We live in a noisy world. Horns honk, loud pipes save lives, and media blasts us.
Silence is a rare commodity these days.
Back in the day I was in the construction business. During the spring melt in the Northwoods there was a slack time between things drying up and the next building season. That down time was the perfect opportunity to head out to the backcountry of the American Southwest and slip into the landscape.
I owned a four-wheel drive pickup truck that had an insulated bed topper. With the addition of an air mattress, a sleeping bag, and a cooler big enough to hold two- or three-days’ worth of beer, bottled water, and sandwich makings; that work truck was transformed into a comfortable backcountry adventure touring machine.
Indeed, within the nine-year period owning that truck, in aggregate 3 ½ months were spent sleeping in that truck bed in the backcountry of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Southern California. But mostly Utah.
One noteworthy outing began with stocking the cooler in Moab, then venturing out into the San Rafael Swell.
On the first day out I turned off the truck radio and the cellphone, not that there was any cell coverage anyway. It was quite unusual not to see another soul out on the trails.
At a first glance from out on the open rangeland from many of the vantage points, the San Rafael Swell appears to be a rather vast bread and butter desert landscape.
It simply is vast.
And it is truly humbling to look towards the horizon then turn and do a full 360-degree view and soak in that incredible expanse. Even the most nonreligious person will surely feel like a tiny child safely cradled in the palm of God’s hand when out on the rangeland of the San Rafael Swell.
But then carved out of that open rangeland are labyrinths of canyons and buttes and washes. Within those are beautiful and captivating landforms as well as pictographs and glyph panels depicting the secrets of the ancients who once lived and traversed the Swell. In modern terms, other than some random cattle, an occasional decrepit pump jack, or an old and abandoned glory hole wildcat uranium prospect, there is little evidence of the hand of present-day humankind.
Which suits me just fine.
I remained silent, kept the truck radio and the cellphone silent, encountered no other human beings, and kept on wandering and exploring and soaking in the overwhelming majesty.
Truth be told, I am a sweaty man and by late morning of the third day out it was time to wash up, not that there were any other human beings present in my little cloistered universe to offend. The provisions were also exhausted, but I remained hydrated by drinking the rather horrible tasting melted ice water out of the cooler.
The monk-like silence would soon have to end with a trip into Moab to restock.
There was erosion on the shore of the Green River that washed out the brutal tamarisk brush and offered a gap with access to the water. I stripped down then made my way down the bank. The first steps into the water were stingingly cold and felt like electrical shocks, and each tiny splash to wet my body was breathtaking.
About the time I was lathered up, faint human voices could be heard in the distance. Moments later two kayakers came around the bend flanking the far bank.
And there I was, bare ass naked, soapy, and knee deep in the frigid spring melt water of the Green River.
Perhaps it was a sense of modesty or perhaps it was being self-conscious of an extraordinary amount of shrinkage that made me wade out a little deeper and slip into the water until only my head was above. The water was painfully cold, and my heart pounded like a sledgehammer.
It should have been impossible for me to go unnoticed but perhaps the kayakers felt as awkward as I did. Perhaps they pretended not to notice. Or perhaps, they wanted to afford me a last shred of dignity. They passed and I retreated shivering violently and with blue lips. Upon drying off and first crawling into sleeping bag for about a half of hour then laying out in the warm sun, the shivering subsided.
I was at first bitter that it had been others who ended the two-and-a-half-day period devoid of human voices and not me. But they too were on their own quest. No doubt rounding a bend and discovering a naked soapy scrubbing off the stink man in the river probably harshed the buzz of their experience as well.
All is fair and all is forgiven in embarrassing situations.
And now, over twenty years later, the significance of that adventure and experience and that wonderful silence still resonates within me. And these days it no longer takes a trip to an exotic land and a vow of silence and drinking cooler water that tastes like spoiled lunch meat for me to silence the mayhem of the world.
A television set that is seldom turned on was a good first start. A walk through the woods with Stormie the Trail Dog and a loved one instills serenity. An unexpected and easy conversation with a random stranger discussing a common interest can silence a lot of the incessant vitriol and shouting that is all about us. And while it is becoming increasingly difficult to find truly wild places anymore, getting intentionally lost in such wild places can insert some life changing peace and quiet into the very fiber of one’s being.
Happy Earth Day, fellow earthlings.
The Unexpected Minimalist 