Not many people know what it’s like too camp alone. It sounds magical when you first have the idea of it, it sounds enchanting. In the woods, the scent of pine in the air, tall trees and marching ants. Maybe you see yourself relaxing in the sun, reading a book or taking a nap in the shade of a great sequoia. I’m here to tell you, it is nothing of this. Yes, at times maybe it is, it is magical, the birds in the background of your moment, bee’s buzzing about, the occasional winged pest dive bombing your earhole. You have that feeling of arriving at bliss. Yes, at times it is like this, but only for some time. The rest of the time is you alone, for hours on end, just you and your thoughts. You’ve read some books, took a nap, went on a hike, made something to eat. You did your business, took a shower or hoe bath, took pics of all the cool nature you could find, took some selfies, took some more selfies. That was half a day, you still have 6 hours before you go to sleep and 3 more days to go.
It’s not easy to be alone, no phone, no internet, no interactions, just you and all the thoughts and feelings. The ideas, the hopes and dreams, the resentments and regrets. Just you and god, making peace with the life you are leading, with the choices you have made, with no distractions. Time alone is not for the weak willed, time alone in the middle of the forest with the only noise you can truly hear is your own voice in your head. I’ve been doing this my entire life, ever since I was a teen I was spending mass amounts of time alone, in my room reclused from the world wondering how everyone was so happy and understood how to live. In my 20’s I started traveling and found myself up and down the west coast and in parts of the desert, endlessly driving. Now in my 40’s I often find myself in the forest, alone in some type of meditation.
I know not what draws me out here, I think at times I would much rather be a social butterfly, enjoying small talk and parking lot comradery, parties and group texts. Yet I flirted with that for a spell and as the years tacked on I became less interested in that life and more interested in the meaning of life and where my true happiness lies. I found it Buddhism, I found it on a mountain bike, I found it’s always been out here on the road. For the last 18 months I’ve been building my life to live out here, on the road, alone. No more weekend trips to the forest to be alone and reflect, to get with god and meditate the days away in seated position or on my bike. This was going to be my full-time life and as we all know, it hasn’t worked out that way.
Did you know it was almost at every turn driving towards this life I had a hurdle to jump, it would be two steps towards this life, this idea and then an obstacle that had me going left and right and back a space. I was doing the oddest 2 step square dance you could imagine, but I kept going. I struggled through woman and work, rain and low funding, kidney stones, broken teeth, a blown-up engine and a world pandemic, but I kept going. It seemed nothing ever worked out as I thought it should and it took a heavy toll on me, but I kept going. I knew not if this was to be my destiny, I only knew it was to be my path for now and I learned long ago, we stay the course till god shows us differently.
Now going with that thought, maybe god has been showing me differently, but I’ve just been to obsessed on the desire that I haven’t paid attention to what has been happening. My will to god’s will is tricky to figure out at times and most often I need help doing so. The most recent change to this plan is a woman, a beautiful, beautiful woman. I was dumbstruck by her many years back on one random encounter and now she is in my life. If she is going to be here for a while I do not know, but she is here in this moment and I’d be a fool to pass up any opportunity to spend time with her. At 45 falling in love is rare, I’ve dated quite a few woman over the last 5 years and none have captured me as she has. It’s the best and worst thing to happen to me in what feels like forever. Living alone on the road seems much easier then loving someone.
I mean let’s be real, that’s how I ended up building this van. I got my heart broke 5 years back and I shut down my life and took a trip. Almost 3 years goes by of dating and flapping in the wind like a sad flag in an empty park and the idea to risk it all with a crazy life change came about. I mean if love wasn’t going to find me and my daughter was grown, then what exactly am I doing here? I would rather be broke and on the road alone then to go back to that apartment day in and day out, counting the money I’m saving to die with. Some of us know what we are meant for in this world, I was meant for living and not just existing. I was meant to be in love or living an adventure, I was meant for philostophizing and writing the nonsense you are reading now. I was meant to walk through my fears, we are all meant to walk through our fears.
So this is day one of camping, I’ve 3 more ahead of me before I head back to that apartment. Tomorrow I turn 46, I figure I’ll be out of cell range most of the day if not all day. I’ll be celebrating this trip around the sun alone, it’s bittersweet. I would much rather be with her, but those plans fell through. I would much rather be with my daughter but spending all the other hours of the day alone in town while waiting to see her would not bring the slightest bit of joy. I very rarely celebrate myself or my achievements, I’ve only recently started learning how to let others celebrate me. But I think as I get older I’ve grown softer to being held in regard, it’s always seemed so ego filled to me and I am not one for being made important or the center of attention.
The more I write about it the sadder it seems to be, being alone tomorrow. Maybe it’s my state of mind right now, maybe it’s my need to be loved and cared for, I’m not sure. Either way I have made a choice to be out here, to do some mountain biking, some reading, meditating and writing. I’ve a piece of cake from dinner last night, got an extra piece from my ex-wife’s 19 years clean dinner celebration. I will light a match and wish myself a happy birthday and be ok with all that is happening in my life. As lost as I feel right now I know I’m not alone, I know there’s a plan and all I’ve to do is stay the course. No matter the fear or the doubt, everything is exactly as it should be.
~
Well I made it, 46. I’m lucky to be alive and in good health today. I woke this morning thinking of a proverb I read yesterday morning, it had to do with the difference of living in desire and living in gratitude. A man that lives in desire will never have enough, but one who lives in gratitude will always have more than enough. I woke thinking about gratitude, even before I opened my eyes it was on my mind. I thought back to the cake and match comment I wrote yesterday and how my perception was so skewed on that one. Alone in the woods and celebrating my birth can be just as joyous as having loved ones around. I am lucky to have some cake, not everyone is going to have cake today. There are some kids in this world who will have birthdays today and not have any cake at all or even know if they are loved. I am quite lucky and my heart breaks for them.
I know my poor perception is due to not being here now. I struggled yesterday with not being present. I was reflecting back to a trip I took a couple months ago to the desert and how my frame of mind was completely different. Sometimes it takes me a day or so to get out of the world I was living in yesterday and start living in today.
I woke at 3:30 or 4:00 but kept closing my eyes and trying to sleep more, I finally looked at the clock, it was 5am. I got up and stepped out the van and got to see the moon, a fairly thin crescent it was this morning. The sun light was just barely starting to affect the sky. A heatwave is here this weekend so it’s not cold at all this morning, normally at 7000 feet it can get chilly even in the dead of summer. I know this from that trip I took up above Bass Lake a month or so back, rained that trip and I was freezing when I woke. Think it got down to 36? When I got home I promptly put cold weather clothes in the van, that’s now their forever home.
I forgot coffee and a gun this trip, I tend to always forget something, these two I should have not forgotten, very unAmerican of me. Although I would hate to use a gun, even on a bear. Actually, I don’t know if I could shoot a human. I mean maybe the under the right circumstances I could? I’ve never subscribed to violence; it seems to have never solved any problems in this world and only creates more pain and suffering. I would also include hate in that statement, as to never subscribing to it. But hate is like anger, it’s a reaction feeling and I do not believe in giving reaction feelings validity. I do not even like using them contextually. I will very very rarely use the word hate; it is one of the ugliest words that could be uttered. It perpetuates so much suffering for self and others.
We train our minds to react certain ways, to use certain words regularly. We teach ourselves so many negative traits with our subconscious. We have to be centered and in the moment in order to change, to not get sucked into the subconscious reacting to our lives. We are so quick to talk, to say what we are thinking, not even knowing if it is a pure thought or a reaction thought. There has been plenty of times when I heard a phrase or something reoccurred in my life and I went with what first popped in my head, all due to the fact that I wasn’t living in the now and watching what was happening but I was consumed by what was happening and wrapped up in self.
I must watch my life more, like a spectator at a sports game. Unattached to what is happening but watching and experiencing it from a different perception. I must slow my mind down more to be more present and watchful. I should probly start meditating twice a day, just 5 or 10 minutes to sit and watch my breath and let go of all thought, get “I” out of the equation…
Did you know it’s my birthday today! and it can be exactly as I choose it to be. I can be that little boy inside me who is lit with love and excitement, that one that gets me to well up with tears cuz life was so hard for him to live, even preteen, back when he was 5 or 6 and all the sadness of the world broke his little heart. Those are my memories of growing up, tortured by existence and a disconnect with god. But for as sad I was then, I was also filled with love and happiness, my mother did all she could to brighten my every day back then. I was lucky to have had someone who cared for me, not everyone gets to have that in this lifetime. Maybe it wasn’t the best upbringing, but I did have someone who loved me the only way they knew how and I’ve no right to say whether it was the right way or the wrong way, it was love none the less.
So I guess I will start my day, finish up this subpar cup of coffee, wash my face, get dressed and go check out Hume Lake. The Sequoia National Park is quite big and there should be lots to see that I haven’t seen on previous trips. Luckily there is some land that is on the park road that is not part of the park so I have somewhere to camp. This van has been a god send, even with all the problems it has had, I am fortunate to have it, to get to use it and have this time to do so.
~
So started the morning with a drive to Hume Lake, stopping at Sandy Cove to check out a waterfallish feature. It was more of like a rockslide (like in Sedona) then a waterfall, yet there would be no sliding on these rocks. They are smooth to the touch and I’m certain the parts under water are slick but there are some tiny drops and tiny pools that would interrupt sliding. Hume Lake is beautiful and at 8am on a Friday morning it is quiet and peaceful. You could see traces of people scattered on the sandy bank of the lake, footprints, a child’s goggles, an old camp chair. From there I headed to the town of Hume Lake.
To be honest it felt like a Christian resort of sorts, there was also a big sign leading me in this direction. As you drive in from the south there is a grass area to your right, plateauish, overlooking the lake. The lake is small, actually really small, to swim bank to bank in a couple directions is doable even for a nonseasoned swimmer like myself. There were plenty of people about, some eating at a little café, some sitting in the red Adirondack chairs that dotted the grass plateau. As I drove through I was thoroughly looked over, I had this feeling they knew I was an outsider. Come to find out it’s a pretty serious Christian retreat and everything there has to do with Jesus. The lodge, chapel, gift store, cafe – all of it, brought to you by Jesus. I’ve nothing against the Christians by any means, but it was very odd to drive into and not expecting it. Very wholesome, like something out of the 50’s.
From there I headed south towards Lodgepole in the hopes to hike the Lost Grove. Unbeknownst to me there was a ton of road construction and being the trailhead is in the area of the road construction, there was no hiking of that trail. It had taken me 2 hours to traverse the 15 miles to Lodgepole. I decided to hike a trail to a waterfall, being the Lost Grove was closed, that it was getting warm and heading in the direction of hot. I drove up to the kiosk at the parking lot entrance and the park ranger said there was no water there and it was more of a spring hike. With that being the said she pointed me in the direction of Roaring River Falls, which was about 2 hours north of me and an 8 mile round trip hike. Oh, let me clarify, a 2 hour drive without road construction. Needless to say, my birthday camping trip was not panning out as I hoped it would.
So I chose to keep heading south to Three Rivers on the 198 to ride a trail, not even contemplating the heat. I arrived in Three Rivers around noon and it was 103 out; not riding in that type of heat. In the end I called my sponsor, my homie and my ex-wife – looking for someone to give me some direction on what to do. It was my birthday and nothing was working out, plans fell through with the woman I was dating which had my heart twisted, the hiking and riding was a bust with 100 degree weather, all the campgrounds were reservation only, completely full and road construction had me stuck in the van for hours. In the end I kept coming to the conclusion to surrender, surrender to it all, the heartache, the weather, the loneliness, the complete letdown of my attempt to have a happy birthday. And in that surrender, I found the happiness for the day I was looking for. I got out of desire and into acceptance, I drove across the valley in 110-degree weather and accepted the fact that most things don’t work out the way I would like them to.
I arrived home around 5 that evening, 9 hours and 272 miles later. Arrived home to be able to get ahold of my daughter and take her and her friends to dinner for my birthday. That 2 hours I got to spend with her and her friends, to watch them smile and laugh and eat and be completely inappropriate at dinner was the best present I could of received. I would of endured way more to see her smile like that, I would actually do it for most anyone, noo matter our relationship.
It’s not always easy to stay the course and trust in the outcome, to be powerless and surrender - ego always thinks it knows best and control is my go to character defect. You know this day might not of worked out, there has been plenty days in life where I felt they didn’t work out as they should of. But so far I’ve been given the gift of waking every morning so in reality all my days really have worked out.
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