I mean, c’mon with this view though
From somewhere in the desert:
How unfair is it that I am sitting here in a southwest Colorado desert amidst a rainstorm, puddles pooling between the sagebrush and rabbitbrush, absolutely smitten? When one of the reasons I lavishly handed people for leaving the Northwest was because of the gloomy weather?
I woke up this morning underneath two quilts, nestled tight in a corner of the camper, joyfully watching condensation collect on the windows while raindrops plinked off the metal roof. A western meadowlark sang and sang and sang. Today, I love the gloomy weather.
Some things are unexplainable. And some people hate that. When I talked to a friend about moving out of Bellingham they said, “Oh! But you were so excited when you got here!” And I was. And then I wasn’t. And then I tried to be. And then I couldn’t muster joy for it anymore. All of those things existed all at once and I couldn’t really explain any of it.
“Something just isn’t right here,” I’d say. And they’d say, “What’s not right about it?” And then I’d give examples and they’d refute all of my examples and I’d wander into the darkest parts of myself unsure if I was perhaps clinically crazy for not being over the moon about Bellingham.
Similarly, I was excited about camper life. And then while parked in a friend’s yard for the first two weeks, I was the opposite of excited. I felt like I was in a giant fishbowl and everyone was watching me, waiting for me to succeed or fail. I felt like I was camping in a place I wasn’t allowed to be camping, the camping police (or perhaps real police) ready to crack down on me at any moment. I didn’t feel safe, in the camper or away from it. I felt so utterly observed and unable to escape. My anxiety took over and I had a little breakdown and the horrible voices in my head said I couldn’t do this. Even that explanation doesn’t encompass everything I was feeling. All I can tell you is that my body was screaming “GO!” So I said to myself and my friends, “I think I just need to get out of Bellingham. I think the problem is Bellingham.” And some of those people said to me, “Every place has these kinds of problems, you know.”
And then I entered into the canyons of Utah, crossed into Colorado, pulled into a familiar strip of BLM land, and was immediately at peace. Not every place feels like Bellingham.
A few years ago, a friend of mine went vegan after watching a documentary about athletic performance, climate change, and plant-based diets. Everyone at work made fun of him for being so easily persuadable. A few weeks later he got very sick from what his doctor guessed was a dramatic decrease in protein and loss of some essential vitamins (aka malnutrition) and he pretty quickly went back to his previous diet, which sent the office into a vicious chorus of “I told you so!”
We are so eager to label a changed mind as failure. What was my friend to do? Stay a vegan forever despite his health impacts simply because he said he was going vegan? Go vegan in secret next time in case his experiment didn’t pan out? I think that sort of finger-pointing either makes people hold even more tightly to their convictions or never express their authentic selves in the first place for fear of having it scrutinized later. Neither of these outcomes makes us very happy.
I think we have to accept that hypocrisy is a part of grace.
I have made a million statements, declarations even, that changed mere hours later. I was vegetarian. Then I wasn’t. I was certain Christianity was the only true religion. Then I wasn’t. I thought I’d marry some boy, then I didn’t (thank whatever god is out there). I was going to be a particle physicist, a painter, a youth minister, a novelist, a genetic counselor, a therapist, and just because I am now a (*checks notes*) digital engagement manager (lol) doesn’t make any of those previous convictions any less true. Being around people who change their minds is uncomfortable. But I will not be bound by unchanging truths or extreme vagueness just to protect others. Some days I have a whole body yes that later becomes a whole body no. My intuition is often right. My intuition also changes regularly.
I have been thinking about this poem from Mary Oliver for the last three weeks:
“I did think, let’s go about this slowly.
This is important. This should take
some really deep thought. We should take
small thoughtful steps.But, bless us, we didn’t.”
I am not going about any of this slowly. Today I love camper life, and I love the rain, and I love that the highlight of my week will likely be the boiling shower I will take at the Community Health Center tonight — all while knowing last week I hated camper life, and I hated the rain, and I hated showering in a shower that wasn’t mine.
I did think I should feel shame for sitting here reveling in the desert rain after telling folks I needed a change because I couldn’t handle all the rain. But, bless me, I didn’t.
Ah, Those times when you flip from “What the hell have I done?” To, “Hell yes, I did this!” Three times a day, and no one else knows. At the very least, you are acutely aware that you are very much alive.
Ah, I love this so much. Glad to hear your adventure's off to a good start.