Reflections on being alone, unavailable, broke, lost and wandering.
Why move, travel, ramble around and be uncomfortable?
For those of you wondering where I've been, it's a long story...
After spending a month in a remote camp on the rugged west coast of Vancouver island living under an improvised A-frame tarp and platform, salmon fishing in a duck taped tin boat with a 10hp engine and rocking around with way to big of a chainsaw I had had enough. With a need to re-direct I moved from Queens Cove (population 2) into my veggie oil truck Mona and hit the road. With no destination in mind and three extra weeks before a due date to shoot a friends wedding in Creston, the world was a wonderland.
Mona in the Cascades. The night delivered an atrociously beautiful fluorescent pink sunset.
I picked up a couple weeks of work in Whistler working with a stone mason on a $20 million home and lived in a tent at night. It was fairly ironic. Gorilla camping is something of a fine art of balancing: private property, police, your comfort level and the local large animal population...
Evenings consisted of kitesurfing sessions in Squamish or wifi pilfering sidewalk sessions outside local libraries.
Sometimes the morning vistas were just horrible...
Lessons learned:
1. You get greasy fast
2. The sun is the moderator of how good a day you're going to have
3. Shampoo should be a human right
4. Cream cheese lasts approximately 3 days without refrigeration
5. Don't camp in the high alpine in lightning storms
I've bounced around, visited friends, snuck into music festivals and satisfied the 13 year old in me by seeing Eminem (who played under a meteor shower and full moon amongst the silhouettes of the mountains I love to play in -weird), hiked and camped in beautiful places in the Coast Mountains and now in the Cascades, and have had a lot of time to reflect.
The sunset before the night was ripped apart by lightning. Two hours were spent huddled under a scrubby tree in a monsoon trying to survive it.
I've been a spectator of my own society, involved but aloof. Some people are drifters without being aware of the lifestyle choices they make. Others are so in tuned with the environment they find themselves in that I can't help but want to emulate aspects of their lifestyle.
Good life style choices:
Sailboats
Floating hot tubs
Nights under the stars
Simplicity
That's one thing that the past few weeks of driving around have reinforced, minimalism. I have duplicates of nearly everything, and why? Because at home I have a closet larger than my needs. There are so many better adventures to be had with friends and airplane tickets to spend money on. Forget about buying the newest kitchen implement and slowly upgrading all of the objects around you in your day to day -get what you need and stick to it. Add things to your life so that everything has value.
Kiting in Squamish, a little bit beautiful.
Because I'm a hypocrite my goal is to half my possessions upon returning to university in February. There'll be some swag for sale... so keep your finger on the pulse. And remember, relationships and shared experiences are always the heart of the environment and material world that surrounds you -even if it's hard to see sometimes.
If you live in BC and have a backyard to toss a hammock in, I'm in Nelson for the night and you should get in touch.