I need to be outside. Like, NEED to. Most days after work I find myself either down by a fishing hole on the Winooski river or wandering the trails of various systems close by. Why? Well why does an alcoholic drink? According to Psychology Today 'it provides existential relief'. For me, going in the woods or standing by a river allows me to feel calm. In a world that's as fast paced and technology driven as ours, I love the idea that there are still parts of the world where the only things you can hear are the birds, or where you're cell phone doesn't work, or the fact that there's a place that can only be reached by using your own body. Unlike alcohol and other drugs, I don't think my addiction of being outside has negatively impacted those in my life (if it has, let me know) but I still think it's important to share.
I'd also like to share the reasons why I love being outside so much. The woods create an even playing field. Sure, maybe some people in the group have more efficient gear, or better shoes, or a faster bike, but the reality is- if you want to be safe, you're going to move at the pace of the slowest person. And when it comes down to it, you're going to reach your destination when you reach it. And it will be as beautiful as it is supposed to be for you. AND! It probably won't be as beautiful in a photograph as it was in person, so you better enjoy the crap out of it in the moment. (How cool is that?)
I LOVE how strongly you need to listen to your intuition when you're outside. Call it hippie mumbo jumbo but I feel strongly that people's (maybe just mine?) intuition gets muted by the over stimulating world, and when they in the woods the pipeline gets power washed of all the Facebook, current event news, social normaties, sludge that slows down the communication between intuition and conscious thought. This is one of the reason's why I think people feel more comfortable opening up, tell the truth, and feel more connected to each other in the woods.
My road to addiction, I think, had 2 major on ramps. The first was the insistence my parents had on backpacking the Northville-Placid Trail with my brother and I when we were young. And the second was the summer I spent as a lifeguard at a residential Girl Scout camp in the Adirondacks. I've had other various, bear attack, helicopter skiing, 14er climbing related occasions that have amplified my life outside, but the 2 that I'm going to share really solidified it.
Northville-Placid Trail
When I was 10 years old, my parents decided it would be a good idea to put everything that my family needed on our backs and live in the woods for 5 days. They did that with their vacation time... I'm not entirely sure where they got the idea from- I know my dad had pretty profound summer camp experiences and they took a backpacking trip together in their 20s, but either way- when I think about the vacation time that adults rarely have anyway, I can't believe they chose to spend it walking 30 miles with 2 snot nose little kids. The Northville-Placid Trail is about 136 miles in length and unlike the 3 month, 2190 mile journey of the Appalachian Trail, the NPT takes experienced hikers about 10 days to finish end to end. Again, since I was 10 and my parents are sane, we broke it up into sections and only finished off the last part a year or so ago. The first section we did when I was, like I said, 10 years old. I had no idea what a frame pack was, I had never eaten freeze dried foods, and my tent camping experience was minimal. The first night we spent in the woods was exciting and new. Making dinner, putting together a fire, and ignoring my bed time lit me up inside. I was ready to take on the world. Then, the second or third night we were out there I had a panic attack. I remember hiking a pretty long distance that day and my short little legs had been weighed down by a bulky frame pack that I kept insisting my family members take things out of. We got to our lean-to for the night and started making camp. The Adirondack lean-tos are known for having journals in them that people can make entries in when they stop through. Trail conditions, weather, general musings, and in our case a rowdy boy scout troop trying to scare 10 year old girls. "...rabid raccoon ate Jack" I remember it saying... and I LOST it. Tears, panic, sweating- I had been dragged through the woods with no TV, carrying all of my fresh underwear for the week in a frame pack that didn't allow for my pig tails to properly bounce, and now I was going to be eaten by a raccoon. NO WAY! I was done. This was my first experience with any sort of anxiety or panic which seems a little backwards to me now that I go to the woods to feel the opposite of that.. Anyway, my mom managed to calm me down that night by promising that if a rabid raccoon came into our tent she would volunteer herself first. What a gal. I don't know what happened in my brain after that, but I was hooked. I had my struggles through the rest of the trip, sure, but something about the realization that I could face and overcome fears for the first time while I was sitting in the woods clicked with me.
Lake Clear Girl Scout Camp
I don't remember every year that I spent at camp (there were 9 of them, by the way) but I remember parts of the first. And I remember the last. I remember the first friend that I made at camp. We were both 4th, going into 5th graders- which I think makes me the same age as when I did the NPT? Maybe a year later? Either way, I remember she was the only one in my group that I felt connected and safe with, but then she got really home sick and scared and ended up going home every night before bed. I was homesick and scared too, but letters from my mom helped and the fact that she wasn't going to drive an hour each way every night just to pick me up and drop me off at camp REALLY helped motivate me to stay. That was one of the first times in my life that I realized that when I'm faced with uncomfortableness I had 2 choices. I could run away or I could stay and fight through it. Interestingly, my first year at camp wasn't nearly as important to me as my final year. I had gone through various experiences with camp- having all of our food eaten by bears, swimming across the lake at 5am, and ***. But they were nothing compared to the things I learned about love and friendship from my final summer there. I spent that summer as the camp lifeguard. There were 4 of us on the waterfront staff and we were by far the best people there. Among the lifeguard staff was one a counselor that I had looked up to as a camper who had an already established friendship with the then arts and crafts director. Together the 3 of us existed in Girl Scout Camp world, where we only referred to each other by camp names, and our jobs were to be entertaining. We started off that summer getting in trouble during staff orientation week and it was all downhill from there. The rest of the summer included shenanigans like finding and playing with pet turtles, washing our hair in the lake that we also peed in, participating in jello and french toast eating contests, wrestling for greased watermelons, and sneaking into the kitchen or off camp property for snacks (when the substances we were on called for it). We did almost lose our jobs a few times that summer, but it was all in the name of the development of our secret society. Secret society? Yeah- our secret society. The secret has gotten out over the past few years so I don't feel guilty laying it out here. Since one of the founding members of our society was the arts and crafts director, she got to choose which projects the girls did. One of those projects was something we called wish boats. The girls would scour around camp picking up pieces of bark, little sticks, leaves, and pine cones, or whatever suited their fancy, and form them into boats. They would then come up with a wish, write it down and hot glue the wish along with a candle to the boat. During the last night of camp we would have a camp fire and those that made wish boats would be able to release them into the lake with the candle lit. We would tell the little girls that if the boat was gone in the morning, their wish would come true! Unnnnnfortunately for them... hot glue, paper, and candles litter the lake, so after all the girls went to bed we would have to canoe around and collect all of the boats. This task was more or less doable depending on the various focus and thunder and lightening circumstances that we had. But, no matter what, we pretty much got it done. We would then throw out the boats and bring the wishes to the fort that we built in the woods and read them out loud. Some of them were happy (I wish to go to a Hannah Montana concert), some of the were really inappropriate (I wish to get laid in the 9th grade), and some of them were really sad (I wish my grandma was still alive). And even though we would never figure out who wrote what wish, we kept them all. They're still safe in a scrapbook now 10 years later.
I ultimately learned most of the most important life lessons about friendship, love, and unconditional wishing in the woods, so for that- I owe a canoe full of gratitude.
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