My First Year Off Grid

This idea was simple enough, keep a safe distance from danger. We all learn this as children and at other monumental times throughout our life. Now, my plan was a sound one. I would only dip my toe into the raging river that was the wilderness life. This way, there would be no danger that I would be trampled into the forest floor of pine needles and leaves by Mother Nature.  These secret gardens of the outdoors remind me of Midas and his kingdom of gold as I walk along it in Autumn. It seems everything I touch, breath, and observe in the forest becomes a golden treasure.  Treasures of adventure, hardship, wonder, freezing cold and searing heat.  Most never get a chance to feel these treasures.  Because of fear, we shield ourselves!  We do this by building four walls, a roof, and close ourselves in. A house holds nature at bay with central air, gas heating, and a surround sound theater system.  This way we don’t have to feel the heat of summer.  We won’t get chilled by the winter’s winds.  And we won’t be disturbed by the sounds of the outside world.  Instead, we keep our temperature around us at a comfortable 72 degrees year round.  We surround ourselves with music, movies, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, zombies on tv, love stories, and drama.  This way we don’t have to experience it in real life. At the end of an hour or two we simply click it off.

If we wander outside, out into nature, out into life, our warmth comes from a warmth fueled not by electricity, but by chunks of our ego. Logs of our confidence as it builds with the accomplishments that lay beyond our phones, computers, security systems, and of house lights.

I was to take a year away.  I was to keep my distance while living an adventurous life. The entire time only dipping enough of one toe into it to get a sensation of what lies out there.  Yes, I would split wood, make a fire, cook on my wood stove, and it would chill me just enough to give me goosebumps that ran the entirety of my spine. That is, if I still had one after the safe life I lived while making sure the danger was locked out after dark.

This is when it happened. I remember it as if it were yesterday.  I got too close. One day as I dipped my toe in to just test the water as they say, I slipped in and went under. I was swept down steam.  When I came up to catch my breath to the surface of the wilderness, I saw it.  I saw a lifestyle that I had only dreamed of as a child before darkness would pull me under the blanket of sleep. I would imagine a life in the woods. A life in a tent or cabin.  A life of rising with the sun and going to sleep when it sets. 

The day I slipped in scared me a bit. I tried to keep my distance from it for a while. But it was no use. The river of wilderness and adventure pulled me beneath the surface again and again.  I started to dream of places to find, adventures to grab onto, squeeze, smell, and taste.

For a person who had the great fortune to grow up comfortable, loved and safe, it almost gave me a guilt to now dive head first into this new-found life.

I shall no longer walk to the edge of the wilderness pond and dip my toe. I shall immerse myself into this life of unknown adventures. When my family and friends are with me, we shall take off our shoes and socks and test the waters with a toe at a safe distance. But when alone I will run full out as I did as a child in a wide open field.  I shall plant my foot firmly on the rock furthest out towards the edge and push off with all that I have inside.