#59 - Where did all the TP go?

Dear Dubrovnik,

I typically write prior to taking off for a trip, but as anyone anywhere might agree right now, I’m not sure when, or whether ‘said trip’ will happen. In late winter I reserved my spot at bike camp with a good friend Kelsey out west originally to take place in May, which has been pushed later into the summer (twice,) and moved to different locations in Canada (due to COVID,) so fingers crossed for the third go! In the meantime, I’ve been enjoying all I can in The Hollow and started making my own pump track by bushwhacking all the overgrowth on the back of the property (while accidentally clearing out my landlord’s thorn-less blackberries.) I also spent a couple of hours tilling rough soil to prep an ornate garden bed for flowers which the neighbor’s cat promptly shat in twice.

Garden beds for veggies and fruit

Flower beds, and the scene of the crime

Day one

Day two

More broadly the property has changed a lot here in the past month with dozens of hugles (earthen mounds,) garden beds, fruit trees, and a little pond. This new watering pool begs the question of how do Jesus bugs (pond skimmers) get to new water in the first place? The morning after we filled the pond, I sat on the porch with my coffee and watched in amazement as the little skimmers were skating around silently as though they’d always been there.

Aside from the homestead, I eagerly anticipated the arrival of a bouncy pup who I was going to be fostering until he found his ‘forever home.’ However, on my way to pick him up from his transport from the Carolinas he had already been adopted! So, in reality, I can only be happy for him and his new family, one less pitstop towards endless snuggles and treats. And my sisters’ dog Clyde wasn’t all that heartbroken as he got to enjoy the frozen marrow bone treat, meant for the new guy.

And I got to meet this little lady in the meantime so no losses.

I also (for the first time) made sourdough garlic bread in exchange for toilet paper rolls (remember back when people were planning to shit themselves endlessly at the start of COVID?) which makes me smile to think of all the ways we’ll describe 2020 to our kids and grandchildren. It makes my grandmother’s stories about somehow walking both ways to and from school uphill, with seemingly ceaseless unpredictable blizzards and or heatwaves a lot more relatable. I like to think we’ll look back and feel like Wall-E did. We messed things up pretty well in our stability for work, nature, relationships, and time, but we also worked really hard to fix them and ensure we would do better.

So, to step back and catch you up since last fall, I have to start with my return from BC and all the interesting twists that led to now. One giant aspect of 2019 was re-finishing the house I live in, in exchange for some rent reduction from my landlord. A seemingly simple task for anyone who has seen my place, but that all said if you want to relive every blunder you’ve made in your life or become dreadfully re-immersed in every poorly planned utterance you’ve ever made--do mundane housework.

I’m not talking about cleaning out the spiderwebs that you can see when you open the curtain a little further than normal or shuffling around the various piles of miscellaneous papers and homeless items. I’m talking multiday, multiweek projects, involving scrupulous scraping, mind-numbing hammering, painting, and endless sanding. Anything with a repetitive motion that leaves you standing, paralyzed somewhere between your awful ambition to start the said project, and too far gone to call it quits. This is the place where my landlord and I agreed the mind meditates but most insidiously.

Rather than finding calm and serene standing thirty feet up a teetering ladder, with each pass of my dull blade, paint crackling into the plastic below, sweat beading around my respirator, I was bombarded with ruminations of all my worldly fallacies. It wasn’t until we were past that point of paralysis I mentioned earlier, both of us standing in matted, painted, dusty clothes that we couldn’t justify changing, that the topic of repetitive rumination floated up. Through these simple actions, we’d both found ourselves deep in negative thoughts (which of course we laughed about.) It’s interesting how the mind channels energy when you take away all the different distractions, and in turn, flows it through your circumstances, for better or worse like a runaway firehose from a 90’s film.

Somehow through it all, I lived to scrape another day, and I know more deeply that I’m working towards a much more fulfilling future, even if it takes a little longer to find it. As I sit in my wicker chair watching a ladybug complete her 10,000th lap around the living room lampshade, I think back to this time last year and where I was in my life. I hadn’t ridden a mountain bike yet and was enjoying a special banquet dinner with my best friend and listened raptly as he tsk-tsked and picked apart the rough plans I’d pulled together for a hotly anticipated date I was arranging for the following week.

Despite the stark change in my work life and no second date, I do think I ended up off in the right direction by opting down a different career path. Perhaps I had been content in my role, but over the ensuing summer and fall, I spent a lot of time with family and friends, and even more time with people who were ‘fringe-friends’ going through the “so how do you know so-and-sos” over sweaty warm beers and Luna bars. Most significantly, I spent a lot of time alone, which is not to be confused with being lonely. I find time in nature, with myself is a far more productive version of me sitting reflectively with my thoughts trying to ‘meditate’ on something.

With 70 bike rides and a dozen climbing and hiking trips over the summer and fall across New England and Eastern Canada, I sensed I’d finally caught up to my own shadow and was far more intentional than I had been in quite a while. Beyond simply how I felt, I recall my good friend Danny having me over for dinner a month or two after I left the office and when he greeted me at the door he smiled and said I looked really good, and not just fit or tan, or healthy, but really happy. I remember how nice it felt to exist in the way I’d yearned to feel, and that I’d hold that moment and do my best to adhere to putting myself first and foremost when starting down the path towards a new job and future. Although it at first felt selfish, we are all here to do good, and need to feel good with ourselves before we can help and do good for others.

Once I’d had my fun and toured the state and met up with old friends at weddings, I had to begin to look for some work to occupy my time. Not long after I began my search, I started working in the clinical simulation lab in conjunction with the UVM school of medicine, which is a lot like West World, but centered on medical procedures and patient interactions. Lot of folks have asked what it’s like to work within medicine right now, and ironically, I feel safest when working within the medical setting, perhaps as we are the most properly equipped both materialistically, and mentally when stepping into this setting. When you treat every patient as though they have COVID, (even with symptoms ranging from coughing to ankle pain) you minimize your exposure risks and protect yourself and others.

However, I’ve discovered living on my own is both a perk and pitfall of living through a pandemic of isolation. Given my profession and volunteer hobbies, it’s perfect to decompress and not worry about exposing a loved one. Conversely, I envy people who have others to commiserate with and spend time alongside. Most of all though I miss the hugs and looping arms around others and high fives and food and drink sharing and going for walks or rides with friends in the woods, or even just sitting on the deck or church street with others.

A few years back I read an article by Tim Urban called The Tail End which I recently rediscovered when spring cleaning sticky notes from my Google drive. It is a rather visual article (find the link below,) and although the depictions are rather rudimentary, it really made me stop and think through my life and the lives of the people that matter most to me. In the article (as well as many dozens of others,) he does a great job at simplifying a rather complex topic. The bluntest point he brings out is about our time with our loved ones and in particular our parents. I implore you to read the whole piece over but will reiterate his main takeaways, which are to live near the people who matter most to you, prioritize what matters, and be fully present with those who you care about.

https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html

All in all, I can completely agree with the ‘Guy with A Sign’ who recently wrote, “Time to Wrap it up COVID.’ It’s hard to know what the future holds and how profoundly this may change the way we work and travel and interact with others, but I try and find the positives. All the folks who wanted to spend more time with family, and cook homemade meals, and enjoy morning coffee with loved ones, and complete house projects, and get creative, this is your chance! Not matter where you find yourself, make sure to take a moment and celebrate the fortune this situation has brought about for you.

Looking forward, I’m hoping my work will resume in a greater capacity and with more normalcy than just COVID related trainings. EMS is still going strong, and as long as people can misread labels and find banana peels to slip on, we’ll be there to help right them back up and hear some stories from times of old. I’m also hoping to begin my coursework in June if life can return to some semblance of what it was before, though who really knows where the world will take me thinking forward to 2021. I’ve always had an affinity for flight and traveling and I like helping people so perhaps there is some mix of medicine, aviation, and humanitarian efforts that help take me for a few more laps around the sun.

Until then, I’ll keep living the good life here on the ground and await BC camp confirmations to dust of my travel pants. Here are a few photos from the last post through now, largely PC (Pre-COVID) and much more social.