Stuck

There was a tension growing that had to be continuously checked, swallowed back into the pit of my gut and left there. It swelled up every time I looked at a watch or thought about what day it was. It was anxiety and angst and frustration and just being stuck. There was nothing about the island I didn’t like. The weather was pleasant enough, the views were good, the company was great and yet, the tension just kept building. It was exacerbated by the build-up to our kayaking tour and then nothing, just waiting.

It was my first time on an island. Like a legit island where you take a boat out into the ocean and watch the shoreline disappear, see dolphins playing in the surf and then get dropped off on a speck of land that is completely surrounded by water. The only way in and out is by that boat and that boat leaves every afternoon with all the people who came in on it. Except for us. We were staying for several days. We were dropped on one side of the island and walked to the other where we would be picked up after camping for five days.

I’ve never been to a place that I literally couldn’t escape. For as much of my life as I can remember, and let’s be honest there’s plenty of it that I don’t, I’ve always fantasized about strapping a backpack on and walking away. I think it’s a mental escape route for the big what-ifs in life and it’s always been there to keep me on the border of sanity.

And then I was on an island. My backpack was strapped to my back and I couldn’t go anywhere.

It’s a strange feeling, that of being stuck. It’s not something I’m used to.

It’s easy and almost natural for me to move especially when the weather is nice and there are things to see. The idea that I am on someone else’s schedule, left unable to move on my own, waking to think about how I would like to be moving instead of being camped, stuck, in the same place for 4 days with the little we brought. No way out, no way to change the surroundings. All of which was just being stuck in my head. The island was beautiful, there was plenty to keep us occupied and moving, but I’ve always been able to escape my own brain as I strip away the distractions of everyday life by moving.

Being in the same place stuck with my own brain for days on end was a new type of deprivation.

9:33 PM.

It’s snowing again which has awoken me from the deep slumber I almost immediately collapsed into. Snow through the night was one of the items that could cause us some issues. Mama Bear wanted space so instead of carrying the small, lighter tent that can handle loads of snow, we were in the spacious, nylon tent that would collapse under the weight of just a couple of inches. We weren’t expecting too much precip during the night, but we were also tucked away in a draw that appeared to have more accumulation than the surrounding area.

I’m wrapped deep in a cocoon of high loft down. Pushing and pulling myself into a spot, I try to check my watch for the time convinced it must be sometime after midnight. I can’t quite get my arm to a place that makes for easy watch viewing, so I punt on checking the time and begin the process of extricating myself from the sleeping bag, loosen the drawstring, push, pull, find the pull tab for the zipper, push, pull myself into the correct position, unzip and finally get an arm out of this monster that is both keeping me warm and seems to have me in a straight jacket. I reach out one arm, finding a glove inside the confines of my bag to keep my flesh from freezing for the few minutes it is outside and then use that one hand to shake the sagging tent. The snow slides off pummeling Ginger, the random dog that followed us into the forest, prompting her to find a new place to rest.

That new place is apparently with Plug Along Pete as I hear him scolding her and sending her packing as I slowly begin the process of putting myself back into my bag. I remove the glove and finally take advantage of the ability to look at the time. My mind quickly does the math and realizes that instead of having slept through 4-5 hours of the night, as it had felt, I had been asleep for about 2 hours. At first a small wave of panic begins to form, but I suppress it accepting that I still have 11 hours to go till the sun comes up.

9:36 PM.

The Attention Economy.

From the first moment I heard those words, I knew I was out. The idea that our world, our economy is based on people buying and selling the ability to attempt to distract me, I wanted nothing to do with it. If there is one place, one thing that I hold sacred, it’s the ability to be stuck with my own thoughts.

You see your thoughts are like water rolling over the landscape of your brain. When left to their own channels, left for Chaos to direct them, wonderful things come out. Sometimes those are dark things, sometimes light things, sometimes philosophically deep things, but most importantly they are your things. They are your thoughts finding their way through the channels that have been formed by your life and your previous experiences to a place that is a logical conclusion, a natural lake at the end of that drainage where the thoughts make sense and you have processed whatever it is that started the flow.

Distractions are like dams.

You see your thoughts start rolling and like a flash flood, they can seem scary, like they will dash everything in their way, that maybe you don’t want to know what is at the end of that channel, that place where the debris becomes mud, giant logs lie in waste as reminders that something big and frightful happened. When the first crack of thunder happens, our mind wants to take shelter, it wants to be able to control where the impending burst of energy is going to be directed, and it starts looking for a way out. It starts looking for an escape route.

In our world of endless distractions, it’s incredibly easy to find a way out. Pop in some earbuds, flip on the tv, fire up the computer, find a screen, scroll endlessly. We all do it to some degree. Each one of these distractions is not only a way to stop the flood of your own thoughts, but in our current economy, it’s a way to capitalize on the human need to escape those thoughts. The distraction creates a dam, the dam stops the flow of thoughts and the water backs itself up waiting for a bigger crack of thunder to finally be able to explore the logical conclusion of that channel.

It’s an act of defiance, of acutely pure rebellion to turn anything off at this point.

This was new terrain, an unexplored level of deprivation.

While I was able to move, the space we could explore was limited. The majority of the island is a privately owned nature preserve that does not allow for public access. We were camped and adventuring on the public portion of the island. We had planned things to do each day, but those things only took a small portion of our time. Exploring and seeing the strange endemic plants and animals that had evolved on this island was a treat. Taking time to sit and watch the waves crashing on the sandy beaches or from above the sea cliffs was all new and quite exciting. It was what you would expect to experience stuck on an island for 5 days.

The terrain around me was different than any place I had stayed for extended periods of time. You could liken it to the coastlines of both California and Chile, but the plants and animals made it special as those had evolved to be what they were because of their isolation.

In conjunction with this new landscape and biological diversity, came the sensation that I had not been deprived like this before. Sure, I had spent countless days without the same things that were missing on the island, no tv, no electricity, music, booze, good food, showers, whatever, but along with not having those things, I always ended up moving, almost constantly for the time that I was choosing to deprive myself of distractions and luxuries. This time, the distractions and luxuries were gone, but so was the all-time killer of need, perpetual motion.

On this island, doing vacation things that normal folks would do, I was in perpetual place. The motion I am so akin to was left for a long run in the morning, a short side hike in the afternoon, a small walk to the beach to sit and watch waves and sea creatures do what they do. The part that was new, the new terrain, was choosing to be in a place and just be in that place.

Winter camping is an endless dance. Not with the cold, but with time.

10:46 PM. The same whisper of snow falling on the nylon walls awakens me from a not-so-deep slumber. I fail in resisting the urge to check my watch. This time there is little chance that I have time traveled and slept through a chunk of the night, no, it is painfully obvious that the night is going to slowly pass this way. A slight slumber, awake, check watch, dump snow off tent, readjust cold parts, sleep kind of, wake up, check the tent, maybe dump some snow, try to sleep, readjust as the cold seeps through the sleeping pad and down into my butt until I have to move it to stay warm, try to sleep.

The dance is one that seems endless. As soon as the sun dips behind the sun a little after 5 pm, it starts and doesn’t get to end until the sun comes back up the next morning a little before 8. That’s a lot of time to be trying to stay warm and sane. Usually, the one thing that keeps you comfortable is knowing that it is going to end. It may only be 11:23 leaving you almost 8 hours to be stuck in a tent trying to pretend that you are sleeping, but 8 o’clock is coming and you will get out of that bag even in subfreezing temperatures just to be doing something else. You will have had enough of your dance partner and you will gleefully flee from bed.

The cold biting at your hands and face and feet and any other possibly exposed skin will be a displeasure, but you will bear it just to not be in bed anymore. The warmth of your sleeping bag is not enough motivation to not move. You will make the coffee, the quick breakfast and then you get it all packed up and get moving, because motion frees you from the place and allows you to know that there is an end. It is a natural way to forget about where and what you are doing. It creates the break with whatever your brain is focused on distracting it by the places underfoot, the landscape around you and the blood flowing through your veins.

Our last day and I awake with an almost euphoric sense of end.

We had packed up everything to make coffee the night before so we could watch the sunrise from the sea cliffs. I wake Mama Bear and begin pulling myself out of my bag. Despite it being around 50 degrees, the humidity is close to 100% and it feels cold. We quickly sort out our shit and begin the walk in the dark up to the bluff.

As has been the case, the entire island is enveloped in fog. As we walk the edge of the cliff, the clouds get lighter and we know they will burn off eventually, but the sunrise we had hoped for was not going to happen. We find a natural bench to sit on and boil some water. There is a slight breeze, pushing the damp chill deeper into our bodies. Soon the coffee is ready and the hot water begins the process of pushing that cold back out. The sun finally appears and through the haze, we can see the horizon only by the fact that it is blocking a portion of the sun. The sun is burning a bright orange through the fog. Not quite the sunrise we had hoped for but still pretty spectacular.

It was an act of self-control to keep from running back to our tent to begin the final morning of camp chores before we left. Breakfast was followed by an obligatory nap and book reading as we knew that being at the beach for extra time wasn’t going to help the situation and we had zero control over when the boat would leave. Eventually, the urge to get going overtakes us and we find all of our stuff packed up, camp cleaned and we are kind of just sitting. It’s less than a mile to the beach, but we decide to begin the slow walk down.

We get to the beach just as the boat is arriving and the countless day-trippers explode out of it with their obnoxious amounts of sunscreen, giant umbrellas, grumpy faces and way too many children. Being some of the first to the beach ready to leave, we put our packs where the line will form and find our way to a semi-secluded area, blow up our pads and take another nap.

The afternoon finally rolls in, KB makes sure we are some of the first in line and then we wait some more. We finally are allowed to board, secure our seats and then immediately order a couple of beers. Our brains needed some distraction even though we were now moving. The deprivation had ended.

While we were both very much ready to leave the island, there was a twinge of sadness as we watched it slowly fade into the horizon behind us.

Our brains need distraction. We need the ability to disconnect from uncomfortable or unwanted situations, but that same need has been hacked and is now being used against us to steal our attention, to ensure our brains never stop, to keep us distracted from our own thoughts by being there, every minute, every day. Our level of discomfort we try to avoid is so minuscule because we are constantly distracted from simply being awake, from seeing the world, from being present in our own lives. We often think that we are being sold stuff but in fact, the thing being sold is our own attention.

And now we are all stuck.

Embrace chaos. Seek discomfort.