Time is Relative
Journal #12
October 20th, 2021
A few days ago we arrived at a Hipcamp west of Elk Creek deep in southwestern Virginia. How to describe this place? It’s hard to give words to it. We camped in a field tucked in a valley bounded by mountains dotted with red leaved maples and purpling dogwoods on one side and the meandering goose creek on the other side. The view gave us ever-changing pastoral eye candy; a brightly waxing moon and stars at twilight, pink cotton sunrises. Our only visitors were a small doe foraging nearby and the occasional soaring hawk. In the morning we heard the snort and heavy footfall of what we think was a black bear nearby. At night, just the rustle of the trees in the wind and the faint sound of water over rocks. It was beyond beautiful.
Last night Tom and I got to talking about how we are experiencing time on this journey; we both noted that time seems to expand and contract on the road. Particularly memorable events like our days at Elk Creek or here at Grayson State Park have their own significant gravity and pull; time seems to slow measurably as we explore and experience new places, especially ones with such quiet stunning visual beauty.
On the other hand, on days we are engaged in more routine activities like packing up, gassing up the van or grocery shopping and moving to our next destination, time seems to speed up. We have taken to measuring time by our experiences (“wasn’t that was the day we climbed to the abandoned barn?” Or, “That was the night the wind was howling… which was the day before we saw the wild ponies, right?)
In fact, we are finding it difficult to remember what day or date it is.
It feels like a radical departure from measuring “time” as we knew it.
Our lives back in New Jersey, time felt more like a “steady flow” with familiar routines, patterns, landscapes and places with time measured more by weekdays and weekends.
Perhaps it is like flipping “normal life” on its head-
our life right now is series of short bursts of routine with the vast majority of time filled with constant new and different rather than the other way around.
The “constant” of new and different experiences is joyful and exhilarating as well as uniquely stressful at times. More on this— in particular, a phenomena I will call decision paralysis, in another entry!
On the road time seems to bend and shift differently and there is a disorienting quality to this expansion and contraction. We have been traveling for nearly two months. We are finding that using “experience time” is a bit like measuring time in dog years; it seems like ages ago that we rolled into NJ for my dentist appointment because there have been so many new, different and amazing experiences (on so many fronts—visually, physically, emotionally, intellectually), in between then and now… but in actual “traditionally measured” time that visit was less than two weeks ago.
Tonight we are sitting at our campfire. There is a full hunter’s moon rising through the stands of trees on the ridge. We are at 4200 ft - up on a ridge in Grayson State park in Virginia. The fall foliage is glowing. We watch the logs burn red and blue and feel the coals ripple with heat. We are experiencing the disorienting magic of time standing still.
As we continue our journey we would love to hear from you about content and topics you would enjoy. More entries on places and people? More entries on specific experiences with the van itself? Commentary on great/not so great food and drink? Please leave requests and comments below. We want your ideas!
I would love to hear about a meal you cooked in the van. I’m fascinated by the logistics involved in cooking with a limited pantry, limited fridge. Do you avoid pan frying (even a small amount of grease spatter seems like a bad idea in the van)? Do you set up your cook top outside? In addition to not wanting a ton of leftovers, I imagine you wouldn’t want many left over ingredients. My fridge door right now has half jars of Thai red curry paste, gochujang, olives, peperoncini, horseradish, etc, etc. I’d love to hear what you’ve come up with to cook in the van.