in like jailed rats. Gosh, that mom brain knows how to use an easel. I wondered if the people we were with would be pleasant to share my last bits of oxygen with or if they would annoy me to death.
We walked further along. We twisted around things, we got dripped on by cave water, we went up stairs and down hills. And all the while the mom brain kept saying, "I don't think this is such a great ideeeeeaaaaa," even while I pointed out things with a smile to my kids and said, "Isn't that cool?...Wow, pretty, huh?...yep that sure does look like a stegosaurus."
When we were just about to the turn-around point our cheerful guide said, "We are now fourteen hundred feet below the top of the mountain." Mom brain told me it might be best to go ahead and pass out, or maybe turn around and run home, or at least cry, plead ,and beg for mercy. Then the tour guide said, "Around the corner we'll come to the 140 foot waterfall."
The waterfall in its patient little way over hundreds of thousands of years had carved out a spacious room probably twenty feet wide, eighty feet long, and one-hundred and forty feet tall. At the back of the room was the waterfall of the present, simple and elegant, pouring over a smooth lip of limestone, descending in millions of unencumbered droplets to the small pool at the bottom. For a little sparkle and pizazz the cave owners had put lights at the bottom of the falls that went from pink to red to blue to purple. I could have done with just a classic yellow flashlight, but it was still stunningly pretty.
We got to walk around to the back of the falls and feel the misty waterfall spray. The spray softly prickled all the nerves on my exposed skin which nerves then sent the message to my brain to smile wide because life was pretty darned awesome. I leaned backward against a railing that was set up so clumsy visitors wouldn't go tumbling into an unexpected cave pool bath, and looked up toward the underbelly of the falls. While my face got tickled by the spray I saw pink and blue and purple and red droplets sparkle in a lead balloon free-fall to the pool. I could almost hear each drop yell, "Woooo-hooooo!" as it went. It made me so happy I could have cut off the oxygen supply to my neck by looking up and back the whole ding-dong day.
I didn't notice a stitch of mom brain on our way back through the cave. I wasn't the least bit concerned about the current state of the mechanical function of our elevator. I told normal-and-steady-spouse that I could have stayed by that cave waterfall all day. Me, the cave waterfall, and a book, fourteen hundred feet beneath a mountain all day long sounded just about perfect.
Take that mom brain. There is still some fight for beauty and adventure in me yet!
2 comments:
"Mom brain" like I learned this from my Mom?
Ha! I think Mom brain is more of a nature thing than a nurture thing. Goodness knows it didn't hit me until I had kids. Now even crossing a bridge over a shallow river makes me worry that my kids are going to fall off and drown. But I did think of you when I got scared in that cave (:
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