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Off the Grid

A cabin in the woods, but not spooky.

By Carlos Gomez

May 22^nd, 2021

For a while now, I've been growing more and more apprehensive about my relationship with screens and constant connectedness. I often find myself scrolling my phone aimlessly, bouncing between apps with stale content I saw just moments before. Reflexively typing ⌘+T in Chrome all day long when I should be working on something else.

I'm reminded of a joke about how we spend most of our waking hours just shuffling between different rectangles. Spent all day looking at work rectangle? Time to unwind by looking at smaller rectangle, while ignoring Netflix on the 55" rectangle.

Time to wake up? Let me grab the doom rectangle and catch up on all the bad that happened in the intervening six hours.

Sleep poorly, lather, rinse, repeat.

Log Off

So I drove to rural Oregon to stay in a cabin in the woods. 🚙.

To be more precise: as part of the last leg of a larger road trip to the Pacific Northwest in March, I found a remote cabin on Airbnb to stay for a few days.

Situated on the Nehalem River, about an hour away from the Oregon coast, it offered three exceedingly rare amenities: no cell service, no Internet connectivity and no TV. I was in.

🌧

I lucked out insofar as the forecast for the time I would be there was almost entirely rain. It made it much easier to stay put and not weasel out of this. Plus, I'm a big sucker for rain on the roof sounds while staying cozy inside.

Small breaks in the storm did afford a chance to roam around a bit, grab extra firewood, and appreciate the cabin design. I also found the umbrella I thought I had lost on the ferry long ago.

Day 1

To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure what I was hoping for, or if I actually understood what I wanted out of the time away. I brought too much stuff as a hedge for being at a loss on what to do.

I unpacked, set up a makeshift office and then bounced between different projects I hoped to make some progress on. But even without the Internet, I couldn't seem to buckle down and get to work in a meaningful way.

🐻

After a while, I threw in the towel and just started looking around. One major discovery was that this section of flooring in the cabin 1,000% looks like a bear with outstretched arms and nobody can convince me otherwise.

Day 2

Way less outrage and anger when birds are the ones doing the tweeting. Good job, birds.

The Tree

While the first day was a bit of an adjustment, the second was a bit easier having loosened ambitions for some magical productivity catharsis.

I continued trying to be a better observer. Looking at the cabin, the things I brought, the natural environment — everything. There was something of value to be seen in almost all of it, in part that there wasn't value in some of it. More on that in a bit.

But one of the things I couldn't stop looking at throughout the day was this lone tree atop a hill west of cabin. Asymmetrical and unimposing, yet prominent.

Among a sea of stumps on a mostly barren hill, its presence was reassuring and made me smile.

Terrific tree.

13/10.

🌤

Every once in a while, the sun would break through and the natural light was 💯.

Day 3+

It took a while, but I think I cracked what was wrong. The Internet and constant push notifications weren't the entirety of the issue. A lot of it is was about creating the affordance and space to do nothing, or to do just one thing.

I had eliminated one source of distraction, but then had immediately replaced it with podcasts or music. Removing part of the stimulus is helpful, but if you're hoping to disconnect, you actually have to do it all — giving your brain some space to stretch its legs and wander the forest. Maybe I need to workshop that metaphor a bit more.

Once that was out of the way, I got down to work. I mapped out on paper my key priorities for the year ahead, and then switched to my laptop when it was time to go in depth on each.

It was helpful to start with pen and paper to get started. I'm not one to get weird about analog tools, but not jumping right to a blinking cursor and infinite possible distraction has value.

📚

Wherever I move next, there is one new set of criteria: a reading nook and natural light.

After I made it over the hump of understanding how to actually do less and be a bit more focused, I was much more at ease. I made great use of the reading nook/impromptu fainting couch, both during rainy and sunny stretches. I dog-eared many assignments from The Photographer's Playbook that I hope to work into future time off.

In the meantime, I ought to make more use of the generous morning light of my current apartment to dedicate a little more time to reading or some creative endeavors.

Okay, this has mostly devolved into a cabin appreciation post. I am at peace with this.

🧀

On the way to the cabin, driving down from Washington, I stopped in Portland to pick up groceries and as a creature of habit, made what I normally would at home (read: a kick-ass hearty salad).

I did keep it regionally on brand with some Two Towns Cosmic Cider.

Wrap Up

Overall, this was time well spent. It took three of the four days to actually start to destress and take it more seriously, but when it clicked, it was quite nice. Understanding that there are different levels to this also matters.

I hadn't realized before that listening to podcasts in the background almost all the time can be one of the things that doesn't let my mind rest or be present in the moment. Music is similar in a number of ways.

I also came to find there's a lot of benefit in switching up some of the tools I use to map out projects and ideas. Writing things down by hand can be complementary to 130 words a minute on a computer. One isn't better than another, but speed can inhibit clarity.

And there's also something to be said for puttering, experimenting, and being somewhere beautiful and unfamiliar. A lot of the time spent had little immediately realizable value, yet still felt worthwhile.