Tips from an Indoors-woman
Tips from an Indoors-woman
or how to refresh your mind and spirit when every news item makes you die a little inside.
Hi friends,
As many of you know, last week I got back from a family trip to the Galapagos. Now I’m not your typical Sporty Spice. In the summer I avoid being outside because I’m extremely allergic to biting insects and anything that grows. And I hate the heat. I’d be one of the few people moving to Canada because its NORTH and not just because of our current reality. And in the winter, outside is generally cold and unpleasant. So when my in-laws suggested a multi-generational trip to the Galapagos, I got really excited because I know how important the islands are to our understanding of natural selection, I thought it would be cool to have gone to the Galapagos, and I really do love the ocean (but not so much sandy beaches). I knew we would be going on an “expedition,” which is not a Carnival-type cruise. Our small boat offered at least three excursions a day for people at every fitness level to go see the wildlife. We can make all the “blue-footed booby” jokes we like, but Ecuador has protected the animals and those islands spectacularly. The animals are human-naive, which means they ignore human presence completely. They don’t get scared and run away, nor do they beg for food or dive bomb you for fun. This is mostly because you’re not allowed to take food onto the islands, and this is STRICTLY enforced. My husband took out a granola bar on a Zodiac trip to an island, and Salvador the naturalist, yelled NOOOO with his hand sticking straight out in a “stop” signal and dove to intercept the granola bar’s trip to my husband’s mouth, to make sure no crumb would come anywhere near the island we’d soon visit.
So, why am I telling you all this? It’s not to show off my privilege. I know how lucky I am, and I appreciate the hell out of the trip and the in-laws. I’m talking about this for a couple of reasons. 1) I want to share how refreshing it was to be out in the middle of the pacific with limited wifi and news consumption. 2) I’ve been reflecting on the reality of being around animals who just don’t give a shit who I’m going to vote for, reclaiming MAGA-captured states, or inspiring grassroots activists. There’s something immensely refreshing in sharing space with sea lions, birds, penguins, iguanas, crabs that are “endemic” to the island you’re on…which means they got there on their own, either from the primordial soup, flying a long distance, or hitching a ride on a ship…many generations ago. (There are also “native” animals who were born on the island and will live their entire life on it, but didn’t originate there. They’re the ones that hitched a ride on an air or sea current, or on a ship from the past.
So, imagine being on a beach with sea lions lounging, blue footed boobies hovering in the air and then swooping down to the water to catch their dinner, and stunning bright red crabs crawling over the volcanic rocks wherever you look. What happens is that you (and by you I mean me) begin to remember how to breathe. How to time your internal rhythm to the waves instead of to podcast drops. How to come close to a living thing without centering yourself, because it certainly doesn’t notice your existence. This state of being— where you’re concerned about giant tortoises, fairly large iguanas, sea turtle babies, or black-tipped sharks, and not what the terrible media said about Biden, — is necessary to your (my) continued existence as a (reasonably) sane human. It shows us just how peaceful the world could be, and paints our human reality in the United States (and other countries) as a jarring disturbance in the force.
Now, I know (really I do) that we can’t all go to the Galapagos. But we can go outside and find a body of water, look up and see a bird of prey, put our bare feet on the earth, feel the breeze on our skin, and recall that internal rhythm that doesn’t care about tweeting.
And then…..then we get back to work, because we know how many people are suffering and who we’re fighting to defend. We know that hope is an action, not a state of being. We know we have to keep putting the work and convincing everyone we know to do so as well. But we also know that we can find a moment or a place to listen to our own rhythm and imagine hanging out with a “naive” sea lion.
And we look forward to this week’s conversation between me (Stephanie) and a Gen Z rural organizer. Please feel free to comment or ask me anything. I’ll answer.