when i am among the trees

some thoughts on living rural

disjoint thoughts

source: Derek Liang

I roll over to my back and my eyes flutter open. 

The ground is hard but firm. The earth hums beneath me. I worm out of my sleeping bag and prop myself up. Through the stretched canvas of my tent I can see the golden fingers of dawn’s early light. 

Time to rise. 

I throw on pants and a sweater and climb out of my tent. Over the tall pines across the glassy lake, I watch, breathless, as the sun warms my bones, prickles my skin. 

The world around me is waking up.

Birds shriek into the stillness, squirrels rummage for acorns. Animals begin their endless and proper work. I must begin mine. There is water to fetch and breakfast to make and much walking to be done.

~~~

As I wrote the title of this post I was thinking of the beginning of Mary Oliver’s poem by the same name:

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

My most peaceful days all began with waking in the woods.

I didn’t have internet connection or my phone or laptop or books or even coffee. Food often cold and tasteless. My pack was heavy. My limbs were sore. 

Yet life became sweet and simple. I felt bliss.

It’s easy to remember with rose-colored glasses. Gloss over the lack of sleep and excess of bugs in dreamy reminiscence. But I’ve re-read journal entries. A calm, settled, assured Tommy occupies those pages. His anxiety that tends to trail along vanished like a ghost. 

In the wilderness, my mind is turned away from trivialities, like finishing some Excel sheet or sending a Slack message or how many likes my last tweet got (probably zero).

The peace that permeates these mornings is characterized far more by what is absent than what is present. (Aside: a good life, it seems, is not an act of addition but reduction. Removing everything unessential, until all that is left is essential.)

Closer to nature, I learn how everything I need is within reach. Everything I need is within me. 

My last day in Jasper, I remember muttering, “Back to reality”. The words caught in my throat. The discomfort that my “reality” is a suboptimal way of living I must settle for. The serenity of nature reduced to an unrealistic utopia. 

“No one’s going to pay me to walk in the woods,” I chuckled.

~~~

On a walk, my friend Isabel pointed out you have to fully “buy into the game” to live in a city. Drinks on Friday, instagrammable brunches, boozy lunches. Social pressure exerts itself, molds you into a city-dweller.

No matter how determined you are, it's hard not to be influenced by the people around you. It’s hard not to get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do. Until you give in and conform. Almost always without noticing.

Living in a city, everything you need is within reach. The tips of your fingers, a short walk away. Yet the city's only abundance is scarcity. Never enough. Never enough time, never enough money, never enough excitement, never enough sex. 

We’ll look back on this period of our history with a compassionate sadness for how isolated people felt. How few “bumping intos” on street corners and warm smiles and long coffees with friends and dinners with family that stretch into the wee hours. How mistrustful our communities have become. How little integration, how much atomization. 

In March, my friend and I came to the same realization that a subtle sickness sleeps under modernity’s glossy advancements. That modern living is stripping away some essence of our humanity. That modernity is making us low-grade sick. Perhaps that’s the interesting topic here, but it will have to wait for now.

~~~

A few days ago, I finished a lecture series on the French philosopher René Girard.

Girard pioneered the idea of mimetic desire. He believed that most of what we desire is mimetic. Imitative not intrinsic. Humans learn through imitation to want the same things other people want. 

Today, rivalry is more rampant than ever because we are closer together than ever. We all desire the same things. Every business student wants to be a banker, every doctor wants to be a surgeon, every lawyer wants to make partner. We all compete for them.

Proximity is the problem of modernity. 

There’s no escaping the venomous vines of mimetic desire. It’s ingrained in your psychology. But, you can position yourself to be less vulnerable. To turn away from your competitive and violent nature.

Girard advises us to retreat. To retreat from the world. To reduce proximity. To tend to your own garden. Leave the city (physical proximity). Get off social media (social proximity). Find and follow your bliss. 

I’ve felt how proximity makes me doubtful, detached, even depressed.

With each reload of my Twitter feed, I lose a bit of my soul. With each person I meet living a cool life with interesting hobbies and big ambitions at Write of Passage, I question my own. With each excellent Substack writer I discover, I can’t help but feel slivers of envy at their success. 

Proximity makes me want to veer off my path, onto someone else's. It makes me question whether I’m living as well as others, making the right decisions, prioritizing the right things. It makes me want to live someone else’s life, instead of more fully inhabiting my own.

Comparison is the thief of joy and the seed of despair. In our world, comparison is easier than ever. It’s very easy to live out a life that was never truly your own.

Perhaps ignorance is bliss.

~~~

I’ve been thinking about what it means to be embodied. 

Most days, I exist solely in my head. Writing and ruminating and problem-solving. I want to do more things that make me feel like I am really inhabiting a body.

I’ve had this jarring feeling that I’m one step removed from reality. I’ve felt this unshakeable disconnect from the real world. Like I’m existing behind a plate of glass. 

I type words on a keyboard and press internet buttons. I compulsively reload Slack and email and Substack. Notifications stream in. All digital. All two dimensional. All cold blue light pouring into my eyes. My hands are soft and clumsy. My motor skills were better at four years old.

Modern living tends to make me feel I’m living a disembodied life.

I've found activities that bring me into contact with reality therapeutic.

~~~

A year ago, I thought of cities as the hub of life. Where all the action is. Where connection is cultivated and opportunity awaits and serendipity sleeps. 

Today, while many of those things are true, I’m less interested in cities than ever. In fact, I’m confident I want to live rural in the next five to ten years. 

I know if I’m restless and dissatisfied in a city, changing my location won’t bring salvation. I know. Yet, I have begun to appreciate the immense role location plays in my life. 

Certain surroundings dispel enchantment and others encourage it. Beauty is objective. Our surroundings twist and turn our moods. Some resemble places of love and some resemble places of misery. You can find places that make you feel at ease. You can find places that make you feel like you belong.

We are all in search of meaningful places worthy of calling home. 

source: Simon Sarris

~~~

When I paint the portrait of my ideal life, I’m living in the countryside. On a rugged expanse of earth. Renovating an old home or building a new old home.

Close enough to walk to a small town with a quaint main street: a local bakery and coffee shop to read (one where people keep a tab with the owner). Private enough to frolic nude in my yard.

I once thought it would be in New Hampshire or Vermont, as that was the story I had been sold. Yet, I know now it will be in Ontario. Where I was raised. There’s an unbreakable connection with the place you were born that I’m skeptical other places can replicate.

I want to be outdoors more. Ensconced in nature. Surrounded by the earth’s simple beauty. Restore the land. Worship the sun. Pray to the flowers and trees. Start a garden. Maybe have some chickens running around. A german shepherd. 

source: pinterest scrolling

The world loosens its grip in the country. Time slows down. Needless neuroses fade away.

Back country hiking forces me out of my head and into my hands. Pulls me out of the introspective domains I tend to frequent. This is generally very good for my well-being. In a similar sense, living rural forces you into the real world. There is work to be done: fences to build and chickens to feed and gardens to prune. It brings you into contact with reality. 

For years, I’ve joked with my friends about withdrawing from the world and becoming a carpenter. Like Jesus. (Although the modern equivalent may look something closer to a software engineer). My family may tease me, but I do want to learn woodworking. I think it will teach patience I desperately lack. 

Last month, I learned to make bread. I’m teaching myself photography, trying to notice the beauty that drenches the world around me. I have plans to make pasta, gnocchi, start a small herb garden back home. Build a guitar stand. I’m searching for local farmers I can buy eggs from. I’m getting a hunting license to hunt my own meat. 

It feels good to gain agency.

But deep down I’m scared to live a life I dream about. I’m scared it’s possible. I’m scared of even imagining that it is. 

source: more pinterest scrolling

~~~

I must be careful not to run to the future. I’m in Buenos Aires and it’s beautiful. 

Yesterday, I went to the store and bought a small plant. Put it beside me on my desk. It is green and honest and lovely. I want to get roses from a street vendor soon. 

While writing this, I’m listening to Time Will Tell. I see orange leaves blowing and dancing in Spring rain and diving into a cool lake. Life experienced through the whirring and flickering of an old sepia film projector.

Gregory Alan Isakov’s soothing voice and guitar make me forget that I have to end this piece somehow. “Time will tell, she'll see us through” he sings. 

“Time will tell, we always knew.”

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If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my essay on roots and rootlessness.

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