Grandpa’s Bus, Part 7
More Mid-Summer Update and Other Drivel
July 29:
Sorry, Incorrigibles, but this got carried away. A lot on my mind this morning apparently. Better get a cup of coffee - or a cold beer depending on the time of day - before you continue.
From his trailer on the Brule, Joe is already up and getting ready to go fishing as soon as it is light enough. For me, in Grandpa’s bus on the Little Dry Fork, I am feeling more pensive, waiting for the coffee’s chemical sunshine to wake me fully and gently. Writing in my journal is my first activity. Maybe Joe has the better idea.
(0430) 5.5 hours of sleep but awake and alert. Except for meeting Owen at 1:00, I have no plans or appointments. Should be a typical day in Grandpa’s bus where I do what I wish, as I wish to do them, and when I wish, stopping for food, sleep, and breaks as I wish. A wishful life, indeed. Just like Bill Jones. Yet, what is wrong with that lifestyle? True, some things - especially sleep - really do better with a regular schedule. I can recognize that.
My insight this morning: The days are too short and too few to be filled with shuffling papers and looking at digital files of master plans, of objectives and their next action steps, and all the confirmations… AKA procrastination disguised as perfectionism. Some planning is necessary but not over-planning. Wasting time. Commencing immediately, I will eliminate most of those rituals from my daily activities.
Where did I get the idea that everything has to be done perfectly? Completely done, down to the last detail, and all the tiny steps on the checklist redlined? Often, “good enough”, just “getting it out the door”, is more important than 100% perfect. Yes, each activity involves a judgment call about when it is finished. But striving for that last couple of refinements - going from 95% to 96% - is impossible to justify, especially when I have so many other things - important things, pleasant things - that are being deferred while I do the final polishing of any project.
Keep it simple. Decide in advance what has to be done and when the activity will be completed. Save perfectionism for the evening when I am puttering. Remember that old seven-word formula for success: Plan your work then work your plan. Ideally, though, that plan will be flexible enough to allow for interruptions and distractions by outside sources.
The main idea is to simplify my life and not squander my time and creative energy by fumbling around in the morning and throughout the day deciding what to do next. However, it is important to remember that getting organized is secondary; the main objective is to get things done.
Second insight: I am still thinking about what I would do for pure pleasure, something I would do if I were truly free to do whatever I wished. I have a vision of Al, staying alone in Mac’s cabin for several days before Mac drove in. In my vision, I see him happily going about his hunting and fishing, depending upon the season and weather. As Mac wrote, he would have used each day for what it was best suited. Like me, Al would find a certain number of routine tasks every day - meals, maintenance, laundry, etc. - that would occupy a big part of his day. But, after those are handled, the important question is… What would I like to do with my day?
I will have to think carefully about what I would do as the equivalent to Al’s hunting and fishing. Ideas: reading, letters, cooking, spring cleaning, or merely quiet time outdoors somewhere, sitting digital-free for 20 to 30 minutes doing absolutely nothing. Of course, another activity to add to that list would be family time. I don’t want to get into the mindset where every interaction with my two roommates is seen as an interruption or distraction or forced change of my plans.
For pure pleasure, however, without feeling any compulsion to produce anything, I think fishing must be at the top of the list. What used to be a passion and a frequent activity has become, over the years, more memories than action. It has been years since I had anything that could be called a hobby. Maybe part of my vague dissatisfaction is from that unfilled part of my life. After I left Missouri, I never really had any kind of a hobby. At first, everything was new, novel, and busy with the new lifestyle and new society. But that wore off long ago.
Currently, due to my changed circumstances, my fishing time is limited. I look at the fishing rods hanging in my room and pass them by on my way to do something else. Always there is something else. Too busy. Yes, that is just an excuse. As Harold Blaisdell pointed out, there is a surprisingly large area if one considers just the circle centered around your home with a fifty-mile radius, about one hour’s travel time these days. Surely, somewhere in that large circle, there are at least a few good fishing prospects. No, distance is not the obstacle; just getting out the door is my initial challenge.
Still… making time for it is also a challenge. Too busy these days so blocks of several hours when I am free are rare. Could be done, of course, if it is important enough, but now advance planning is required. Wait a minute, though. Perhaps there is a clue in Three Weeks… As Mac wrote, there can be great pleasure in just puttering with our stuff. “I love to thinker with gear. It’s almost as much fun as using it. Shipshape is the phrase. And it has got to be done continuously, otherwise order will be replaced by disorder and possibly mild-to-acute chaos.” Yes, just getting all my old stuff out of the boxes and cleaning, organizing, sharpening, putting on new line, etc. could provide many happy hours… and with no complications, expense, or travel time. Like reading a book in installments, puttering with fishing gear can fill tiny windows of free time when convenient. Maybe this is what I need to be doing instead of thinking too much.
Another insight: I am still discovering myself, down here at the creek. Peeling the onion of fossilized thinking and routines that have become rituals, realizing that those old patterns have filled my days with nothing more consequential than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. After a few weeks staying in Grandpa’s bus, I am more relaxed and fit. I can see lots of progress but I can also see the need for much more progress. Now I am wondering if this current level of recovery is the beginning of the upward movement that Mac wrote of in so many of his stories. Or am I still going down and will need more time and deeper insights before I finally start up to a more fulfilling, sustainable life?
Reminds me of the story told by Mark Twain. “When I was 14, my father was the stupidest man in the world. By the time I was 21, I was amazed at how much he had learned in seven years.” Will that be me? Will I continue to have even more insights of how I want to live and interact with others and fill my days and free evenings?
(0530) But then I get up to make coffee #2. I enjoy the simple pleasure of a routine activity, repeated so many times that all inefficiencies have been eliminated. I see Al going through the equivalent motions. Not as quick and effortless in his case but he didn’t know about the conveniences I have at my disposal in my imaginary retreat to Grandpa’s bus. I can heat my water in an electric kettle so quickly that I hardly have time to measure out the pre-ground coffee into the drip filter. In the winter, I have an additional step. I pour a first cup of boiling water in the coffee cup to warm it for a couple of minutes before I empty it and pour in the hot coffee. Keeps the coffee hot longer. But not necessary in the summer months.
Next, I become conscious of the river birds starting up their predawn music and I recognize a few calls. I smile and think Al must have heard and recognized and smiled at the birds outside the windows of Mac’s cabin. I feel connected and peaceful and not so lonely. As Mac said, alone but not lonely. Indeed, as I wrote earlier, the only time we are truly and completely free is when we are alone. No miscommunications, no negotiations, no division of labor, no expectations… no problems. (No problems at least until we encounter some situation such as Mac wrote about in The Day I Burned The Oatmeal when we “know what it means to have that indispensable team-mate on hand when things get too much for one man”.)
(0615) Daybreak as I stopped to make coffee #3. Realized that I have spent the entire two hours since I woke up in sitting at my desk. Again. This is what drained my spirit and my energy and sent me down to the creek to recover.
Remember, seeking a better balance between desk and away activities is one of my chief objectives, that, if achieved, will lead to a healthier, more fulfilling, sustainable lifestyle. So, obviously, getting my butt out of my chair must be a high priority as I plan my activities.
Even after my wife and son return from their trip and I have to respect their sleep time, there is much I can do during the early-morning quiet hours. Sunny regards the kitchen as her exclusive domain but I’ll bet that having part of breakfast ready when she opens her eyes would be acceptable.
I remember a story by Will James who wrote that, on the roundups, the cowboy’s favorite sound was the cook grinding coffee because that meant that everything was okay and he, the cowboy, could sleep for another half hour. That would be nice to wake up to even today. I try it with my eleven-year-old son. I often go in and gently wake him 30 to 60 minutes before he actually has to get up. Like the old Three Stooges line, “Wake up and go back to sleep.” It is the gentlest and most loving way I can think of to start his day… by letting him drift back to sleep, knowing that all is well and his father is watching over him - and maybe fixing coffee for him when he gets a little older.
I am beginning to believe that good and adequate sleep - along with good food and sufficient exercise - is the fundamental requirement for a good and peaceful mood. But, immediately after that triumvirate comes a sustainable balance of desk and away activities. I believe that, for me, a 50/50 division would be about right. Only time will confirm that estimate and there is nothing to say that it cannot vary, being influenced by many variables.
But it is absolutely certain that a primarily sedentary lifestyle is devastating for quality of life - my life, anyway. Note: This is not to say that those people who, for various reasons, are forced to adopt a more sedentary lifestyle with the majority of their activities conducted from a chair or even a bed, cannot find a sustainable balance and a quite good quality of life. Variety in environment and variety in activities can be found if one looks for opportunities. We do what we can with what we have. The key, it seems to me, is to thoughtfully plan my activities each day to incorporate more physical activity.
Remember that civilization - with its permanent shelters and villages, domesticated crops and animals, complex social structures, and, most recently, technology-based labor-saving conveniences that reduce the need for physical exertion almost to the vanishing point - is only about 10,000 years old. Historians agree that the very first permanent settlements and all the changes that accompanied them - domesticated crops and animals, private property, division of labor, and divorce attorneys - were formed as recently as 10,000 years ago.
Earlier nomadic hunter/gatherer ancestors lived an almost entirely physically active lifestyle. They spent most of their time trying to survive. We still share their DNA but in modern times many of us have to make a conscious choice to seek an active life as an occasional break from our sedentary lifestyle.
Mac wrote of a doctor who was curing crazy people by giving them jobs that required working with their hands instead of sitting on their butts and thinking too much. Still lots of crazy people around today. Might be a good therapy for many of them. Working with our hands and opening a window to listen to the birds and the river music from the LDF would be better than a computer humming.
Looking around me in my imagination, I see lots and lots of things in Grandpa’s bus that need to be cleaned and repaired, things that require me to get my hands dirty. But, in my real life back at the 18th Floor Homestead, I also see lots and lots of things that need to be cleaned, organized, and replaced or repaired. Some will be major projects; but many can be done as puttering in the evening after the day’s main activities are concluded. A sharp knife is a joy.
Down at Grandpa’s bus on the LDF, in my imaginary retreat, I would take his jon boat with the little electric trolling motor and go out at daybreak on a morning like this and try my luck. Tiny Torpedo or Jitterbug or Hula Popper? As Mac said, I wonder if a new generation of fish would fall for those old favorite lures. Or maybe I would run the branch lines to see what fate and fisherman’s luck had delivered overnight.
True story: That reminds me of the time that Grandpa and Tom and I were in that same little jon boat with the electric trolling motor purring quietly just after daybreak. Drifting under a tree hanging over the water, I stood up in the boat to grab a limb to hold us steady while Grandpa checked the branch line. Standing up, I found myself nose-to-nose with a cottonmouth which was coiled up on the branch I had reached for. Hard to say who was the more surprised. The cottonmouth dropped out of the tree but, unfortunately for all of us, he fell directly into the boat. Tom and I made little chirping noises as we scrambled around avoiding the snake which was frantically trying to find a way out of the boat. Any doubt that it was indeed a deadly cottonmouth was dispelled when he opened his mouth to strike at the paddle Grandpa used to fend him off. Then Grandpa coolly pinned him to the bottom of the boat with the paddle and used his handmade knife with the six-inch blade - I still have that knife - to cut off its head and toss the snake overboard. The rest of the run was uneventful but that memory can still bring me fully awake instantly even today.
I don’t mean we should deliberately seek dangerous situations; that would be foolish. High-risk behavior, repeated long enough, inevitably catches up with you. But to live fully means occasionally finding ourselves in situations or environments that we cannot predict or control. Those things cannot be found while we are sitting in front of a computer.
Don’t get me wrong, Incorrigibles. I am not advocating a return to the primitive lifestyle of our hunter/gatherer forefathers. Not at all. Not even the modern equivalent of growing a few rows of beans in your backyard or on the balcony Walden-style or going dumpster diving behind the fast food restaurants. I am immensely grateful for the pharmaceutical cocktail of meds I take each day to keep me upright and relatively unlimited in my choices of activities. Even better is the comforting reassurance that our modern medical establishment will be available when I need it. My only complaint in this long dirge is that it is so very easy to get trapped in a daily routine that is too far removed from the physically active lifestyle of our forefathers… and which our body is still built for.
Three cups of coffee has me stirring and hungry. Time to send this to the group and get busy. Today, I will find my old reel and see if it is still functioning. I have new line to put on it. Maybe do a little casting in the backyard to see if I have any skill left. Then maybe I will bake a batch of Sweet Cream Biscuits - as Mac said, “that people often talk about but seldom can get”. I used to be able to get them on the table in thirty minutes, door to door, with the kitchen cleaned up while they baked.
Time to finish planning my day, and begin the first set of activities. A vital factor in the success of this new regimen will be to have my day at least roughly planned before I go to sleep to ensure a 50/50 balance from the moment I wake up and make that first cup of coffee. As Mac wrote in Three Weeks…, use each day - and each part of the day - for what it is most suitable. Can anyone do better?
Gonna be a good day.
If any of this attempt to organize my thinking and my actions strikes you as a botch-and-fumble approach to life, you are probably right. Too much spinning in circles. Still, I guess that recognizing that there is a problem is the first step to solving the problem. Glad I have a few more weeks down at the creek to get my head clear.
If you can relate to any of this rambling, welcome to join me for a cup of early morning coffee, the best coffee of the day. And, if you are feeling generous, you can pay for the coffee at: