We spent some time in the town of Dennis on Sunday, looking for a cache that was within a 4 foot radius of where we were standing. With four of us there, KC and his friend who found the first travel bug inside the first cache, and Kenny and I, we had the best team to spread out and look around. Twenty minutes went by, nobody had found it, and we were wondering about a clue that mentioned a 'fallen tree'... there were about 6 fallen trees in this area alone.

It had been a long walk to this spot, as we missed the trail and turned a 1.5 star terrain into a 4 star hard terrain, our ankles covered in pricker cuts and my shoes even ripped up the side by a bunch of branches that seemed intent on tripping me into a patch of thorny weeds. Kenny found the actual trail three-fourths of the way into our excursion, roughly twelve feet to our right, which gave all of us a huge sigh of relief.

Now here we were, at the right spot, knowing the cache was somewhere around us, and after forty five minutes of looking, we were beginning to give up. "Maybe somebody moved it as a practical joke?" I asked as I sat on the hill and looked out over the great pond this location gave view to. If you're going to get stuck looking for a cache, this place is a great place to get stuck at, I thought, as I layed my head back into my hands and closed my eyes for a little rest.

"Maybe the person who put it here didn't put anything here but has a good view of here and is watching us and laughing." Kenny quipped in a frustrated tone.

"Maybe we should just give up," the boys said. They'd had enough of the looking, the searching. We'd found all the other caches so easily, this one was proving to be quite a challenge, close to an hour of searching and they believed they had checked every possible place a cache could be hidden.

I sat up. "We could give up for today, but we'll be coming back here to look again before we move on to any other caches," I said, determined to at some point find the ammo box, but willing to take a break from walking around in the circles we'd been doing for the better part of the last thirty minutes. Rechecking areas we'd already scoured, rechecking the gps unit, rechecking and rechecking again.

Kenny lifted up a small paddle boat that was located at the pond's edge, and with a giant splash as he let the boat back down stated "Well, it's not under the boat."

Now we were getting desperate, I thought, checking under paddle boats for a cache that was only a 2 out of 4 stars in difficulty level to find and a 1.5 in terrain that we'd turned into a brutal whipping to our own legs.

As I sat there, watching some guys out on a paddle boat in the middle of the pond, and some ducks and geese flapping around in the water, I figured coming back to a nice place like this to look again was going to be a decent alternative to looking around some more. I had cacoila in a crock pot at the house, waiting for our arrival home, and as we'd left the house 2 hours ago, and the boys were tired as all heck, I hoped that everyone else would be ok with just heading back out.

The boys were all for leaving and coming back the next day to look again. Kenny, though, wanted to give it one last shot.

We watched as he headed out to start from the edge of the path we'd missed. He started from the point in which the view came into sight, held the gps unit and monitored his closeness to the cache from every single angle possible. Then, he disappeared into a side of the path that made us all sit down to just enjoy the sounds of bullfrogs as we waited for his impending defeat. Instead, he yelled out, only minutes later, "Found it."

"Wow," I thought as I rose up from my sitting position, walking towards Kenny as he held up the ammo box and opened it up victoriously. He looked so beautiful, sitting there on the side of a fallen tree, explaining how the ammo box had been hidden under some leaves and pine needles, which made it a bit harder to find. He let the boys do an exchange of items, and we logged in our visit and noticed that somebody else had been to the cache this same day. I wondered if they'd had as hard a time as we'd had finding it, and I wondered if they had a Kenny in their group. Every group needs a Kenny. He didn't look smug, he looked like a man who had achieved what he'd set out to do. He looked like a guy who was intent to pick up when the team had let go outta exhaustion. He was, and always had been, and always will be, the person who just keeps moving ahead or even moving back again, starting over from scratch if needed, to figure out the best way to attain a goal. As I'm usually the one who rarely gives up (see my old fish story blog post), it was nice to know (again) that on those days when I am really incapable of searching anymore, when the scenery of a pond from a hill is enough and I no longer have the energy to carry on and would rather just try to make the best of things in spite of the unachieved and unsettled, Kenny will stand up and try a bit more.

I know the boys felt the same way about it; now whenever we get to a hard to find cache, they will remember Kenny's move to the starting point, and I bet they do the same thing. It's ok to go back if it will move you forward to a destination and goal. It's good to start all over sometimes. Sometimes you have to or you'll just wander around in circles.

We came home and ate cacoila on Portuguese rolls, and as it had cooked an extra hour and a half on simmer, the marinated meat was incredibly tender. Washing the crock pot and wiping down the counters after we were through, I thought about the pond again. I thought about the duck that was washing its wings and the bullfrog that was casually calling out contentment with its surroundings. I thought about how moments like this are building blocks to strong-foundationed futures for all of us, and I surfed the geocaching site to print out some more destinations.

Life really is a journey. And it really is just a matter of "Don't Panic." And it really is about having days when it's you that picks up the slack, and other days when you can only look out in front of you and watch ducks. Sometimes all you can do is watch the ducks and listen to the frogs. When you know you just aren't capable on that day, at that moment, it's ok to just remain calm and sit back and just look out there at what is in front of you instead of focussing too hard or too long on things you personally aren't able to do at that time.

Needless to say, I found a lot of solace in this particular geocaching adventure.

Here's a picture of me taken this weekend, which shows the peace of mind and clarity obtained on something as simple as a geocaching treasure hunt:




I thought I was falling apart last week... I wasn't. I was just watching ducks and listening to frogs. I was doing all I could, but knowing I'd gotten to a point where there was nothing more I could do. And I knew that everybody else was trying as hard as they could, too, and I knew that, for now, it was just a matter of hoping for the best and being ok with coming back to it another day. I got tired of being concerned and I got tired of wishing and hoping and I got tired of finding myself in the position of having to figure it all out. I think being the one to figure out a 'clinical cache' of troubled-tummy with the chick was the straw on the camel's back. It shouldn't have had to be me to figure out what had been the cause of her months-long nausea. I was, at first, livid that it was so easy to figure out but upset with myself that I didn't figure it out earlier, because she was the one suffering through it, but I was even angrier that it wasn't somebody else on the team with far more capability and knowledge than me to have figured it out first and much earlier than I did. The whole experience had me teetering on the edge of a paddle boat out in the middle of a pond.

So, I just remained calm, which I thought at first wasn't the right reaction as I kept thinking there had to be some action taken. But there was no action for me to take, and nothing more I could personally do. Aside from just clearing up the nausea, which was done, so simply which both gave me a sense of relief and a sense of "sometimes it is going to have to be you who figures stuff out." And it was with the same pattern that Kenny used days later to figure out where the cache was... he started from the start.

Now, I just take each moment like this. I have stopped going into each day with it all on my shoulders, as my own responsibility, and have made it a point to just bring as many ducks and frogs and pretty ponds into the situation as possible. My strength has strengthened, but in a quieter and calmer fashion than usual. Recognizing my own abilities and incapabilities, in regards to where things are at, and where they are going, and knowing that others on the team are going to have to recognize that there are going to be times when I can no longer be of any assistance except as the bringer of hilltops and ducks on a pond. It came to a point, this week, where I refuse to be the doctor, the advocate, the therapist, the specialist, the teacher, the things that I am not and can not be all of the time at the level expected of me. At the level clearly needed, which is far beyond my own abilities on a 24 hour a day basis, 7 days a week.

I'm reclaiming myself as just a mother here. They either do their jobs and let me rest when I need to, when clearly this entire family has gone out of their way to do more than we should have ever been put in a position to do. We may have achieved more because of it, and perhaps we paved an easier path with no pricker bushes, but at the expense of our own ankles and knees because we didn't see paths that others clearly have as their resources, it's time for others on the team to be the Kenny. It's like we've gone to the same spot for years, each time not finding the cache. We're coming to the conclusion that we, personally, are not going to find it, but we're hoping somebody on the team will.

It's time for our family to just be a family again. We're a family who is sitting on top of a hill now, having done all we could, and either the other team members come along or we will literally just sit here on top of this hill watching ducks and listening to frogs. We're done looking, we're done searching, we're done trying, and we're all ok with that. There's not a person in this house who doesn't recognize how hard we have all tried. But none of us are capable of finding the cache, to use the analogy once more, and it's now time for things to move on with the help and resources of other members of the team, as we can't go another step.

We've been back to the start, we've searched and searched again. We can't do it alone, and need somebody with a better gps unit, so to speak. We need somebody to get us to the destination, as we ourselves have gotten as close to the destination as we can, and although we're here feeling like we've done everything we can, we know there's a bit more to go, that things aren't complete. And we know it won't be ours to accomplish, but as part of the team, we know we at the very least got things as decent as they could get. As close to 'situated' as they could be.

The scenery is ok. I'm resting. We're all resting. Teetering paddle boats here and there, but we're all just hoping somebody picks up the slack now. And I hope they do, because there's so much more to see and do in this lifetime, and the sooner things get situated, the sooner life can move on to other wonderful views and interesting adventures.

We've not given up... we've given in.