I thought about doing a final narrative about my last day in Washington, but honestly? It was spent mostly wandering around Seattle, having enough time to feel like I was wasting in and not enough time to do what I’d want to do. I saw their Center for Wooden Boats, daydreaming I was sailing off the coast in some classic 50s vessel. I picked the brains of folks at the REI Seattle Flagship, seeing what life was like on the other side. I walked the streets of Seattle and later Fremont, before driving down to Des Moines and enjoyed a burnt panini over the water. I checked into the second-most sketchy motel near SeaTac, and turned in early for my early flight back out to Richmond.
It was a good trip. Sitting here writing this, nearly a month later, a continent away, gearing up for my next big adventure up into the North Country, I’m trying to gather what lessons I learned. What I want to hold close and remember. Life has felt nonstop lately. Late last year I posted my first blog, Slow is Fast and I Guess I’m Slowin Down where I reflected on 2024 feeling like a year of preparations and 2025 being the year of doing. I was right about this being the year of doing, this being the year of starts. I’ve done so much in this first half and I still have another big trip, plenty of smaller trips, grad school, and things I can’t yet fathom coming up in the second half. I’m so grateful for those around me, for the opportunities I’ve gained, for myself becoming more courageous, more insightful, more myself. Goddamn though – I’m tired. I’m banged up. And there’s no getting off this roller coaster of my own design.
It’s important to me that I don’t come across as ungrateful, and at the same time I miss stillness. Quiet. Looking back on my time in Washington, those were my favorite moments. When I could just look out on the Pacific coast from a sea stack and just be one with the moment. I find sometimes things are so busy I spend the time I should just enjoy doing what I’m doing getting worried about the next moment, what’s the next step, what do I need to get done when I get back, etc. Everything blends together and in the still moments I have, I need to spend those moments preparing even more lest I offload that work onto myself in the future. There are worse problems to have, certainly.
Realistically I don’t expect this pace to cease for at least another year, with grad school being its own beast coming up. I do, however, need to find more time to simply be still. To remember that rest is productive. I can go on an easy day hike, sit at a viewpoint, eat a lil lunch, meander back down, and not have to make it into some epic adventure. It’s been a bit too much of burning the candle at both ends and I can feel it.
This is all to say – there’s productivity in stillness, in rest, but that stillness and rest should be in the moment. Doomscrolling, the constant need for information, for dopamine, takes us out of the moment, out of existing with ourselves. It’s one of the things that I learned in Washington, that there’s a fine line between enjoying yourself and distracting yourself. It’s what I struggle with most when I’m alone, is that I try to distract myself from myself. It’s in those moments that I embrace the solitude, allow myself to exist within my body, that I actually can start feeling at peace and everything falls in place as it should.
Self discovery never ends, and it’s not always pleasant. Turns out, discovering yourself is a holistic process that encompasses good and bad, because none of us are perfect people. I’ve gained a degree of confidence I don’t know that I’ve ever had. That’s great and all, and it also has allowed parts of me to come out I either didn’t know existed or thought didn’t exist to the degree that they do. Is that inherently bad? No! Most traits I think of as a double-edged sword, capable of good or bad. So many of these swords have been sheathed for so long or been used so sparingly that I now have to learn by trial and error, trail by error perhaps (ha), how to use them.
There’s productivity in stillness, self discovery never ends and it’s not always pleasant, good lessons certainly. I’ve been working through these lessons, especially as I’ve faced off with my share of mental misgivings as of late. I think if there’s anything I hope that directly translates to how I spend my time in the Adirondacks coming up, it’s that I’ll take some time to just be there, instead of doing things there. To just sit by a lake, without feeling like I need to be hiking, paddling, climbing, learning, photographing, etc, in every waking moment. I say this, as I try to nail down an itinerary I’m sure I’ll want to pack jam full so I don’t feel like I’ve wasted any time there. I keep reminding myself though, just because I could sit at home doesn’t mean it’s a waste if I sit somewhere beautiful. Life is just as much about stillness as it is action. There’s beauty in balance.
This… hasn’t been quite as focused as I think I’d like it to be. I’m not too sure. I’m trying to put into words thoughts that haven’t fully developed yet. When the words come to me, I’ll be sure to put them here. Despite having multiple posts now, I still don’t even have the words to describe how awe-inspiring Washington is, and how much I long to return to the Olympic peninsula. All in due time. Coming up next, as I’ve mentioned, is a trip into the North Country, before I start grad school in August which I’m sure will have its share of misadventures and hecticness as I work on a project I’ve yet to determine dealing with American outdoor recreational subcultures. Right now, though, I’m going to finish my iced americano from Paix, walk down to North End Juice Co, try to embrace some stillness like I’ve egged on about in this post, then go to work slinging tents to folks. Until next time.