Do you know that rickety bridge scene from the movies?

Violins screech and kettle drums swell as our hero tiptoes across a dangerous rope bridge swinging wildly over a dark canyon at the pulsing climax of the film. The audience gasps and grips their armrests as she kicks a loose plank and the camera painfully watches it whip and shatter against the rocky cliffside before falling into the deep river rapids below.

But after some tense moment there’s a beautiful wide shot of our hero stepping slowly past the saggy midpoint of that flimsy bridge… and that’s when she first commits to going all the way. Turning back isn’t a shortcut anymore, turning back isn’t an option, and so she firms those lips, steadies those hips, and plows forward with steely-eyed determination till she gets to the other side.

Scenes like that remind me of hitting that beautiful middle-of-nowhere midpoint on a road trip. You had the guts to tiptoe out of your neighborhood and now you’re a highway explorer whipping past barns and water towers, twiddling with new radio stations, and staring up at a whole new world just a few feet away…

AWESOME!

Photos from: here and here

Do you ever find yourself chatting with friends when someone suddenly says “Hey, how did we start talking about this?”

That’s when you find yourself quickly unwinding your off-the-rails conversation by jumping backwards through scattered anecdotes and interconnected stories. As you unravel the jumbly mystery you’re suddenly a speedy detective racing back through the universe at warp speed to tighten a couple screws so your tightly twisted brain can relax back into a world that makes sense again.

AWESOME!

Photo from: here

Sunlight shimmers and glimmers across shaky waves as treetops twist into melted shadows. Silence clogs your ears as you drift alone in your secret underwater chamber deep in the ocean darkness or shallow in the backyard pool. Bubbles scream up all around you as you float like an astronaut in zero gravity and the world around you just smears and smudges and drifts away.

AWESOME!

Photo from: Chris Keeney Photography

Let’s hit the suburban roller coaster.

When you’re a little kid riding backwards in a wood-paneled wagon there’s few things as fun as hitting a gut-twisting bump over a little hill on the highway. Or maybe you’re at the back of the schoolbus, bouncing like jumping beans as you ride the waves, laughing with your snot-nosed pals amongst the slippery nylon seats on your way to the science center. Or maybe you’re just cruising down dark roads, slipping through shortcuts, and winding off the freeway and rolling over those small hills gives you a small little lift on your long drive home…

Bumps in the road make life more fun.

AWESOME!

Photo from: here

Gardening ain’t for sissies.

Nope, if you’re getting down with the kneel down you know planting flowers, growing herbs, and trimming hedges is tough business, baby. Sun’s beating wavy rays, dirt’s clumping in your eyes, and worms squiggle in all directions as you attempt to plant petunias.

Those weeds are the worst of all.

Sharp stems and jagged leaves spread in all directions they slowly smear across the garden — devouring pristine patches of grass and gobbling up innocent tulips.

That’s why it’s a great feeling when you pull a weed and get all the roots with it.

First you eye it slowly and grab as close to the base as possible. Next you gently yank and wiggle it a little bit to lower its defenses and loosen it up. Then it’s time for the big moment where you quickly pull it straight up and outta the dirt.

Seeing a long trail of dirty roots hanging below that weed you just pulled out of the garden?

Say it with me now.

AWESOME!

Photos from: here and here

Nose, what’s your deal?

We’ve been cursing you for the past hour for your snotty head-plugging ways. Breathing wasn’t happening and we were left mouth-gasping for air every few seconds to bypass your thick bulletproof wall of headglue. And you remember when we tried blowing our brains into some tissues to clear your salty facejam, right? All we got for our troubles was wet Kleenex bits stuck to our upper lip and a pair of eyes popping from the pressure.

So we gave up, we gave in, we gave it our best shot. We figured you won the war so we slumped our shoulders and walked away with our noses red like Rudolph and our jaws dropped like Big Moose.

But then after wrestling down our defenses you decided to suddenly just … open up without warning! Big winds rushed and gushed through our lungs and the weight of the world was lifted. We leaned back and sniffed in deep breaths, fresh air, and a whole new life.

We don’t know why, we don’t know how, and we don’t care. Nose, thanks for the random drips, thanks for the sweet relief, and thanks for the big giant breath of

AWESOME!

Photos from: here and here

Ding-dong.

The door opens to you on the porch in your just-washed jeans and crispy clean shirt staring into a sweaty sea of strange faces. You walk in and stumble past a pile of shoes and a kissing couple while awkwardly scanning the room for some friendly faces. Stepping a bit deeper into the anonymous bass-thumping scene you move past empty bowls of chips, slippery wet countertops, and loud laughs … wondering for a second if you’re in the right place.

Then it happens.

You make laserbeam eye contact with a close friend smiling across the crowded room.

Suddenly it’s all confirmed.

You belong here.

AWESOME!

Photo from: here

Drift and dream into that crispy clean.

It’s always good when you can leave the sheets outside and let the sun do what the sun does best: be hot, heat things up, keep being hot. Just clothespin your business to the line, point up at the giant fireball in the sky and say “Over to you.”

Soon you’ll be spreading those sun drenched sheets over your mattress and curling into their warm wind-swept arms as you slip and fade into a cozy little world of

AWESOME!

Photo from: here

Midnight is long gone.

Maybe you’re crowded around a kitchen table pasting construction paper onto poster board, squirreled into sleeping bags on a cold basement floor, or drinking cold coffee and leaning over laptops before tomorrow’s big deadline.

Either way, it’s time to face facts: you’re up way too late.

Your eyes burn a bit, your head spaces out, random arms or legs starts throbbing, and maybe your scalp gets really, really, really, really itchy. Point is, you’ve ignored your body’s Go to Sleep signals for hours so now you’re hunched over a walking stick squinting deep into the foggy darkness of four, five, six in the morning.

The good news is your brain has developed just the system to charge you up with extra juice and help you power through. Yes, we’re talking about massively lowered Standards of Hilarity which help make everything funny. Someone steps on Styrofoam Jupiter, kicks a can of Coke onto the pizza, or accidentally deletes the Powerpoint slides, and suddenly everyone looks up at each other with tired raccoon eyes and… just starts cracking up.

Late night laughing is a beautiful moment because we’re letting ourselves stand up and step back from whatever’s keeping us up. Gone are the stresses of the group project, hanging dread of the deadline, and tensions tying us together. Now the differences dissolve and we realize we’re all part of the same Bleary Eyed Giggling clan — telling bad jokes, laughing till it hurts, and smiling till sunrise.

AWESOME!

Photos from: here, here, and here

Believe it.

It’s your girlfriend at the lunch table doing her dad’s lecture with a bizarre sailor with a sore throat inflection. It’s your grandson at Thanksgiving pretending to be his angry first grade teacher, hitting the squeaky high notes with fist thumps and furrowed brows. It’s your best friend giggling on your bed about her new college classmates who sound like they’re all from a tiny island off a made-up country.

There’s just something hilarious about watching a good friend tell a story with a horrible accent. If you’re lucky the terrible impersonation becomes a new joke itself and you end up laughing in a neverending cycle of

AWESOME!