It Wouldn't Be That Hard, Especially Now.
Gill wept in a taqueria in Mexico City. Natalie was overcome with shock crowded around a tv with other foreigners on an island in Indonesia. Karl contemplated what would come next from his apartment in Beijing. Keem tried his best to hold himself together for his pre-schoolers in his classroom in Tokyo. Everyone around them felt seemingly just as nervous for what lay ahead.
I looked down upon the sea of faces below me, mostly Australian, English, German, Portuguese. There probably weren’t many Americans in the crowd – if any at all. I wondered how they felt about everything that had happened in the last week or so. Their expressions told me that they were happy–at least for the moment. Laughter and smiles spread across the crowd as they drank from their Sagres beers, passed joints to their neighbors and swayed and bobbed effortlessly to the reggaeton dance mix erupting from the monstrous stack of speakers situated next to the dj booth. Dirty blonde and brown dreadlocks dangled and gently dribbled off many of their backs as they danced. They didn’t look worried. But shouldn’t they have been? I mean the news of the results of the U.S. presidential election could significantly impact them as well. It can and almost definitely will impact all of us. But they danced on. I think they were nervous on the inside. I think they just hid it well or numbed it with copious amounts of cold, cheap beer and weed smoke – many of us choose to do the same. But this was their place of refuge. This was their night off from worrying about real problems. A friday night far, far away from the worries of the world. And trust me, we were really far away from the real world.
After turning off the main road and down a dirt one, we had driven for another 30 minutes around bends, twists and turns that weaved through Portugal’s hills as if we were following the braids of her hair as we traveled on. Eventually her luscious locks led us right to a commune-turned hippy-rave tucked away under the cloak of the cloudless night sky. That’s where I stood, accompanied by Roger, the owner of the farmstead I was working at and two other young workers who had recently joined the team; one from Australia, the other New Zealand. The set-up was pretty awesome. This little hippy-farm offered unlimited homemade (vegan) pizza, a bar with cold cervezas and boxed wine, and a large area for some quality ‘free-flowing” dancing. Maybe these free-spirits aren’t worried or nervous at all, I thought to myself. Maybe they had escaped any need to fret over things like politics or foreign policy. They were far more concerned with feeding their horses or seeing to their crops. It was a simple life. But such a fulfilling and beautiful one.
I started considering this hypothetical situation some time ago amongst the midst of my travels; What if I were to run away from it all, and live a simple life? I want to say the thought first came to me sometime in Thailand but I can’t be certain. You understand the kind of life I’m referring to, right? The one where you have a little hut on an island somewhere in the tropics and make your living selling fresh fish at a nearby market, or the one where you buy a little cabin in some remote area and live off the land away from civilization. Most people see this lifestyle as unrealistic or fantastical; I used to as well. But traveling made me realize people do it all the time. I mean Roger, the English guy I was working for, pretty much did it. At one point he was a well paid, and sought after financial analyst/advisor. He was working in the U.K. and making real, good money. But I guess there was a moment when Roger realized that he wasn’t happy. That’s when he moved to India (and later Thailand) to work with rescued Elephants and various other animals. Years later he would find a nice little place in the south of Portugal with a lot of land where he could settle down and have plenty of space for all of his rescued animals; this is where I ended up living and working for three weeks.
There was also Carmen. I met her in a hostel I was staying at in Lisbon. She told me the story of how years ago as a young women who had her own business with 9 or 10 employees she walked away from it all. “I had the nicest couch in my living room and I never sat on it. I had the best TV money could buy and I never watched it. I spent every hour of the day working”, she told me. “One day I decided this wasn’t how I wanted to live, so I sold everything I owned besides some clothes, a lamp and a bed”. She spent the next couple of years traveling from place to place before finally returning to her home country of Portugal. But she was determined to not return to the life she had been previously living. So instead of accepting the numerous, lucrative job offers she was handed, she decided to start working in hostels as a workaway. That way she could live how she wanted to live. She explained that she did have a side job helping the disabled, but other than that she was living out of hostels at 40 years old. But she was happy and couldn’t imagine herself living any other way.
What if I were to leave it all behind? The thought continued to pester me as I met more incredible people who had done it successfully. And then it happened. What everyone feared but denied could ever “realistically” happen, happened. Donald Trump became the United States of America’s president elect. I sat at the table with Roger, each of us with a bowl of vegan friendly, raisin-bran cereal with soy-milk in front of us listening as the headlines came pouring in. Hilary had conceded. Trump had won. I looked at Roger. He had a small, sly, devilish smile on his face. “So, how does it feel?”, he asked astutely. It feels like it wouldn’t be that hard to runaway from it all, especially now, I thought to myself.
But running away isn’t the answer. Don’t get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for those who I’ve met along the road who’ve made nice lives for themselves away from civilization or just constantly on the road. The simple life – it is appealing. There would be far less worries. Far less stress. Far less arguments on FB over politics. Far less fear. But it still isn’t the answer for those of us who are currently facing the evident, problematic situation that is Trump’s election victory. I’ve seen numerous posts on social media from people who, though are seemingly being humorous, are subtly serious, about running away from it all – whether it be to Canada or somewhere else in the world. I understand how you feel, but trust me it won’t cure your ailment. It’s time for us to face our problems face on. We’ve avoided them for quite some time now. As a nation, we’ve become good at being temporarily passionate. Temporarily speaking out about current issues then forgetting them seconds later. But we can’t brush this one aside. We can’t just forget this one and let it fade away. We have to roll up our sleeves, buckle down, and not just be temporarily passionate about this issue. This is the leader of the free world we’re talking about here. This guy is here to stay. But we can make the best of it. We can use this to ignite change. I have no doubt in my mind. As my friend and fellow writer Sy Stokes so eloquently put it in his recent article The Little Rock 10th, “As we begin this new endeavor, the fight for liberation will live on, and so will you. Do not lay dormant when confronted with hatred”.
In Tokyo, Keem said, “Everybody was tripping like shit…[we] thought about out families back home, what could happen and what could it mean”. In Indonesia Natalie said, “Being a quiet island, you could likely hear Trump's voice from clear to the other end, which explained the influx of onlookers from all around the world that gathered quickly around us and the TV...Everyone was in shock, scared, and somehow incredibly informed about our politics…”. From Portugal I felt the same anxiousness, nervousness and tension all around me, and it was coming from non-americans. My point is that something as big as this may be impossible to outrun – no matter how far away we scamper. So let’s try to look at it optimistically; as impracticable as that may sound. We are now presented with a time like no other in our nation's history. But it doesn’t have to mean that the apocalypse is upon us. While talking to Gill she presented me with the perfect anecdote/metaphor; “A natural forest fire is nature's way of resetting the ecosystem. The devastation left by a forest fire leads to a healthier environment, actually allowing for more growth. Something hopeful to hold on to”. Let’s see where this forest fire leads us.
-G
