I Hate It
December 7, 2021 8:57 AM Subscribe
I Moved to a Remote Cabin to Write, and I Hate It From Outside Magazine, it's Iditarod musher Blair Braverman's advice column "Tough Love" dealing with what happens if you actually live out your COVID fantasy and run away to write a book in the woods.
I haven’t written anything. I’m bored with the little trail by my house, and the only wildlife I’ve watched are geese.Blair Braverman previously on MeFi
Every time I have taken this kind of "remote little cabin getaway" I always bring along all kinds of creative tools because "whee I'm going to have time and space and solitude in which to work" - and then I end up not doing any of it, and just sort of aimlessly wander around or chill out. On one of these retreats I left the house precisely once, and spent the whole rest of the time taking about six bubble baths and binge-watching The Fall. The thing is, though, that after I got home I went through an uptick in creative output again, and this is how it happens every time.
The only time I do any creative work during a trip is in my travel diary, which is practically welded to my side and I'm forever writing in it and making sketches and taping in museum tickets or weird-looking emptied-out sugar packets or what have you; but that only comes with me on week-long trips to unfamiliar places.
Sometimes this kind of retreat is just a chance to catch one's breath for a while.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:24 AM on December 7, 2021 [44 favorites]
The only time I do any creative work during a trip is in my travel diary, which is practically welded to my side and I'm forever writing in it and making sketches and taping in museum tickets or weird-looking emptied-out sugar packets or what have you; but that only comes with me on week-long trips to unfamiliar places.
Sometimes this kind of retreat is just a chance to catch one's breath for a while.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:24 AM on December 7, 2021 [44 favorites]
I think a lot of people who think they are misanthropes and will thrive in isolation really just hate the ways they are likely to interact with other people in a modern context... being forced to be social with quasi-strangers in an office 40 hours a week, having most of their exchanges with loved ones mediated by a screen, and most methods of transportation between places are gauntlets to endure instead of a pleasant part of daily life.
But then they do like this poor person, and figure a cabin in some lonely woods is the trick. Not an unreasonable self-prescription, either! But after about a week, they realize they are powerfully heartsick and almost totally incapacitated by loneliness. Thoreau escaped to the woods, yes. But he still went into town every other day or so, and had frequent visitors at Walden Pond.
I find I need two things to write: to be alone and to not be alone. Too much of either means nothing gets written. Swinging from one extreme to the other is even worse.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 9:37 AM on December 7, 2021 [35 favorites]
But then they do like this poor person, and figure a cabin in some lonely woods is the trick. Not an unreasonable self-prescription, either! But after about a week, they realize they are powerfully heartsick and almost totally incapacitated by loneliness. Thoreau escaped to the woods, yes. But he still went into town every other day or so, and had frequent visitors at Walden Pond.
I find I need two things to write: to be alone and to not be alone. Too much of either means nothing gets written. Swinging from one extreme to the other is even worse.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 9:37 AM on December 7, 2021 [35 favorites]
I think it is important that the author is self reflective about this issue, not just for art's sake, but for the sake of the idea of the "cabin in the woods."
In the last twenty years, if I had a nickel for every time a leftist said they just wanted to give up and move into a cabin in the woods and take care of themselves and avoid people, I'd be a rich man.
The things that stood out to me were the loneliness and the not knowing anyone local.
Sure, it sounds like a great idea to ditch humanity, go live on your own all alone, and not have to deal with any of the bullshit so many other humans put into our lives daily.
But the reality is most of us would end up like Chris McCandless and die in the wilderness, lonely, cold, and wishing we had stayed close to friends and family, only realizing in our last moments that human connection was an extremely important part of the equation.
I also think others in the thread are correct: it's partially that different people are inspired by different things, and that there is often more creative output after a break like this than there is during one. Trying to torment herself into writing is possibly making it even harder to write than it would be if she just went out there to be alone, without intent to write to begin with.
I can't imagine forcing yourself to write ever works, and I can only seeing it damaging a writers mental health, exactly how it seems to be playing out here.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:39 AM on December 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
In the last twenty years, if I had a nickel for every time a leftist said they just wanted to give up and move into a cabin in the woods and take care of themselves and avoid people, I'd be a rich man.
The things that stood out to me were the loneliness and the not knowing anyone local.
Sure, it sounds like a great idea to ditch humanity, go live on your own all alone, and not have to deal with any of the bullshit so many other humans put into our lives daily.
But the reality is most of us would end up like Chris McCandless and die in the wilderness, lonely, cold, and wishing we had stayed close to friends and family, only realizing in our last moments that human connection was an extremely important part of the equation.
I also think others in the thread are correct: it's partially that different people are inspired by different things, and that there is often more creative output after a break like this than there is during one. Trying to torment herself into writing is possibly making it even harder to write than it would be if she just went out there to be alone, without intent to write to begin with.
I can't imagine forcing yourself to write ever works, and I can only seeing it damaging a writers mental health, exactly how it seems to be playing out here.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:39 AM on December 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
When the rest of my immediate family moved up into the woods, it looked really great. Going to visit was a great change from living in a city. But after thinking about moving to the woods, I realized that for me, after a week or so, all that nature will be taken for granted, not really that noticeable. Why? Because it’s so quiet and soothing. The city is always in your face. You can’t ignore it. There are things happening all the time, or there used to be things happening, pre plague. I get inspired in the city. There are things here that remind me to keep busy and do things. Being in San Francisco, nature is just a short trip away, Golden Gate Park and a big redwood grove are right across the street, if you can get through the traffic. Nature, for me, is place to go where you can move beyond right angles, there are animals staring at you, loads of green for the eyes, not to relax, but to get a different perspective. Both the city and nature teach you to appreciate the other. I guess I’m lucky to have easy access to both. Each to their own….
posted by njohnson23 at 9:44 AM on December 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 9:44 AM on December 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
Also, obligatory:
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
Writers going crazy from going into the forested isolation to write is honestly a literature trope, you'd think more writers would heed it as a warning.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:46 AM on December 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
Writers going crazy from going into the forested isolation to write is honestly a literature trope, you'd think more writers would heed it as a warning.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:46 AM on December 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
"I can't imagine forcing yourself to write ever works"
I might be out of touch with current writing practices, but isn’t this just called discipline? Sit and write, the words (and skills) eventually appear.
posted by Jubal Kessler at 9:48 AM on December 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
I might be out of touch with current writing practices, but isn’t this just called discipline? Sit and write, the words (and skills) eventually appear.
posted by Jubal Kessler at 9:48 AM on December 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
Incidentally, I'm seriously considering such a "middle of nowhere retreat" the week after Christmas, and this time I am intentionally not doing jack-shit while I'm there because this time it is blatantly and screamingly apparent that catching my breath is what I need most.
....Which means that I'm guaranteed to suddenly get some kind of major urge to write and will end up walking a mile into town to find a notebook at a 7-11 or something.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:48 AM on December 7, 2021 [10 favorites]
....Which means that I'm guaranteed to suddenly get some kind of major urge to write and will end up walking a mile into town to find a notebook at a 7-11 or something.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:48 AM on December 7, 2021 [10 favorites]
Wanting to have written something but not really having anything to say was another very relatable part of this. The whole point of writing is that you feel compelled to say something to other people and then you manage to do it in a way that a lot of people can understand. It's not like you go out somewhere and find something and bring it back and everyone admires what you found.
posted by bleep at 9:51 AM on December 7, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by bleep at 9:51 AM on December 7, 2021 [10 favorites]
I might be out of touch with current writing practices, but isn’t this just called discipline? Sit and write, the words (and skills) eventually appear.
I'll leave it for the author of this piece to put it into better words than I could:
"Of course you have writer’s block. What you call your memoir—a chronicle of the kind of feelings you think you should be having in your cabin in the woods—is actually a first-person novel with a main character whose soul looks like a photoshopped version of your own. But you’re a writer, not an actor; it’s not your role to perform on the page. Even if you did—if you wrote gorgeously about the trees you don’t care about, the sunsets you’re tired of watching, and the swirling tea that isn’t that good anyway—it would be a shell of a book and it would not touch readers in the way you want to touch them. It would not move them, and it would not surprise them, because in the process of writing you would have faced nothing real about yourself."
Emphasis is mine. The issue is that forcing yourself to write often produces the most banal, unmoving, and bland writing there is. Of course all it takes is discipline to write. If you're writing a textbook, then yeah, you don't need anything other than discipline. If you're writing a novel, you actually need something deeper than just discipline.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:52 AM on December 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
I'll leave it for the author of this piece to put it into better words than I could:
"Of course you have writer’s block. What you call your memoir—a chronicle of the kind of feelings you think you should be having in your cabin in the woods—is actually a first-person novel with a main character whose soul looks like a photoshopped version of your own. But you’re a writer, not an actor; it’s not your role to perform on the page. Even if you did—if you wrote gorgeously about the trees you don’t care about, the sunsets you’re tired of watching, and the swirling tea that isn’t that good anyway—it would be a shell of a book and it would not touch readers in the way you want to touch them. It would not move them, and it would not surprise them, because in the process of writing you would have faced nothing real about yourself."
Emphasis is mine. The issue is that forcing yourself to write often produces the most banal, unmoving, and bland writing there is. Of course all it takes is discipline to write. If you're writing a textbook, then yeah, you don't need anything other than discipline. If you're writing a novel, you actually need something deeper than just discipline.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:52 AM on December 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
Nearly two years of WFH with no car and twice daily trips out into Lincoln Park (the park not the neighborhood) in Chicago has had a very strange effect on me and my understanding of the park. It's been a weird combination of boredom and fascination. Rhythms that were hidden are now apparent. I notice the seasonal change in water levels. I've seen beavers come and go from two ponds and seen the destruction and habitat creation they left behind. I've learned to ID all the birds in the area and there are dozens more than I expected and they come and go in distinct migratory waves. I know the spots where a kingfisher fishes, where a hawk starts it's hunting routine (Caldwell Lily Pond). I've seen three different species of turtles where I thought there was just one species. I've seen mega-brood of Canada Geese with 4 'parents' and over 50 goslings. I've learned to sometimes just be still and listen and look when it seems like nothing is happening and to realize I was wrong. I know when the Jarvis Bird Sanctuary coyote does his daily tour. I know which trees the racoons sleep in. I'm still trying to find the tree holes where the Wood Ducks nest.
Now with a slightly expanded bubble and a friend with a car who likes to hike I find the other new to me areas we now visit interesting but not as enjoyable because I am just an interloper with no sense of the rhythm of the places across time. I don't where and when to look or what to look for. I have no deep appreciation for the place.
I would never have discovered this if it hadn't been for the pandemic and a lack of vehicle forcing me to endure the same walk over and over until it was transformed from boring reputation to an altogether different deeper form of knowing.
But I didn't really do this entirely by myself because I had the Merlin Bird app, iNaturalist, facebook groups and all kinds of things to help me learn to see what I was noticing or to to notice what I wasn't seeing. I think it is a mistake to try and isolate yourself from society so much that you have no resources to help you learn quicker what takes other people years and years to acquire independently.
posted by srboisvert at 9:53 AM on December 7, 2021 [50 favorites]
Now with a slightly expanded bubble and a friend with a car who likes to hike I find the other new to me areas we now visit interesting but not as enjoyable because I am just an interloper with no sense of the rhythm of the places across time. I don't where and when to look or what to look for. I have no deep appreciation for the place.
I would never have discovered this if it hadn't been for the pandemic and a lack of vehicle forcing me to endure the same walk over and over until it was transformed from boring reputation to an altogether different deeper form of knowing.
But I didn't really do this entirely by myself because I had the Merlin Bird app, iNaturalist, facebook groups and all kinds of things to help me learn to see what I was noticing or to to notice what I wasn't seeing. I think it is a mistake to try and isolate yourself from society so much that you have no resources to help you learn quicker what takes other people years and years to acquire independently.
posted by srboisvert at 9:53 AM on December 7, 2021 [50 favorites]
If you're writing a textbook, then yeah, you don't need anything other than discipline.
*laughs hysterically in textbook editor*
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:02 AM on December 7, 2021 [44 favorites]
*laughs hysterically in textbook editor*
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:02 AM on December 7, 2021 [44 favorites]
That was a nice answer, and I think the experience could become an interesting book. But OP, as it were, may have to face a further and quite unpleasant question: do I have anything to say except "I want to be a writer?"
posted by thelonius at 10:04 AM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by thelonius at 10:04 AM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
The city is always in your face. You can’t ignore it.
I often think that the reason HOAs are so goddamned hyperactive is that, most of them being neither in the city nor in nature proper, their residents have little interesting to look at, so of course they get fixated on the color of the paint trim on the house three doors down.
posted by praemunire at 10:18 AM on December 7, 2021 [8 favorites]
I often think that the reason HOAs are so goddamned hyperactive is that, most of them being neither in the city nor in nature proper, their residents have little interesting to look at, so of course they get fixated on the color of the paint trim on the house three doors down.
posted by praemunire at 10:18 AM on December 7, 2021 [8 favorites]
Having grown up in a remote Montana place, I wish I had dollar for every fool who gushed over how wonderful and poetic that must have been.
posted by Ideefixe at 10:23 AM on December 7, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by Ideefixe at 10:23 AM on December 7, 2021 [10 favorites]
HOAs exist because the largest subcategories of "interesting" turn out to be "ugly" and "noisy"
posted by lefty lucky cat at 10:29 AM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by lefty lucky cat at 10:29 AM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
I sometimes meet people who say they want to write, but I suspect what they really want is to Have Written.
posted by BWA at 10:44 AM on December 7, 2021 [24 favorites]
posted by BWA at 10:44 AM on December 7, 2021 [24 favorites]
I often think that the reason HOAs are so goddamned hyperactive is that, most of them being neither in the city nor in nature proper, their residents have little interesting to look at, so of course they get fixated on the color of the paint trim on the house three doors down.
Having worked in the Houston city legal department's division responsible for enforcing deed restrictions (Houston is an oddball among major US cities in that it has no zoning laws but the city is empowered to enforce the terms of private deeds), it's a mix of that and boredom. The complaints we received, aside from the small number of legitimate problems, were mostly bored old people with nothing to do and asshole neighbors involved in petty squabbles.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:46 AM on December 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
Having worked in the Houston city legal department's division responsible for enforcing deed restrictions (Houston is an oddball among major US cities in that it has no zoning laws but the city is empowered to enforce the terms of private deeds), it's a mix of that and boredom. The complaints we received, aside from the small number of legitimate problems, were mostly bored old people with nothing to do and asshole neighbors involved in petty squabbles.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:46 AM on December 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
I guess there's a reason why so many horror movie scripts are about remote cabins in the woods...
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 10:54 AM on December 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 10:54 AM on December 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
.Which means that I'm guaranteed to suddenly get some kind of major urge to write and will end up walking a mile into town to find a notebook at a 7-11 or something.
I have done this very thing, when camping with a friend in northern Michigan. Now I've learned I always need to have a notebook around, even if I don't end up writing in it. I get anxious if I don't.
posted by Orlop at 10:58 AM on December 7, 2021
I have done this very thing, when camping with a friend in northern Michigan. Now I've learned I always need to have a notebook around, even if I don't end up writing in it. I get anxious if I don't.
posted by Orlop at 10:58 AM on December 7, 2021
Also, I feel like this is more extreme than the usual way I see/have personally had this fantasy. It'd be nice to have a quiet, isolated little house to retreat to for creative projects, but that doesn't necessarily entail giving up electricity and running water and working toilets. I wonder if this person would have been happier if they didn't go so off the grid and just bought a small very rural home somewhere.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:05 AM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:05 AM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Sounds like someone should have watched The Shining before heading into the middle of nowhere to write.
However, in the past I’ve got a lot of writing done while holed up in a cabin, but that’s because I fear and dislike the “outside”, which is full of bears and Lyme disease.
posted by betweenthebars at 11:10 AM on December 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
However, in the past I’ve got a lot of writing done while holed up in a cabin, but that’s because I fear and dislike the “outside”, which is full of bears and Lyme disease.
posted by betweenthebars at 11:10 AM on December 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
I wonder if this person would have been happier if they didn't go so off the grid and just bought a small very rural home somewhere.
Based on the previouslies, this author has a lot of wilderness/outdoor experience. You don't race in the Iditarod if you can't handle the elements. I'd wager she was well prepared for the lack of amenities, but wasn't prepared for the loneliness.
posted by deadaluspark at 11:19 AM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Based on the previouslies, this author has a lot of wilderness/outdoor experience. You don't race in the Iditarod if you can't handle the elements. I'd wager she was well prepared for the lack of amenities, but wasn't prepared for the loneliness.
posted by deadaluspark at 11:19 AM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Speaking entirely for myself here:
1) Being around people means there is potential for/access to loads of new material.
2) Being around people that also write or do art means there is potential for/access to community and/or competition and/or the various things that help to hold you accountable.
3) The writing process is incredibly solitary and, especially if you're writing memoir/dredging up past trauma, pretty painful. It's good to break that up with stuff that is noisier/less solitary/not so serious.
4) Sometimes the best way to get out of writer's block is to have a couple of friend interrupt your work on a chapter and needle you into a beer and a screening of "The Legend of Billie Jean" or whatever at Alamo Drafthouse. And then come home and write something about "The Legend of Billie Jean" or whatever and THEN get back to work on the original thing.
5) I grew up in a place where people came to "heal" and "do art" and try and solve their shit with tents and AT thru-hikes and like, "Plenty of people have believed that nature would save them; fewer have the guts to admit when it doesn’t. And now you’re stuck with the same problems you had before but you don’t even have a toilet" QFT.
posted by thivaia at 11:23 AM on December 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
1) Being around people means there is potential for/access to loads of new material.
2) Being around people that also write or do art means there is potential for/access to community and/or competition and/or the various things that help to hold you accountable.
3) The writing process is incredibly solitary and, especially if you're writing memoir/dredging up past trauma, pretty painful. It's good to break that up with stuff that is noisier/less solitary/not so serious.
4) Sometimes the best way to get out of writer's block is to have a couple of friend interrupt your work on a chapter and needle you into a beer and a screening of "The Legend of Billie Jean" or whatever at Alamo Drafthouse. And then come home and write something about "The Legend of Billie Jean" or whatever and THEN get back to work on the original thing.
5) I grew up in a place where people came to "heal" and "do art" and try and solve their shit with tents and AT thru-hikes and like, "Plenty of people have believed that nature would save them; fewer have the guts to admit when it doesn’t. And now you’re stuck with the same problems you had before but you don’t even have a toilet" QFT.
posted by thivaia at 11:23 AM on December 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
Based on the previouslies, this author has a lot of wilderness/outdoor experience. You don't race in the Iditarod if you can't handle the elements.
I think that's the Dear Ann Landers, not the question-asker.
Once you read some Latin pastoral poetry and then read about how they actually lived, you can never fully romanticize the "writing off the grid" life--at least not enough to go full outhouse!
posted by praemunire at 11:25 AM on December 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
I think that's the Dear Ann Landers, not the question-asker.
Once you read some Latin pastoral poetry and then read about how they actually lived, you can never fully romanticize the "writing off the grid" life--at least not enough to go full outhouse!
posted by praemunire at 11:25 AM on December 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
Based on the previouslies, this author has a lot of wilderness/outdoor experience. You don't race in the Iditarod if you can't handle the elements. I'd wager she was well prepared for the lack of amenities, but wasn't prepared for the loneliness.
To clarify: the person with those previouslies is the question-answerer (who is Blair Braverman, a super-interesting person, good writer and the best Twitter follow). We don't know as much about the anonymous question *writer* in this advice column.
posted by charmedimsure at 11:25 AM on December 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
To clarify: the person with those previouslies is the question-answerer (who is Blair Braverman, a super-interesting person, good writer and the best Twitter follow). We don't know as much about the anonymous question *writer* in this advice column.
posted by charmedimsure at 11:25 AM on December 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
@charmedimsure Thanks for the clarification, I read this while stuck in a lot of interminable Zoom meetings where I didn't have a lot to do. Coupled with reading it early in the morning, somehow I missed the question/answer format and thought it was a full piece.
posted by deadaluspark at 11:29 AM on December 7, 2021
posted by deadaluspark at 11:29 AM on December 7, 2021
I love living in the woods.
But I'm also in kind of a sweet spot with a town with arts and culture and creative people on nicely developed but sprawling natural land and a house that's often full of caring people and various levels of a social life, which has been an absolute blessing during the pandemic.
I'm also working with the benefits that I've lived in a lot of big cities and have experienced a lot of culture. Having decent access to the internet also helps.
But I'm also not operating under magical or romantic thinking that living in the woods or any kind of off grid living is easier, more serene or whatever, and I know the difference from having grown up with those kinds of ideas like My Side of the Mountain or, ugh, On Walden Pond where I had someone else to cook hot meals for me or do my laundry.
Or that being alone in the woods is some kind of magic motivation for getting things done.
Living off grid or in remote places can be a lot of hard, unpleasant work. Or a mixture of sheer terror and mind-numbing boredom, or both at the same damn time.
I've experienced things like being snowed in without power or vehicular access in a house that didn't have a working or productive well where water had to be trucked in and pumped into holding tanks and hiking bottled water and food in through deep snow on a nearly half mile long and very steep driveway gets real old on the first day, much less a whole month of it. It's also lots of fun watching a vehicle slide right off that road and tumble into the trees and figure out how to deal with that when you can't even get a tow truck or bulldozer up the slushy, icy road.
It helps a whole lot to also be comfortable and actively curious about nature and have at least an amateur naturalist leaning. Or know how to keep your eyes open to the not just seasonal but day by day, hour by hour changes going on in your environment all year long and feel the seasons changing not as neatly delineated fractions of a year but every day like shifting through the colors of a rainbow.
And even with these small gifts and appreciation i've learned that "tree blindness" is a thing not unlike snow blindness. It's really easy to start taking it for granted or not being able to non-figuratively see the forest for the trees.
After a few years or so it sort of just becomes a vague green blur even though there were periods of my life when any one of the hundreds of towering - albeit new growth - trees within view of me would have been instantly majestic and unforgettable, but now I'll happily burn one as firewood.
This "green blindness" can be so pronounced that when I took a road trip with a friend a few years ago one of our stopping points was described as one of her favorite trees, and when were pulling up to it and still in her car she said "There she is!" I was confused and said "where?" and I couldn't even see it even thought it was a truly majestic old growth broadleaf maple that must have been nearly 150 feet tall and a crown 200-300 feet wide and so big you could probably see it from space with the naked eye or just a small pair of binoculars.
I was confused because I was assuming we'd have to hike to go see it and that it might be a really big old growth Douglas Fir with a 20 foot wide trunk or something, not the sprawling maple right in a campground parking lot. I was really embarrassed and sheepish feeling about this, it was a truly glorious tree but for whatever reason I was greedily expecting even more?
Antidotes to this sort of jaded green blindness vary. Going on adventures and explorations helps a lot, but so does intentionally shifting your scale, scope and perspective. Sometimes I seek a vista with long views. Sometimes I get deep into the undergrowth and kneel in the good, mossy earth and focus on small things and sit still and listen. Or actively use my other senses like touch or smell.
Hold still long enough with your senses wide open and you see and learn things. The sound of a garter snake slithering in the grass, or the bassy rumble of a grouse. How small forest birds and finches will flee in front of incoming cold fronts and wind or squall lines. The tiny, furry teacups of hummingbird nests hidden in the trees. Or how squirrels will carefully stash pine cones in the crooks of branches in the trees, or what their warning and alarm calls sound like. The rattles, growls and barks of ravens. Hold still long enough and you might even see a mushroom growing right in front of you as forest litter falls away from the fruiting head and crown, or the petals of flowers opening and turning to face the sun, or that some plants even make noises as they grow and move, or the firecracker snaps of seedpods bursting in the summer.
But this only goes so far and you bring your own problems with you no matter where you go, and these can end up coming out in ugly, stark ways especially when you're all alone in the elements without the distractions and business of modern life.
posted by loquacious at 11:42 AM on December 7, 2021 [23 favorites]
But I'm also in kind of a sweet spot with a town with arts and culture and creative people on nicely developed but sprawling natural land and a house that's often full of caring people and various levels of a social life, which has been an absolute blessing during the pandemic.
I'm also working with the benefits that I've lived in a lot of big cities and have experienced a lot of culture. Having decent access to the internet also helps.
But I'm also not operating under magical or romantic thinking that living in the woods or any kind of off grid living is easier, more serene or whatever, and I know the difference from having grown up with those kinds of ideas like My Side of the Mountain or, ugh, On Walden Pond where I had someone else to cook hot meals for me or do my laundry.
Or that being alone in the woods is some kind of magic motivation for getting things done.
Living off grid or in remote places can be a lot of hard, unpleasant work. Or a mixture of sheer terror and mind-numbing boredom, or both at the same damn time.
I've experienced things like being snowed in without power or vehicular access in a house that didn't have a working or productive well where water had to be trucked in and pumped into holding tanks and hiking bottled water and food in through deep snow on a nearly half mile long and very steep driveway gets real old on the first day, much less a whole month of it. It's also lots of fun watching a vehicle slide right off that road and tumble into the trees and figure out how to deal with that when you can't even get a tow truck or bulldozer up the slushy, icy road.
It helps a whole lot to also be comfortable and actively curious about nature and have at least an amateur naturalist leaning. Or know how to keep your eyes open to the not just seasonal but day by day, hour by hour changes going on in your environment all year long and feel the seasons changing not as neatly delineated fractions of a year but every day like shifting through the colors of a rainbow.
And even with these small gifts and appreciation i've learned that "tree blindness" is a thing not unlike snow blindness. It's really easy to start taking it for granted or not being able to non-figuratively see the forest for the trees.
After a few years or so it sort of just becomes a vague green blur even though there were periods of my life when any one of the hundreds of towering - albeit new growth - trees within view of me would have been instantly majestic and unforgettable, but now I'll happily burn one as firewood.
This "green blindness" can be so pronounced that when I took a road trip with a friend a few years ago one of our stopping points was described as one of her favorite trees, and when were pulling up to it and still in her car she said "There she is!" I was confused and said "where?" and I couldn't even see it even thought it was a truly majestic old growth broadleaf maple that must have been nearly 150 feet tall and a crown 200-300 feet wide and so big you could probably see it from space with the naked eye or just a small pair of binoculars.
I was confused because I was assuming we'd have to hike to go see it and that it might be a really big old growth Douglas Fir with a 20 foot wide trunk or something, not the sprawling maple right in a campground parking lot. I was really embarrassed and sheepish feeling about this, it was a truly glorious tree but for whatever reason I was greedily expecting even more?
Antidotes to this sort of jaded green blindness vary. Going on adventures and explorations helps a lot, but so does intentionally shifting your scale, scope and perspective. Sometimes I seek a vista with long views. Sometimes I get deep into the undergrowth and kneel in the good, mossy earth and focus on small things and sit still and listen. Or actively use my other senses like touch or smell.
Hold still long enough with your senses wide open and you see and learn things. The sound of a garter snake slithering in the grass, or the bassy rumble of a grouse. How small forest birds and finches will flee in front of incoming cold fronts and wind or squall lines. The tiny, furry teacups of hummingbird nests hidden in the trees. Or how squirrels will carefully stash pine cones in the crooks of branches in the trees, or what their warning and alarm calls sound like. The rattles, growls and barks of ravens. Hold still long enough and you might even see a mushroom growing right in front of you as forest litter falls away from the fruiting head and crown, or the petals of flowers opening and turning to face the sun, or that some plants even make noises as they grow and move, or the firecracker snaps of seedpods bursting in the summer.
But this only goes so far and you bring your own problems with you no matter where you go, and these can end up coming out in ugly, stark ways especially when you're all alone in the elements without the distractions and business of modern life.
posted by loquacious at 11:42 AM on December 7, 2021 [23 favorites]
Since covid related reality killed my wife's business, she's taken to writing.... but she's doing it from home. The kids are in school. I work from home... and she tackles a host of stuff, and then writes a few thousand words a week... Its actually pretty awesome. She's happy, our taxes last year went from 'trainer' to 'writer' as her profession - and it is still exciting.
I have a great deal of faith in her efforts. When she commits to something she really commits. Last year she read like 6 books on writing - something that she had always wanted to do but had a host of self doubts on. But, as the summer came to, she switched from reading to writing her outline and fleshing out her subject. It took a few weeks to get the kids back into this swing of things with school, and then... she just sat down and started to write.
I have no idea what she's writing, but she's making progress, if not daily, then weekly. She's happier now than she's ever been. And in a few months or a year or so, she wants me to read her first draft. I'm looking forward to it.
Point being... isolating yourself and disrupting everything seems like a really bad environment to be productive... why not just try planning it out?
posted by Nanukthedog at 11:46 AM on December 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
I have a great deal of faith in her efforts. When she commits to something she really commits. Last year she read like 6 books on writing - something that she had always wanted to do but had a host of self doubts on. But, as the summer came to, she switched from reading to writing her outline and fleshing out her subject. It took a few weeks to get the kids back into this swing of things with school, and then... she just sat down and started to write.
I have no idea what she's writing, but she's making progress, if not daily, then weekly. She's happier now than she's ever been. And in a few months or a year or so, she wants me to read her first draft. I'm looking forward to it.
Point being... isolating yourself and disrupting everything seems like a really bad environment to be productive... why not just try planning it out?
posted by Nanukthedog at 11:46 AM on December 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
I just finished reading Stephen King's "The Rat," which is this story. Plus a rat.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:57 AM on December 7, 2021
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:57 AM on December 7, 2021
The Onion: Man Just Going To Grab Guitar And Old Four-Track, Go Out To Cabin In Woods, Make Shittiest Album Anyone's Ever Heard
posted by kersplunk at 12:13 PM on December 7, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by kersplunk at 12:13 PM on December 7, 2021 [11 favorites]
I sometimes meet people who say they want to write, but I suspect what they really want is to Have Written.
Yes, or to Be A Writer where that equals a lovely journal, a fountain pen, excellent coffee at a table by a window with a beautiful view. It's a fantasy version of a writer's life as gracious, comfortable, slow-moving. I once led a weekend writing retreat where my participants were unhappy with me partway through because I was doing exactly what the workshop description said we'd do, explore what our writing meant to us and what kind of work we wanted to do. But they didn't want to think about that. They wanted to be at this lovely retreat center, with their fancy journals and fountain pens, living their writerly dream life for a few days.
I pivoted and just started doing writing exercises with them, and they loved what they produced—I also always enjoy what people come up with when writing to prompts &c—and then they thought I was a genius. And I think it's OK to want that experience. I don't judge them for it. I've taken several retreats at a monastery a few hours away from my home, in a little retreat house in the woods, and that's what I do there—drink a lot of tea, take a lot of naps, write when I feel like it, read a lot. Heck, I spent a month once at a writing retreat on the north shore of lake Superior and had a great experience. This was pre-cell phones so I really was off on my own with a little writing shed in the woods. I loved it.
That was rambly.
posted by Orlop at 12:23 PM on December 7, 2021 [11 favorites]
Yes, or to Be A Writer where that equals a lovely journal, a fountain pen, excellent coffee at a table by a window with a beautiful view. It's a fantasy version of a writer's life as gracious, comfortable, slow-moving. I once led a weekend writing retreat where my participants were unhappy with me partway through because I was doing exactly what the workshop description said we'd do, explore what our writing meant to us and what kind of work we wanted to do. But they didn't want to think about that. They wanted to be at this lovely retreat center, with their fancy journals and fountain pens, living their writerly dream life for a few days.
I pivoted and just started doing writing exercises with them, and they loved what they produced—I also always enjoy what people come up with when writing to prompts &c—and then they thought I was a genius. And I think it's OK to want that experience. I don't judge them for it. I've taken several retreats at a monastery a few hours away from my home, in a little retreat house in the woods, and that's what I do there—drink a lot of tea, take a lot of naps, write when I feel like it, read a lot. Heck, I spent a month once at a writing retreat on the north shore of lake Superior and had a great experience. This was pre-cell phones so I really was off on my own with a little writing shed in the woods. I loved it.
That was rambly.
posted by Orlop at 12:23 PM on December 7, 2021 [11 favorites]
Peter Hill's Memoirs of a Young Lighthouse Keeper about his time on remote Scottish lighthouses in the early 70's is a rare isolation story that I enjoyed, although he always had two other lighthouse keepers with him. Those of us who think of ourselves as introverts, when faced with true isolation, usually realise we're not nearly as introverted as we think. Desolation Angels might as well have been titled (GOB voice) "I've made a huge mistake".
posted by kersplunk at 12:32 PM on December 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by kersplunk at 12:32 PM on December 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
The answer was very good, and a bit harsh, albeit gently phrased. Sometimes we all need a few harsh words to get on with life. It's impossible to know wether the letter writer needed them, they mentioned trauma, but they sent in the question and will have to deal with the answer.
If you walk the same trail every day and get bored, you may not be ready for that experience or so you may be so traumatized that you have no access to your own senses. Both are possible explanations. Be kind.
posted by mumimor at 12:59 PM on December 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
If you walk the same trail every day and get bored, you may not be ready for that experience or so you may be so traumatized that you have no access to your own senses. Both are possible explanations. Be kind.
posted by mumimor at 12:59 PM on December 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
I sometimes meet people who say they want to write, but I suspect what they really want is to Have Written
A lot of the people who write because they want to have written are successful published authors. Being good at writing, and having something to say, really doesn't seem to have much connection to how people feel about the act of writing. Lots of good writers hate many or most aspects of writing, and have to force themselves to do it. Plenty of bad writers love writing, and cannot be forced to stop. In the end, "creative" work is craft and graft like anything else worth doing, and its methods and motivations are pretty much infinitely diverse.
posted by howfar at 1:14 PM on December 7, 2021 [14 favorites]
A lot of the people who write because they want to have written are successful published authors. Being good at writing, and having something to say, really doesn't seem to have much connection to how people feel about the act of writing. Lots of good writers hate many or most aspects of writing, and have to force themselves to do it. Plenty of bad writers love writing, and cannot be forced to stop. In the end, "creative" work is craft and graft like anything else worth doing, and its methods and motivations are pretty much infinitely diverse.
posted by howfar at 1:14 PM on December 7, 2021 [14 favorites]
I'm glad other folks found this as interesting as I did. My family has a house in the NC mountains, and it has always been a great place for us to get together. During the pandemic, I've made several trips by myself. I am an academic scientist on sabbatical, and I thought that getting away from home and everything would make me super productive in my academic writing, but I've mostly spent those trips hiking, reading novels, and just sitting on the porch in a rocking chair staring at mountains. As others said, though, I do tend to come home feeling more energized and, at least for a few days, I'm more productive.
posted by hydropsyche at 1:22 PM on December 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 1:22 PM on December 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
I've never empathized with the desire to go live off in the woods. Live alone, perhaps, but being self-sufficient is a huge use of time that's unsatisfying and your reward is merely continuing to survive, especially on this dead earth with less than 1% of the food and diversity around in the "wild" compared to any ancestors.
posted by GoblinHoney at 1:41 PM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by GoblinHoney at 1:41 PM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
I don't judge them for it.
That's a lot of words for not judging them.
posted by betweenthebars at 1:56 PM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
That's a lot of words for not judging them.
posted by betweenthebars at 1:56 PM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Oh god, I'd be so bored out in a cabin in the woods alone. No stimulation. No ideas coming in. Nothing else to do. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:45 PM on December 7, 2021
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:45 PM on December 7, 2021
There was a lot of wisdom Braverman's answer, advice I think should be read by anyone interested in being a writer (living in the woods or anywhere else.)
posted by gwint at 3:14 PM on December 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by gwint at 3:14 PM on December 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
"It's not like you go out somewhere and find something and bring it back and everyone admires what you found."
That's called journalism!
I would never have discovered this if it hadn't been for the pandemic and a lack of vehicle forcing me to endure the same walk over and over until it was transformed from boring reputation to an altogether different deeper form of knowing.
I learned this by having toddlers, and taking them to the same park day in and day out, and getting curious about the birds and paying attention to the trees and finally buying myself a birding book and some binoculars and getting heavily invested in the park birds. It's amazing how focusing on one tiny patch of nature over a long period slowly reveals more and more about it.
After having all three of my kids home ALL THE TIME for twenty months of pandemic and Zoom school, I was incredibly desperate to go on a solitary retreat and just have NOBODY TALK TO ME for three days. I even found a near-ish Catholic retreat center with solitary rustic cabins in the woods, but where you can still go eat your meals in silence with the nuns in the convent dining room. That sounded just about perfect.
But then my kids actually went back to school and, after I reveled in the silence and took a lot of naps, I started to realize I'm sort-of lonely when they're at school, after 20 months of being constantly on top of each other 24/7? Maybe I need to ease into solitude?
Anyway, I still think I'll go to the cabin in the woods with the nuns for a few days, maybe in the spring, to recharge and reflect and just be by myself for a little while. But even when I was desperate to be away from other humans, three days felt like the most solitude I could probably handle.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:22 PM on December 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
That's called journalism!
I would never have discovered this if it hadn't been for the pandemic and a lack of vehicle forcing me to endure the same walk over and over until it was transformed from boring reputation to an altogether different deeper form of knowing.
I learned this by having toddlers, and taking them to the same park day in and day out, and getting curious about the birds and paying attention to the trees and finally buying myself a birding book and some binoculars and getting heavily invested in the park birds. It's amazing how focusing on one tiny patch of nature over a long period slowly reveals more and more about it.
After having all three of my kids home ALL THE TIME for twenty months of pandemic and Zoom school, I was incredibly desperate to go on a solitary retreat and just have NOBODY TALK TO ME for three days. I even found a near-ish Catholic retreat center with solitary rustic cabins in the woods, but where you can still go eat your meals in silence with the nuns in the convent dining room. That sounded just about perfect.
But then my kids actually went back to school and, after I reveled in the silence and took a lot of naps, I started to realize I'm sort-of lonely when they're at school, after 20 months of being constantly on top of each other 24/7? Maybe I need to ease into solitude?
Anyway, I still think I'll go to the cabin in the woods with the nuns for a few days, maybe in the spring, to recharge and reflect and just be by myself for a little while. But even when I was desperate to be away from other humans, three days felt like the most solitude I could probably handle.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:22 PM on December 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
Reading that, I was reminded that this was also addressed by another Hank, not quite so graciously.
posted by jocelmeow at 3:42 PM on December 7, 2021
posted by jocelmeow at 3:42 PM on December 7, 2021
Cabin in the woods? No, it's not isolation, it's the draw of an alternative to urban life. It's not the distractions, it's the appeal of not having our reactions to those petty annoyances. Me, I find that when I'm getting annoyed at the city, when it's cold and wintery and spiritually grim, when I pause in front of funeral directors' shops, or when it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me...
🐳
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:21 PM on December 7, 2021 [16 favorites]
🐳
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:21 PM on December 7, 2021 [16 favorites]
Fiasco da Gama, I think that's a promising start to a whale of a tale.
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:31 PM on December 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:31 PM on December 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
I don't want to spend more than a night anywhere that doesn't have a decent shower.
posted by emjaybee at 5:58 PM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by emjaybee at 5:58 PM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Peter Hill's Memoirs of a Young Lighthouse Keeper about his time on remote Scottish lighthouses in the early 70's is a rare isolation story that I enjoyed, although he always had two other lighthouse keepers with him.
posted by kersplunk,
Amazing piece of writing. Wow. Thank you.
posted by Jody Tresidder at 6:25 PM on December 7, 2021
posted by kersplunk,
Amazing piece of writing. Wow. Thank you.
posted by Jody Tresidder at 6:25 PM on December 7, 2021
Does he have kids? I’d give my right arm for a week alone.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 7:05 PM on December 7, 2021
posted by St. Peepsburg at 7:05 PM on December 7, 2021
I like spending a week or 2 at an isolated cabin in the woods.
I always intend on getting some deep creative breakthroughs, but that never happens. I just read some books.
It's always time well worth spent doing nothing except dicking around and maintaining the cabin.
posted by ovvl at 7:17 PM on December 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
I always intend on getting some deep creative breakthroughs, but that never happens. I just read some books.
It's always time well worth spent doing nothing except dicking around and maintaining the cabin.
posted by ovvl at 7:17 PM on December 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
I don't want to spend more than a night anywhere that doesn't have a decent shower.
I recently did like a year and a half boiling mossy rain catch water on a stove in big kettles and effectively pouring diluted but nearly boiling water over me.
It should not be surprising I didn't shower very often by modern or urban standards, but it was quite decadently often and frequent by, say, 1800s frontier standards.
I will say that some full strength Dr. Bronner's peppermint plus nearly boiling water with an ice cold rinse straight from the rain barrel is a very special kind of brisk and refreshing. You could found a pretty decent religion and spiritual experience around that sort of thing.
I'm pretty sure I had some proper visions a couple of times but as I recall they were mainly about hot water heaters and water from the tap that didn't have bits of moss and algae in it.
posted by loquacious at 8:45 PM on December 7, 2021 [7 favorites]
I recently did like a year and a half boiling mossy rain catch water on a stove in big kettles and effectively pouring diluted but nearly boiling water over me.
It should not be surprising I didn't shower very often by modern or urban standards, but it was quite decadently often and frequent by, say, 1800s frontier standards.
I will say that some full strength Dr. Bronner's peppermint plus nearly boiling water with an ice cold rinse straight from the rain barrel is a very special kind of brisk and refreshing. You could found a pretty decent religion and spiritual experience around that sort of thing.
I'm pretty sure I had some proper visions a couple of times but as I recall they were mainly about hot water heaters and water from the tap that didn't have bits of moss and algae in it.
posted by loquacious at 8:45 PM on December 7, 2021 [7 favorites]
"The secret of writing is to apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair." - PG Wodehouse.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:07 AM on December 8, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by Paul Slade at 12:07 AM on December 8, 2021 [6 favorites]
The Onion: Man Just Going To Grab Guitar And Old Four-Track, Go Out To Cabin In Woods, Make Shittiest Album Anyone's Ever Heard
Annual Migration Patterns Sees Acoustic Musicians Returning to Cabins to Finish Albums
posted by acb at 3:11 AM on December 8, 2021 [5 favorites]
Annual Migration Patterns Sees Acoustic Musicians Returning to Cabins to Finish Albums
posted by acb at 3:11 AM on December 8, 2021 [5 favorites]
I was born in a city and have lived in a city about 48 of my 51 years. I "enjoy" nature in that I find places pretty, and quiet is nice sometimes. Fresh air is great. We did a 4 day river raft through the Grand Canyon once that was truly awe-inspiring and horrifying at a very deep level (no pun intended). And we hiked part of the Inca Trail to Macchu Pichu way back in the early '90s which is about as remote (at least back then) as I have ever been. The Milky Way through the high, thin, freezing, dry air of the Andes is breathtaking.
But I never want to live somewhere far flung or remote. It gives me the creeps. No interest in it in any way. Hooray for those who enjoy it, though.
posted by SoberHighland at 11:28 AM on December 8, 2021
But I never want to live somewhere far flung or remote. It gives me the creeps. No interest in it in any way. Hooray for those who enjoy it, though.
posted by SoberHighland at 11:28 AM on December 8, 2021
The issue is that forcing yourself to write often produces the most banal, unmoving, and bland writing there is.
Examples of writers who followed a disciplined routine as opposed to when the whims took them:
- Mark Twain
- Haruki Murakami
- Ernest Hemingway
- WH Auden
- Maya Angelou
- Ray Bradbury
- Alice Munro
- John Updike
- Leo Tolstoy
- Jodi Picoult
- Hilary Mantel
I wouldn't characterize them as "banal". The point of daily writing is not that every single word and page is a jewel. You're (a) getting the ideas out and (b) developing your skills and that helps you become a better and more felicitous writer. Irrespective of your natural talent in a profession--singing, dancing, sculpture, gymnastics, etc--becoming truly excellent requires practice, and for many people regular practice requires discipline.
posted by Anonymous at 12:29 PM on December 8, 2021
Examples of writers who followed a disciplined routine as opposed to when the whims took them:
- Mark Twain
- Haruki Murakami
- Ernest Hemingway
- WH Auden
- Maya Angelou
- Ray Bradbury
- Alice Munro
- John Updike
- Leo Tolstoy
- Jodi Picoult
- Hilary Mantel
I wouldn't characterize them as "banal". The point of daily writing is not that every single word and page is a jewel. You're (a) getting the ideas out and (b) developing your skills and that helps you become a better and more felicitous writer. Irrespective of your natural talent in a profession--singing, dancing, sculpture, gymnastics, etc--becoming truly excellent requires practice, and for many people regular practice requires discipline.
posted by Anonymous at 12:29 PM on December 8, 2021
Add the wonderful Anthony Trollope to the list schroedinger. He had daily word targets and kept to them. It's decades since I read his autobiography so I cannot swear to the following but my recollection is that he broke his day down into very small bites of time, maybe 15 minute and set targets for them. Banal he isn't.
posted by dutchrick at 1:43 PM on December 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by dutchrick at 1:43 PM on December 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
I just can't imagine having an entire cabin and forest to myself for sleeping, staring, and dicking around, and then ruining it by trying to DO stuff.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:11 PM on December 8, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:11 PM on December 8, 2021 [6 favorites]
I grew up in a small mountain town in Colorado and some people would move into the area and isolate themselves in big comfortable houses and then find they didn't like it as much as they thought they would.
Yet I have some friends who have done the same and love it.
The key difference between the two are those who previously lived in a city or town and moved into isolation vs. those who had already lived in isolation and simply moved to a new location.
The former had a romanticized ideal of what being isolated would be like while the latter had already lived off the grid a bit and knew what to expect. Among that group, I have one friend who retired to a very small town where he lives in a cabin he built himself and he couldn't be happier. You couldn't pay him to live in a city.
posted by Rashomon at 2:44 PM on December 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
Yet I have some friends who have done the same and love it.
The key difference between the two are those who previously lived in a city or town and moved into isolation vs. those who had already lived in isolation and simply moved to a new location.
The former had a romanticized ideal of what being isolated would be like while the latter had already lived off the grid a bit and knew what to expect. Among that group, I have one friend who retired to a very small town where he lives in a cabin he built himself and he couldn't be happier. You couldn't pay him to live in a city.
posted by Rashomon at 2:44 PM on December 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have often cried over the very things that are reputed to sustain one in the off-the-beaten path life. Gardens fail, animals die, and the tarp on the wood rick fails and the season's heat source goes punky. Location is not magic, and a beautiful setting can also break your heart. The only answer that has ever worked for me has been to cry and then do the work anyway.
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:39 PM on December 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:39 PM on December 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have often cried over the very things that are reputed to sustain one in the off-the-beaten path life. Gardens fail, animals die, and the tarp on the wood rick fails and the season's heat source goes punky. Location is not magic, and a beautiful setting can also break your heart. The only answer that has ever worked for me has been to cry and then do the work anyway.
It might be overreaching, but I credit my own unsentimental attitude towards nature to growing up somewhere where people depended on the sea, in a bay that was so much of a graveyard for ships that 19th century insurers put up warning beacons. Nature doesn't care if you broke up with your girlfriend, or want to find yourself and make art, or want to get off the grid. It just is. You are small and it is big.
posted by kersplunk at 2:41 PM on December 9, 2021 [5 favorites]
It might be overreaching, but I credit my own unsentimental attitude towards nature to growing up somewhere where people depended on the sea, in a bay that was so much of a graveyard for ships that 19th century insurers put up warning beacons. Nature doesn't care if you broke up with your girlfriend, or want to find yourself and make art, or want to get off the grid. It just is. You are small and it is big.
posted by kersplunk at 2:41 PM on December 9, 2021 [5 favorites]
I'm a city girl, I'd fucking HATE to live out in a cabin in the woods, and yet, I envy this letter writer this exact feeling they're having, this exact position they are in. My best work in life - not just writing, but *everything* - has come directly from being where they are right now: stuck, bored, sick of the routine they're reliving day after day, overly familiar with that one path (metaphorical or physical) to the point of wanting to tear their hair out.
Much like secure attachment is built on a "secure base" of a boring, stable, unchangingly present caregiver, from which we set out to explore and take risks, and to which we return when threatened, this letter writer's boredom, their cabin, their isolation, their stupidly over-familiar trail, their reliable weekly grocery store trips --- all of these could easily form the components of their "secure writer's base", the boring stability from which they can now, if they choose to, set out into risky writing territory, explore their writing world right to the brink of danger, safe in the knowledge that they can flee to the boring cabin routine anytime they feel they've gone too far.
But as long as the writer refuses to see it as their secure base, as long as the writer resents the stability and boredom they have painstakingly arranged for themselves, as long as the writer has their sights set on that more exciting life they could be living if only they could get away from this trap, this prison of a cabin, the cabin cannot serve as their secure writing base. Unrealized potential.
Where this letter writer at - not physically but spiritually - is my idea of perfection, the thing I pine for from the constant interruptions and never-bored hamster-wheel of my own everyday life.
posted by MiraK at 10:39 AM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
Much like secure attachment is built on a "secure base" of a boring, stable, unchangingly present caregiver, from which we set out to explore and take risks, and to which we return when threatened, this letter writer's boredom, their cabin, their isolation, their stupidly over-familiar trail, their reliable weekly grocery store trips --- all of these could easily form the components of their "secure writer's base", the boring stability from which they can now, if they choose to, set out into risky writing territory, explore their writing world right to the brink of danger, safe in the knowledge that they can flee to the boring cabin routine anytime they feel they've gone too far.
But as long as the writer refuses to see it as their secure base, as long as the writer resents the stability and boredom they have painstakingly arranged for themselves, as long as the writer has their sights set on that more exciting life they could be living if only they could get away from this trap, this prison of a cabin, the cabin cannot serve as their secure writing base. Unrealized potential.
Where this letter writer at - not physically but spiritually - is my idea of perfection, the thing I pine for from the constant interruptions and never-bored hamster-wheel of my own everyday life.
posted by MiraK at 10:39 AM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
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For some, sitting quietly and contemplatively sparks new thoughts. For others, sitting quietly and contemplatively is painfully boring and repetitive. For Thoreau, hanging out at Walden pond during the day and going over to his family's house 20 minutes away for dinner was inspiring.
There's literally nothing wrong with trying something out for your creativity and discovering it doesn't work for you -- or doesn't work like before, and maybe will work again later. It might be a waste of time, and might be expensive, but that kind of risk comes with the territory of creation. If you have the time and resources, try something else. There's nothing wrong with that.
posted by tclark at 9:15 AM on December 7, 2021 [16 favorites]