“This evening I begin a notebook. If anyone reads this, I trust they will forgive my overuse of "I". I can't stop it. I'm writing this.”
― Jonathan Franzen
This quote made me laugh. That's in many ways captures how I feel about this blog.
The article Jonathan Franzen wrote about traveling to a remote island off of Chile has stuck with me. First of all it was so well-articulated and poignant. You were there with him. It also reminded me of a childhood experience I had with my family. We had traveled to Norway on a 'family trip' which was really code for my father wanted to go fly fishing. I was about 8 or 9, I believe. He also wanted to go see this rare puffin off of the coast of Norway on this island called Roast. So after the fishing, we went to Roast. Trust me, almost no one has ever been there. It is very similar to Franzen's experience on his island. It is remote and rugged and far far away from everything known. Often our family trips growing up were focussed around my father's desire to see something rare and hardly seen, mostly animals though sometimes historical things. In Norway, we hopped a helicopter to an island that was long and flat, like a spit of sand in the Atlantic. I couldn't believe people lived there but they did. My brother and I were the sherpas of the family so we dragged our bags all the way to the end of the island to catch a boat. I remember us being strung out like a line of beads along this eternal road from "airstrip" to "dock". It was all pretty rustic. We got on the small fishing boat and headed for the high seas. But it was before GPS, and it was the thickest fog I've ever seen so we became lost in the Atlantic for about 5-7 hours. What should have taken 1 hour, became epic and more than a little scary. It's never good when the captain starts looking worried and soothing himself with shot after shot of whiskey. My dad and mom started to partake as well if I remember. We finally got to the little island beside Roast where we would spend the night. It should have been called Cat Island because there were cats everywhere. I remember there being a pool table somewhere on the island but we couldn't play because there were so many cats jumping all over the place inside and outside. We waited several days for the weather to clear and then headed with a crew of professional birders to the island. It was rugged and intense. I was wearing the equivalent of bermuda shorts and a tank top, my sister wore a dress with flats, the real birders had on full all-weather expedition gear. I'm not even sure we had water bottles. I remember thinking that this seems like a really, really bad idea when I looked up at the sheer rock cliffs.
What reminded me of this story was when Franzen is dropped off alone on this island wholly unprepared for how extreme the elements were. His neurotically funny recounting of the story was reminiscent of those moments of awkward laughter where you think to yourself, this could kill me. He sets up his tent, it is almost immediately crushed by the wind. He goes in search of the bird and almost dies, then gets lost on the way back because the fog is so dense.
He realized maybe he'd gone a little far with it all, he wishes he could be back at home, and then the clouds break and he throws his dear friend's ashes to the wind.
“Readers and writers are united in their need for solitude, in their pursuit of substance in a time of ever-increasing evanescence: in their reach inward, via print, for a way out of loneliness.”
― Jonathan Franzen, How to Be Alone: Essays
Roast was the most remote place I'd ever been at that time. Everything about it felt remote and a little bit out of control. It was an amazing feeling and I sought it out many times after that day in various ways through travel and climbing. I have been so housebound these last two weeks, I am grateful for this story and the places it takes me. Stories about people's lives make good company.
― Jonathan Franzen
This quote made me laugh. That's in many ways captures how I feel about this blog.
The article Jonathan Franzen wrote about traveling to a remote island off of Chile has stuck with me. First of all it was so well-articulated and poignant. You were there with him. It also reminded me of a childhood experience I had with my family. We had traveled to Norway on a 'family trip' which was really code for my father wanted to go fly fishing. I was about 8 or 9, I believe. He also wanted to go see this rare puffin off of the coast of Norway on this island called Roast. So after the fishing, we went to Roast. Trust me, almost no one has ever been there. It is very similar to Franzen's experience on his island. It is remote and rugged and far far away from everything known. Often our family trips growing up were focussed around my father's desire to see something rare and hardly seen, mostly animals though sometimes historical things. In Norway, we hopped a helicopter to an island that was long and flat, like a spit of sand in the Atlantic. I couldn't believe people lived there but they did. My brother and I were the sherpas of the family so we dragged our bags all the way to the end of the island to catch a boat. I remember us being strung out like a line of beads along this eternal road from "airstrip" to "dock". It was all pretty rustic. We got on the small fishing boat and headed for the high seas. But it was before GPS, and it was the thickest fog I've ever seen so we became lost in the Atlantic for about 5-7 hours. What should have taken 1 hour, became epic and more than a little scary. It's never good when the captain starts looking worried and soothing himself with shot after shot of whiskey. My dad and mom started to partake as well if I remember. We finally got to the little island beside Roast where we would spend the night. It should have been called Cat Island because there were cats everywhere. I remember there being a pool table somewhere on the island but we couldn't play because there were so many cats jumping all over the place inside and outside. We waited several days for the weather to clear and then headed with a crew of professional birders to the island. It was rugged and intense. I was wearing the equivalent of bermuda shorts and a tank top, my sister wore a dress with flats, the real birders had on full all-weather expedition gear. I'm not even sure we had water bottles. I remember thinking that this seems like a really, really bad idea when I looked up at the sheer rock cliffs.
What reminded me of this story was when Franzen is dropped off alone on this island wholly unprepared for how extreme the elements were. His neurotically funny recounting of the story was reminiscent of those moments of awkward laughter where you think to yourself, this could kill me. He sets up his tent, it is almost immediately crushed by the wind. He goes in search of the bird and almost dies, then gets lost on the way back because the fog is so dense.
He realized maybe he'd gone a little far with it all, he wishes he could be back at home, and then the clouds break and he throws his dear friend's ashes to the wind.
“Readers and writers are united in their need for solitude, in their pursuit of substance in a time of ever-increasing evanescence: in their reach inward, via print, for a way out of loneliness.”
― Jonathan Franzen, How to Be Alone: Essays
Roast was the most remote place I'd ever been at that time. Everything about it felt remote and a little bit out of control. It was an amazing feeling and I sought it out many times after that day in various ways through travel and climbing. I have been so housebound these last two weeks, I am grateful for this story and the places it takes me. Stories about people's lives make good company.
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