“… inevitably the bathroom mirror shows the first white hairs … inevitably eyesight begins to fail and mysterious pains begin to shoot through the body. … these intimations of mortality plainly communicate the message: Your time is up, it’s time to move on. When this happens, few people are ready. … Some try to ignore it, and renew their efforts to acquire more of the things that were supposed to make life good—bigger cars and homes, more power on the job, a more glamorous life-style. … But if a person does take the time out to reflect, the disillusionment returns: after each success it becomes clearer that money, power, status, and possessions do not, by themselves, necessarily add one iota to the quality of life.” –Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Workshop season is over and the last remnants of autumn are quickly fading from view. A few snow showers already came and went and another may visit later this week. After several weeks on the road I can fully appreciate the comfort of the large office chair, the welcoming heat radiating from the fireplace and the serenity that settled over the town after the bustle of tourist season. Most businesses are already closed for the winter, the large cottonwoods are bare and a few shriveled frozen tomatoes still cling to overgrown brown stalks in the garden. The winter sun hangs low in the southern sky, thick jackets and a snow shovel await by the back door. This is a time to unwind, to reflect and to readjust to indoor life.
Although it is already quite chilly, the weather had so far been warmer than usual for this time of year, and backcountry routes that would normally be closed by now still are accessible. And so, to ease the transition, I decided to spend a night on the high flanks of a volcanic plateau not too far from my home. It is a place that had become intimately familiar to me over the years – a vast progression of austere, wind-beaten and sparsely vegetated hills and canyons where few people ever venture.
At about 9,000ft. in elevation and temperatures far below freezing, I set up camp among a few hardy and tortured-looking pinyon pines and watched as every needle and blade of grass ignited with the light of the low sun for a few blissful minutes. After the sun set, as a layer of purple and lavender hung above the horizon, I lit a small camp fire, zipped up my thickest jacket and smiled without meaning to as I took my first breath of cold, dry alpine air tinged with the familiar perfume of pine wood smoke. A couple of hours later darkness set, countless stars dotted the clear sky, and it got colder still. I unwrapped a sandwich I prepared before leaving home, opened a bottle of hearty smoked porter beer that I brought from California, and sank into my camp chair wrapped in my winter sleeping bag and just sat there, thinking about the events of the previous weeks, listening to the quiet crackle of the fire and watching the haunting dance of the orange flames.
This is living. This, right now, is the important part that I will some day recall yearningly, and not some theoretical “some day, when…” It took risks and work and luck to get here, to break from the herd, to embrace an existence more rewarding than any I have known before. And for all the trials in the years behind me, I get to be the one shivering by a campfire on a perfectly dark night on this silent, icy plateau before it disappears under the snows. A shooting star streaks across the inky heaven, a distant owl hoots, and I get to be the only human being to witness it, to participate in this singular moment in the history of this rare and remote and fascinating ecosystem on what for most people would be an ordinary Thursday night.
I love these remote places and their moods and their stories, more of which are revealed to me with every visit. Life adapted to these extremes of geography and weather in remarkable ways and most of it is still, relatively speaking, unaffected by human industry. Below me, almost out of earshot, a dark stream cuts between ice-encrusted banks lined with birch and cedar trees that are invisible from anywhere but the steep rim of the canyon they inhabit. A few small flakes of chert glisten in the light of the flames among the basalt boulders – paltry evidence of the presence of ancient humans, members of a culture long extinct. It is obvious to me that although modern life is in many ways easier, safer, and more pleasant than theirs was, in some aspects their ways were more rewarding, more colorful and fragrant, more quiet, and more full of mystery. I wish I knew what their myths were, what stories they told around their own fires, what games they played, what small pleasures they reveled in, what their language and music sounded like. Still, I am delighted in the knowledge that I get to share a small part of their experience across the expanses of time.
I get to live a life that for most of my past I could not even imagine was possible. Between a relentless drive to keep moving (both toward and away), a willingness to accept some risks for the hope of rewards I knew were worthy even if I could not imagine how, and a degree of good fortune, my journey brought me here, tonight. I chuckle as my train of thoughts comes to a stop and I decide to reach for my iPad to read an electronic book, and again at the still-alien realization that I now need to bring reading glasses on such trips. Bundled in several layers I feel comfortable and at peace. No other human will intrude here, not even the sound of an improbable car engine will carry this far from the lonesome rural road some twenty miles away and out of sight.
To live this life required not only figuring out the logistics, but also adopting an attitude less dependent on possessions and creature comforts, social interaction, and media. It may not be for everyone, but I don’t miss these things one bit. I may be an oddity but I am more content in such times than when enclosed among walls in any other situation. Certainly the risks are greater, but so are the rewards, and after a while it becomes obvious that this is not a coincidence – there is a clear cause-and-effect at play. To settle for a more common lifestyle in the name of ease just doesn’t seem worth the sacrifices. Certainly such a life may be more comfortable, but also void of some of the greatest rewards and most profound lessons that a human may experience in the blink of time he is given to be a conscious living being on this planet – experiences so elevated exactly because they are exceedingly difficult to reconcile into a life that is both possible and sustainable, and harder still to believe that it truly is.
There is only now, and now is perfect. And later there will be the memory of perfection – not an empty superlative-laden wishful platitude, but a visceral knowledge of what it was like – the sensations and scents and sounds and silences, and the immense and beautiful and humbling poetry of it all. It may be a small accomplishment, all things considered, but it is one I am proud of, and it is more than I could ever have hoped or planned for in my younger years. I am far from perfect but in these moments I am redeemed, and that is as close as any of us can hope to get. I think of all the random choices I made along the way, I remember times of bliss and turmoil, times when I hit the skids and when life could have taken far worse turns, leading to far worse fates, and I am deeply grateful.
I determined, deliberately, knowingly, and after much contemplation and questioning, that this is the best way I can spend my life – the greatest gift I will ever be given. It took a long time – decades in which I kept going by inertia, pretending to fit, always on the cusp of giving up, and yet resisting the temptation to settle for a more mundane existence. And in such moments I am vindicated, and I am free.
Tomorrow I will return to the house, to Sarah and to the animals and to my office in the old refinished shed built from logs cut decades ago not twenty miles from here, to a different kind of perfection. Winter is coming.
