Review: I Married Adventure

I Married Adventure; Looking at Life Through the Lens of Possibility, by Luci Swindoll.

The title of this book appealed to me immensely.  Marriage is an adventure in its own right, and even more so when you marry a man who is willing to live in a tent with you for weeks at a time.  Luci Swindoll’s book is actually about choosing adventure instead of marriage.  Awesome, right?  Considering that she made that decision circa 1950, with an engagement ring on her hand, it is astounding.

What I liked best about this book is that it was published when the author was 70, and she’s 82 now and has written other books since.  It’s a sort of scrapbook, with pictures and illustrations and journal entries from her entire life.  She reflects on her conscious decisions to be independent, to get an education, to have her own career, to sing in the opera, to travel the world, to write books, and to buy her own house.  She writes about how journaling and making written goals helped her live her dreams.  Much of the book is filled with her testament to her Christian faith, which made me a little squirmy, although I had to ask myself if I would feel the same discomfort if she wrote about being Hindu or Buddhist or Baha’i or anything else.  I definitely felt like we were kindred spirits.

One chapter of the book discusses Swindoll’s regrets about her life.  She regrets not getting more formal education, not having a pet, not learning other languages, never living in Europe, and not learning to play the piano.  Then it transpires that she’s started taking piano lessons.  This chapter was very moving for me.  I’m 30 years younger than she was, and that’s enough time to do all those things.  (I have almost always had pets, and it’s hard to imagine not having animals around.  The holes they make in our hearts when they are gone… )  I would also love to get a master’s and live in Europe.  Instead of piano, I’m planning on the guitar.  I’ve been working on the foreign language part.  As I imagine myself in Luci Swindoll’s place, I imagine looking back and wishing I had learned to draw and paint like she can.  It’s so important, SO IMPORTANT, to live our dreams.

Some quotes I wrote on my bookmark:                        

“There is much about me that is not transferable to anybody else.” – Luci Swindoll

“Generally people do what they want to in life if they want it bad enough.  In time, we’ll see how bad you want it.” – Florence Bergendahl, Luci’s music teacher

“Should I have been a mud wrestler?” – Luci Swindoll

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