9 months, 3 years, whatever…

“We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.” Cesare Pavese

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives" Annie Dillard

It’s been just over 9 months since we left Boone, and for the life of me, it feels like 3 years.  I’ve never before experienced this slow down in my everyday life, except perhaps when traveling with students for a month or longer.  Though it always comes to an end, I’ve always inevitably returned home, and no matter how slow my internal chronometer was clicking, no matter how normal that new pace seemed, within a week I was back into the routine and things sped up again.

Being the son of a scientist, I’ve been told since birth that time is relative.  As a kid this means very little because time is all you have -- time to wake up, time to go to school, time to come in for dinner, and time to go to bed.  To me, the interval between birthdays and Christmas seemed an eternity, and time seemed to especially drag during the Michigan winter…and math classes.  However, it is true, that time as we measure it becomes a smaller fraction of my lifespan the longer I live -- an hour, a day, a week shrinks ever so slightly in proportion to the whole.   When I was 3, a week seemed like a year; but, by the time I turned 40, this same week was practically insignificant.  Relative to me, time was speeding up, and I can safely assume that I am not alone in observing this phenomenon. When asked how they (we) are, how many times have I heard friends, colleagues, neighbors, and myself reply “Busy! Man, it’s just been crazy lately!”?  Such is the way of modern life, the responsibilities of our busy schedules, longer commutes, longer working days, more time spent in front of a screen, any screen but one that looks out on the real world.  Add to these pressures our preoccupation with distractions from those same responsibilities and life really begins to fly by.   The moments we do remember become more and more imbued with meaning and we go to great lengths to capture, record, then tweet about them and move on to the next.

What Einstein proved is that time is relative to the traveler moving at incredible speeds.  The traveler who moves near the speed of light for an hour would only age one hour but find that everyone she loves around her has passed on once she slows back down to normal.  I might now have the timing of this exactly right, remember I'm the son of a scientist.  Since our truck will barely go 60 MPH pulling our camper up hill, we’re certainly not in any danger of this happening to us.  Yet, I wonder if maybe our perceptions of time are relative to how we spend our time rather than how much we try to fit into each day.

These past 9 months have seen little in the way of routine. To be sure, we have our tasks, what once took us an hour to accomplish, we can now have the camper parked, unhooked, leveled, and dinner cooking inside of 20 minutes.  We also enjoy our rituals, let’s be honest, nothing really happens here before coffee in the morning. But we have not as yet experienced a rut because every single day has been different and we are constantly gaining new skills and knowledge.

That is not to say that all has been sunsets, adventurous activities, gourmet meals, and holding hands.  We both have experienced personal highs, lows, and everything in between -- like all great adventures should.  There were moments which have tested our relationship and our resolve in significant ways.  There were times I’ve asked myself, what the hell am I doing?  Still nothing has come close to feeling like a routine. 

So maybe old Albert got it wrong with regard to our perceptions of time, it’s not about how fast you go, but rather how present you are within each moment.  I’m not claiming any zen philosophy of travel here, but rather suggesting that the experience of traveling at a relaxed pace with time to linger and pause and give attention to whatever grabs you, has caused us to fully engage in what we’re seeing, what we’re doing and what we’re feeling.  We are present in the moment simply because we’re not sweating out the next one.  In our travels we’ve seen places that I’ve zipped past before on the highway but never really saw.  Even on the beautiful drive to work between Todd (where we lived) and Boone, I often failed to notice the changing color or autumn leaves or the first buds of spring leaves until they were pointed out to me.  For the last 3 weeks we’ve been in Utah enjoying its Red Rock Canyons and scenic rivers.  We drove through here twice in May - June of 1999, and neither Shari nor I have any recollection of being here because we sped through on Highway 80 on our way to somewhere else.

While visiting a friend in Park City, Utah he showed us a clip from a video about a local skier who lives up in the mountains year round and gets more backcountry turns than probably anyone else in the Mountain Time Zone.  This local hermit said that he used to be “responsible,” had a grown up job until he was about 30.  Then he divorced, moved out into the mountains, built himself a small lean-to shelter and started trying to “grow down.” He now figures he’s about 17.

Shari had a dream early on in our adventure where all of her gray hair fell out, just the gray hair.  This may have been more prophetic and metaphorical than she could have known, as we feel younger than we have in years.   Growing down may not be fully possible but it’s worth a shot when compared to the alternative.  We still have the gray hair, though we are pretty sure they are growing at a much slower rate.