Going Home

I live in two worlds. From 9am to 5pm, Monday through Friday, I live a typical modern lifestyle, interacting primarily with 21st century humans in an air conditioned, high-tech corporate facility. But when I go home, I live with the birds and trees and insects and grass and deer and other life forms that surround my home.

Over the past year, I've grown more and more comfortable at my place. I really feel at home there now, and I think I've finally been welcomed into the neighborhood. I don't fight with the insects like I used to when I first moved in. And I'm getting to know the habits of the birds around me. I know where the deer live, too. I've visited their beds when they were out for the day, and smiled to myself thinking about how each of them picked out their own little spot to rest.

Over the past several generations, we modern human have progressively separated ourselves from all the other life on this planet. I don't think that we intentionally set out to do that, but that's where we find ourselves nonetheless. We've placed ourselves so far away from other life forms that one might conclude that we are indeed something unique, something really different. But we're not.

A plant cell (left) and an animal cell (right).
All plants and animals, from humans to insects to a blade of grass,
are nearly indistinguishable if you look close enough.

The rest of life on this planet is still there, like it always has been, waiting for us to come back home. We've been gone for a long while now, so it takes some time to get reacquainted, but I think the feeling of belonging that comes from living close to nature is well worth the effort of going back home and getting to know our cousins again.

Staying Cool in the Summer

It's mid-July and it's getting hot in Virginia. July and August are the most uncomfortable months to live in the woods. It's hot and humid. Spring and Autumn are easy, and even on the coldest Winter nights my wood stove keeps me comfortable, but in the dead of Summer there's just no escaping the heat.

So how do I stay cool? I don't. I sweat a lot. But I've acclimated, too, so 90 degrees in the shade feels pretty comfortable now. I spend a lot of time in my living room laying on the hammock or swinging in the shade, sipping a cold beer, wearing just a pair of shorts.

At night just before bed, I take a pot of cool water outside with me and bathe. I go through a lot of water in the Summer but it's well worth it.

Being uncomfortably hot in the Summer is the price one pays for living close to nature. But I'm in good company. All the creatures that I live with are struggling to stay cool, too. Seeking shelter from the mid-day Sun. Sitting quietly, waiting for the cool evening to arrive. It's all part of Summer.

Trade-offs and Values

I was about 14 years old the first time I went backpacking. I'd camped a lot as a child but backpacking was something new. It wasn't just about sleeping in the woods. It was about figuring out what to pack, too. And there was a real penalty for packing too much, so I carefully considered every item.

I took way too much on my first trip, so I learned a lot. Like the value of a light pack. As I packed for successive trips, I'd leave behind a few items that weren't worth their weight on the previous trip, and add a few items that I'd missed on the trail. After a lot of trial and error, I came up with just the right pack...for me.

I imagine every backpacker has a similar story of trial and error, yet each comes up with different solutions since everyone seems to pack different stuff. I remember seeing someone with a hatchet on one of my first hikes. We were staying in a shelter on the AT in Tennessee. We had hiked all day through the rain. The shelter had a fireplace but everything was wet. It was evening and I was cold and damp. Right about then a couple of hikers arrived at the shelter. I don't know why but they looked experienced, like they had hiked a lot and knew what they were doing. They introduced themselves and sat for awhile and chatted, but it wasn't long before one of them got up and went to his pack and pulled out a hatchet. He then went out into the rain, found a medium-size, short, dead log, and proceeded to split the log right down the middle. Then he split it again, and again, until he's had a nice pile of dry kindling. He built a nice fire for us all that night, and I decided right then that I wanted to be able to do that on my next rainy hike.

Hatchets are heavy so I had to think twice before I put one in my pack, but I just couldn't stop thinking about how nice that fire was, so I packed one in on my next few trips. But it didn't rain. Still, I couldn't just leave it behind. After a few more trips, I traded the hatchet for a machete, which wasn't much lighter really, but it was a whole lot cooler when I was a kid. The machete was a lot more versatile, too, so I could use it for other things, but it was still pretty damn heavy for what I got out of it, and I still hadn't run into a long, cold, rainy day that made it worth it's weight.

After a few more trips I stopped packing the machete, too. And I never missed it. I still have it, and it brings me some great memories, but the cost vs. benefit for backpacking didn't work out.

Living close to nature is easy, and it's hard. It's a stress-free life full of insects. It's cold water running over the top of your head on a hot Summer's day. It's peaceful nights spent playing a guitar and sipping a warm beer. It's spare time and extra cash and long boring days spent watching all the other life around you.

But then, living the modern lifestyle is also easy, and it's hard. It's driving a new, air conditioned car and making the car payments. It's relaxing in front of a TV after working for someone else all day. It's enjoying a freshly-cut lawn after sweating behind a mower on your day off. It's working all year to pay the bills, then taking a two-week vacation...to go camping.