A few years ago, my friend Sage and I went backpacking on Mt. Adams. The idea was to hike above the tree line on the north side, look out over the vast Yakama tribal lands, and look up at the nearby glaciers. And that’s what we did, which required fording a rushing river of newly melted snow and then trying to find our way through a scrub and rock field called the “Devil’s Gardens.”
The river crossing scared the shit out of me because I could honestly picture myself falling on a rock, smashing my glasses and teeth, and bumping my way downstream, boulder to boulder. Sage leapt gracefully from rock to rock, but I wasn’t feeling any of that confidence so instead I stripped to my undies, held my backpack over my head, and slogged through the freezing water. My version was slow and laborious. Plus I got soaking wet. But I did cross that river and we got to the other side, facing the Devil’s Gardens, a field of small boulders and heather-like plants with absolutely no path in sight.
Was there actually a path? Was there something to reach on the other side of this freaky disorienting “gardens”? We walked one way, then another, then another, totally perplexed. After maybe an hour of fruitless stumbling, Sage spotted a white splash of paint very close to where we’d crossed the river, and then she saw another, and just like that, she found our path. But we had experienced being lost—not deeply lost, because we could always go back the way we came, but casually lost, lost as in: where am I supposed to go; maybe my big plans to hike across this bounder field and find a nice high lake to swim in were too ambitious since it turns out I’m just going to wander around these rocks for the rest of the day.
Afterwards, to my surprise, Sage said: I want to get lost every year. It felt to me like she was indicting herself for feeling too safe most of the time, which surprised me since she produces a very public live radio show, which would cause me to have a daily anxiety attack. But I also knew what she meant. Aren’t plans that are too carefully laid their own kind of trouble? Is practicing life flexibility sort of like stretching? If you do it a little, you remain more limber? Some people are born more flexible than others, but plenty of us should spend a little time stretching our boundaries.
Earlier this month, Sage and I had plans to backpack in northern Arizona in Paria Canyon, a famously beautiful slot canyon. You hike the canyon in a river. Of course, slot canyons are sometimes besieged by water and then they can kill people, so our trip was weather dependent. I felt so spoiled to be backpacking in April and flying for this kind of leisure! But also, of course, I was overjoyed! And then, the night before we left, we learned that the water was too cold in Paria Canyon and the park service strongly suggested we not make the trip. They assured us no one would try to rescue us if we needed aid. Sage’s backup plan was to hike the Grand Canyon, but the upper trails were covered in snow, so that plan was out. We were getting ready to fly to Phoenix and… we had no idea what we would do when we arrived!
The CliffNotes version of our trip is that thanks to my friend Maya and her dad, we found ourselves hiking in another canyon in water—Aravaipa Canyon, northeast of Tucson—for a day, which was magnificent.
After that, we got a map of the Santa Catalina Mountains, east of Tucson, and chose a backpacking trip, only to discover the campground at the trailhead was occupied. We routed another trip, from the top of Mount Lemmon, only to discover it was covered in snow and we couldn’t access the trailhead there either. We chose another, and then hiked through a little snow into a stunning Joshua Tree-like boulder field called Wilderness of Rocks (what is up with us and fields of rocks?), which we had no idea we were headed towards. We also didn’t know if or where we could camp, if or where water was, how much elevation gain or loss we’d experience. And yet, it all worked out, somehow! We camped alongside stunning springs leaping from rocks, drank some super sketchy murky water we filtered—speaking nothing of our mutual dismay to each other—paused before a snake in the trail that had just swallowed a small rodent, gawked at amazing all-black hummingbirds, had our legs ripped to shit by sticker bushes on barely maintained trails, and all around felt very lost and very found.
When we departed the Catalinas, we spent a whole day at a public pool in Oro Valley lying around watching families, riding a modest water slide, laughing at our shredded legs, getting sunburned by the bare Arizona sun, and feeling very relaxed, the kind of relaxed that can only arrive after challenges. We never got lost exactly, although we spent a lot of time deeply unsure of ourselves. But we did have to make decisions constantly, based on the little information we could gather, and then live with those decisions, recognizing their relative importance and unimportance.
I felt a sense of lingering pride in the weeks that followed. I have been feeling especially adult lately (and you would hope so, since I’m almost 40!). But it doesn’t mean what I thought it would mean: having kids, having a retirement account, understanding whether I should ever pay for extra car insurance on a rental car, etc. Instead, what it means to me is that I own my own choices and I can make them with a wealth of experience to back them up. I know how I like to spend my time. So much of this exists because I have the stability that comes with secure housing and flexible work. It’s maddening that this kind of trip—yes, of course, flying in a plane is insane, but then low-cost camping, hiking, drinking sketchy water—is such a privilege.
When I was at the public pool—which cost $5 to enter—watching the families taking up corners of space, laying out all their stuff, picnicking, laughing, throwing their kids around in the water, lining up to ride the little water slide, I was reminded of the kind of access to low-key leisure that I want everyone to have. This is a perennial theme of this newsletter (see my thoughts on writing residencies) because I am continually struck by gratitude for the way having time for myself has positively shaped my life and depressed, honestly depressed, that that is a luxury.
This line of thinking brings two things to my mind right now:
First, this moment in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, quoting Odo, the visionary of the anarchic society that the book explores: “For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.”
I’m still trying to free my mind, Ursula! And to be able to think. I really am!
And the second is the amazing Bertrand Russell essay, printed in Harpers in 1932, In Praise of Idleness. (A must read!) He paints a vision that I think aligns well with this moment in history, when working all the time doesn’t seem like the golden ticket it was presented as. He opens with the saying, “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.” Wouldn’t it be lovely, though, if people had more time for idleness and access to public spaces for collective leisure?
I’m here to say: wandering the Devil’s Gardens with a friend is pretty nice.
IN OTHER NEWS
On Friday night, my business Umi Organic won TWO Good Food Awards! It’s a tremendous honor because the Good Food Awards vets every product for its sourcing and ethics and then chooses the winners based on how delicious they are. So this award is meaningful! We won for noodles that currently go exclusively to public school students. So cool! And we also won for our new Yakisoba Sauce. I love the flavor of our sauce and don’t tire of using it to make okonomiyaki. I’ll write more on all of this via the Umi Organic newsletter (sign up here if you’re curious), but I wanted to share this news while it’s fresh.
Second: I made a zine about Gochujang because, well, I have some access to leisure time and I wanted to and I had a massive bucket of Choi’s gochujang. My friends shared recipes; I compiled them; and my friend Gary of Container Corps printed and bound them. It’s a little community cookbook as of yore. Grab a copy for $6 until they run out!
Third: My friend Emily Strelow published her first Substack post, about the soothing power of pollinators buzzing! I loved it! Since you’re already Substack readers, check hers out!
Happy Earth Day!
Solid decision making in regards to hiking the slot canyon. Wandering around lost can be fun too, provided one is secure in ultimately knowing how to get back… CONGRATULATIONS on the food award! Speaks to your good work, quality and doing the right thing!