12 Months Sleeping Outside

Suck Creek Canyon and the Tennessee River Gorge

Sleeping outside is good for you. Evidence? Oh, so you’re Mr. Science Guy now. Here’s a sentence from the Journal of Environment and Behavior that’ll make you absolutely want to scrape your eyeballs out: 

“Analysis revealed a positive, linear association between the density of trees and self-reported stress recovery, adjusted R² = .05, F(1, 149) = 8.53, p < .01.” 

STEM ruins beauty. Compare that to this poem by Wendell Berry:

"I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free." 

I spent the year trying to regularly, once a month, rest in the peace of wild things and it was liberating. This dumb little goal helped me feel a lot more like myself but I have no evidence to prove it and also I'm no poet. So here's some beauty-ruining data and crappy iPhone photos from a year of sleeping outside once a month. 

Figure 1

I did not sleep outside in February or August. Mid-February, Rebecca and I took our first trip away since the pandemic started. Ultimately, because of COVID restrictions, we really just did the same thing we do in Chattanooga, except in a cabin in the woods. We went for hikes, watched T.V., got dinner out, brought it back to the house, and ate. R.V. people call that "camping" so it's on the list but is not included in the subsequent data. August is just terrible and I didn't even try to sleep outside. Who cares? Not me. 

I wrote trip reports for a few of these, which you can read HERE. 

Russ vintage mountain bike-packing through north Florida pine forests

Figure 2

Ten out of 11 trips were with friends. I think that speaks for itself. I also appreciate the variety of folks I was able to share these spaces with; ranging from my life-long best friend, Russ to Reid and Leah and their one-year-old daughter. Max and Brooks take the cake for most trips (Max was part of the King Family Campout). 

Max riding out of the fog in Prentice Cooper State Forest

Figures 3.a and 3.b

Getting outside doesn’t have to be complicated. “Aim small, miss small.”80% of these monthly adventures were overnighters within an hour or two of home. This is pretty easy in a town like Chattanooga and I'm thankful for that. But I think that a lot of us can find these small adventures near our respective towns. 

adventure from the front door somewhere on Lookout Mountain

Figure 4

83% of nights slept outside were on public land. Public land conjures images of dense forests and spacious deserts managed by the US Forest Service or  Bureau of Land Management but let's not forget about our state parks! State parks get a bad rap, I think, because, well honestly, they can be bougie and touristy and feature things like zip lines and golf courses. But some of our iconic outdoor spaces are our state parks: Eldorado Canyon in Colorado or Cloudland Canyon in Georgia. What incredible resources we should protect. 

Becca overlooking Savage Gulf at the South Cumberland State Park

Figure 5

2021 was the year of bikepacking. This was by design as part of the reason I set this goal was to bikepack more. A note on the "other:" this includes car-camping with Rebecca's family and sleeping in my parent's backyard. 

all that bikpacking and only one flat...

Figure 6

I slept outside for years, months at a time even, without owning a tent. Cowboy or cowgirl or cowperson camping is the purest form of sleeping outside and it’s in my blood. I finally bought my first nice tent back in 2018 and I got some good use out of it this year but I still prefer no separation between me and the open air. Again, I want to emphasize the point that camping doesn't have to be complicated. Camping tentless is lighter, simpler, and in my opinion, better. 

Brooks cowperson camping in Suck Creek Canyon

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Not My Words: And God Said, Let There Be Marshes

Palmetto Island, Florida

I grew up in Florida surrounded by swamps, marshes, and estuaries. However much time I spend in the mountains, these grey areas between land and sea are home to me. Maybe it is because of this that I was so struck by Austen Hartke's reflection on the biblical creation poem in Genesis. The following words are his, discovered in a recent book club read. I leave them here, without comment, for you to ponder in your heart.  

"For a kid who liked order and organization, the story of creation in Genesis 1 was just about perfect. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. This kind of structure was something that I appreciated up until my teen years, when I began to get a better sense of the way life sometimes fell outside black-and-white boundaries. Biologically, I learned that the world isn't separated distinctly into land or sea; there are also marshes, estuaries, and coral reefs...These binaries are not meant to speak to all of reality -- they invite us into thinking about everything between and beyond... 

Instead of asking the text to define and label all that is, we can ask God to speak into the space between the words, between the biblical times and our time, and between categories we see as opposite." -- Austen Hartke, Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians (2018)

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This is a nanoadventure.

I zipped up my sleeping bag and took a long look at the blanket of distant stars stretching across the dark velvet sky. The panoply of the cosmos bounded by a frame of loblolly pines that gently swayed in the wind. The vast otherness of the universe, surrounded by a deep sense of rootedness. An irony emphasized by the fact that I was cowboy camping in my parents’ garden some twenty yards from their unlocked living room. 

My 2021 goal was to go camping once a month. I was mostly successful and felt good about being back in the rhythm of regularly sleeping outside, even if just a little bit. I did miss August and maybe February on a technicality because, well, those months suck. When my November bikepacking plans fell through, I was determined to not lose another month. Even if it meant sleeping in my parents’ backyard while on holiday. Which is what happened.

So that evening, I kissed my wife and dog goodnight and strode forth into the backyard alone, arms akimbo, with a sleeping bag under one arm and a sleeping pad under the other.

You may have heard of Alastair Humphreys' popularized "microadventure." He describes them as the espresso shots of outdoor adventure: concentrated bursts of being outside when you cannot climb Kilimanjaro. This, however, was more of a nanoadventure. 

A nanoadventure is a night in the backyard star-gazing, story-telling, or experimenting with a new sleep system. It requires no planning, logistics, or travel. It merely gets you outside. Which, on its own terms, is pretty cool. 

A nanoadventure is closely related to the microadventure. A nanometer is 1,000 times smaller than a micrometer, so this is not a to-scale metaphor. A microadventure is an S24O bikepacking or overnight backpacking trip. There are some maps and logistics involved, but not much. Just a lot of fun. 

Microadventures rule but trips are what we look forward to. Spring break at the Red River Gorge, a cross country road trip to go skiing, backpacking the Appalachian Trail -- these are all trips. They require varying degrees of planning: plane tickets, resupplies, and lots of maps. We love trips. The nanoadventure is a dry run for the microadventure, which is practice for your upcoming big trip. 

Expeditions are the trips we read about. Kathy Karlo big-wall climbing the Pico Cão Grande in the jungles of São Tomé. Matthieu Tordeur solo skiing across the Antarctic unsupported. Kim McNett and Bjørn Olson circumnavigating the Lost Coast of Alaska on fat bikes and packrafts. These are big-time, big-budget endeavors. You and I will likely never go on an expedition. That's why Humphreys brought microadventures into vogue. 

Trips, big or small, and microadventures are more achievable than expeditions and more preferable to nanoadventures. But guess what? The stars above my parents' garden are the same stars above the last least explored corners of the earth. And the familiar song of coyotes I heard from their backyard is the same serenade I heard years ago in the high desert mountains of northern New Mexico. The range and abundance of coyotes in the United States make it as exotic as the common squirrel. Yet I challenge anyone to hear its howl and not instantly feel like Edward Abbey — alone in the world and at home in the wilderness even if that "wilderness" is twenty yards from your childhood bedroom.  

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2021 Favorite Things

Survivor

My friend Reid publishes a weekly newsletter, "Email for Talking." Each week there is a segment titled "Things That Treated Me Well." Coincidentally, Email for Talking treated me very well. It is in that spirit that I publish this year's third annual list of favorite things. These are the things -- food, gear, media, places, and people that treated me well this year. 

Survivor 

Though this list is in no particular order, it must start with binge-watching Survivor. I talk about Survivor the way sports dorks discuss fantasy football: gameplay, strategy, player strengths and weaknesses, I slurp it up. My heart belongs to the Golden Age of the mid-2000s where Yule is God, J.T. is Jesus, and Parvati is the Holy Spirit. 

Survivor Wednesdays  

Rebecca and I fell in love with Survivor streaming i.e., binge-watching. Now that Survivor is back on the air, we're watching it the old-fashioned way: on T.V., week-to-week, with our friends. I'm betting the farm on DeShawn.

Cherokee National Forest 

Ancestral lands of the Tsalaguwetiyi (Cherokee) and S'atsoyaha (Yuchi); currently under the management of the U.S. Forest Service. Miles upon miles of gravel an hour east of Chattanooga. 

Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

The history of the world's youngest and second-fastest religion is WILD and Krakauer is a literary giant worthy of writing about its most diabolical sects.   

my friend Brooks 

Brooks is easily one of the most generous persons I know. Here is an honest-to-God text thread we exchanged before a bikepacking trip in which Brooks cannibalized his own bike to give me his brake levers so I could put dirt drops on my bike:

What a guy!

the COVID-19 vaccine

Get yours!  

Olympic National Park 

Ancestral lands of the Coast Salish, S'Klallam, and others. Currently under the management of the National Park Service. I haven't visited many National Parks but I quite liked this one. Very green. I think I understand Wolves in the Throne Room now. A definite highlight of 2021 for me. 

Velo Coffee

Chattanooga's best coffee. I love everything they do but the Boneshaker roast brewed in the Moka pot? Oh, baby. That's the work of God. 

 

@pondero on Instagram 

Get a load of this bio: "Leisure Consultant, epic lollygagger, specializing in bicycles, hammocks, and coffee outside." Chris Johnson is my bikespiration. Great follow. 

@goodolearya on Instagram  

Another bikespiration, another great follow. Arya emanates a certain kind of joy that's infectious, even through a screen. I want to be more like her. The thread has been repurposed for Himalayan art, which is still rad.

Prentice Cooper State Forest 

Ancestral lands of the S'atsoyaha (Yuchi), Shawandassee Tula (Shawanwaki/Shawnee), and Tsalaguweiti (Cherokee); currently under the management of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. Game Reserve Road is the area's finest gravel and the meandering Jeep roads make for some great adventure biking. 

Email For Talking 

I love Fridays. Partly because my friend Reid publishes a weekly newsletter about life, humor, music, recipes, and self-help/philosophy-lite type stuff. I especially appreciate his ruminations on life and the recipes, which always slap. 

Miller High Life in a bottle

Craft beer lovers, close your eyes. I believe in the Nicene Creed. I believe good people should adopt pit bulls. And I believe that Miller High Life in a bottle is one of the greatest tasting and most refreshing things in this God-created world. A foretaste of the life of the world to come. Lord, come quickly. 

my bike

A fully rigid, singlespeed, drop bar, 29" mountain bike sounds dumb because it is. And it's oh so fun. 

Back Roads to a Better Life by Charles Butterworth

My grandfather self-published his autobiography in 2006 and died shortly after. I never read it until 2021. Frankly, I'm glad. I don't think I would have appreciated the wisdom and humor within it as a younger man. I laughed. I cried. Thanks, Papa B. 

THIS recipe for arroz con pollo from Jacques Pépin 

If you're coming over for dinner, I'm probably making this recipe from Pépin's "Budget Tuesday" series.

the entire Teenage Bottlerocket discography 

I don't care if all the songs sound the same. Teenage Bottlerocket is fun. Songs about skating outside gas stations, wanting to be a dog, or killing your boss and customers at Burger King. Just a bunch of stupid songs that bring a smile to my face every single listen. 

our front porch

Trudier Harris called porch-sitting a "creative southern tradition." I can't read the entire article on JSTOR without a paid account but think about it: storytelling, pickin' and grinnin', meal sharing, and plant growing all take place on the porch. Rebecca planted zinnias all around ours and we sat and watched them dance in the wind, we talked to each other and to our neighbors, and we created a community in our community. I love our tiny porch. 

THIS podcast with Brendan Leonard about his changed relationship with rock climbing

This podcast really helped me process and verbalize my own relationship with rock climbing. Dang, Brendan Leonard, AKA "semi-rad," has been influencing me for ten years now. 

Selsun Blue 

I've spent the last few years battling pretty severe dandruff. I'm not talking about a little white powder on my shoulders. I'm talking full-on scabs the size of Frosted Flakes falling off my head. I tried countless natural remedies to no avail, but all it took was one wash with the hard, straight chemical stuff to cure my scalp. 

The Cohutta Death March

A big ol' gravel loop around the Cohutta and Big Frog Wildernesses. This ride didn't "treat me well," per se, but I also loved it. It's about time to do it again, I think. 

Tates Helles German Lager from Oyster City Brewery

This is a craft light beer with an A+ can design. Brewed near my hometown in Appalachicola, Florida. "Tate's Hell" is a notoriously rugged section of the Appalachicola National Forest. "Helles" is a German lager. I suggest drinking it by the Gulf with a side-serving of raw oysters. 

the Outdoor Research Face Cover 

A totally responsible and comfortable thing to wear while teaching, grocery shopping, or climbing. Do your part. 

"Shoulders" by Coheed and Cambria 

The chorus hook could just as easily be sung by the Backstreet Boys or One Direction but because it's Coheed, you still get some late-80's Iron Maiden-esque riffage. And somehow it works really, really well.

black beans 

I got this recipe from Email for Talking that involves a sautéed onion, a can of black beans, spices, lime juice, and a little bit of reduction that absolutely slaps. Great with rice or huevos rancheros.

Apalachicola National Forest 

Ancestral lands of the Appalachee and Mvskoke (Muscogee/Creek); currently under the management of the U.S. Forest Service. My homecoming bikepacking trip with Russ was a highlight of the year. 

cowboy / cowgirl / cowperson camping 

Probably 80% of my sleeping outside over the last decade has been without a tent or tarp. It's lighter, faster, and spectacular-er. Which has come in handy this year since I've been...

sleeping outside once a month 

This New Year's resolution has gotten me back to sleeping outside on a regular basis, embracing the art of the "microadventure," and feeling a lot more like myself. Highly recommend even if you miss a month. Get out there!

The Lookout Mountain ATB Loop

My favorite local ride links gravel, singletrack, dirt, and a scenic highway with a couple of huge descents -- one dirt and one road -- and lots of options for longer variations. Great activity before getting...

Pizza Bros $5 Special

A slice of New York-style + a pint of Bros Brew for $5 

Primordial Arcana by Wolves in the Throne Room

"Mountain Magick," was released while we were in Olympic National Park. Listening to it surrounded by deep dark forests of moss-covered spruce and hemlock is highly recommended. 

THIS episode of the Know Your Enemy podcast

This episode of Know Your Enemy with Daniel Sherrell and Dorothy Fortenberry is about childbearing and rearing during the anthropocene. Currently, I only have a dog so it was the discussion of spirituality and politics, hope and despair, and individual and collective action that did it for me. It was the earnest and hopeful thing I needed after reading...

How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm

This is not a feel-good book. It is also not an "anarchist cookbook" or "how-to manual" for exploding actual pipelines. It is, however, a meditation on the political efficacy and moral virtue of violence in the age of climate collapse. Since I still have one foot firmly planted in anabaptish, pseudo-Quaker pacifism, this was a challenging read and I'm glad I read it. 

Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area

Ancestral lands of the Tsalaguwetiyi (Cherokee), Shawandasse Tula (Shawanwaki/ Shawnee), and S'atsoyaha (Yuchi); currently under the management of the U.S. National Park Service. I used to love adventure climbing here. Adventure biking is even better. 

Bikes, Brooks, and Big South Fork. Just three of many things that treated me very well this year. 

I am rich. 

A Love Letter to My Little Legs

I'm short. Five-foot-six to be exact. I towered over my grandmother but I definitely have her to thank for these genes. I have short, stubby, muscular legs with T-Rex thighs and bowling pin calves. 

When I was a kid I was proud of my shortness. I got in a legitimate argument with my best friend over who was more deserving of playing Zacchaeus (a famously short Bible character) in the third-grade play. My hero was Muggsy Bogues and I would pray to God every night that I would take his place as the shortest player in NBA history. (Mr. Bogues was 5-foot-3.) Today, I have only three inches over the Charlotte Hornets point guard and not one iota of his basketball talent. 

Despite basketball's generosity to the vertically gifted, I played on the high school team. However, my membership on that team -- both athletically and socially -- was a bit of a joke. I wore Ramones t-shirts under my practice jersey if that tells you anything. In fact, the older I got, the more I learned to own my shortness through humor. In a college speech course, I recited the lyrics of Skee-Lo's "I Wish I Was a Little Bit Taller" before an audience of 30-40 people. They loved it. And before chubbies and showing thighs were a cool-guy thing, I was wearing short shorts to be funny.

It wasn't until I started rock climbing that I mastered the art of self-deprecating humor. Climbing like cycling or running places participants under significant pressure to achieve an "ideal" physique. Body image issues are a pervasive societal problem so it's no surprise that endurance sports, which serves as a microcosm of the society at large, has their own body image issues. And studies show that the demand for the ideal body does not discriminate based on gender either. 

Enter any climbing gym in America and you're bound to see and hear traditionally beautiful people with no shirts on talk about diets, nutrition, and weight loss. Those aren't inherently bad things but it underscores how obsessed climbers are with appearance (often cloaked in the language of performance). So there I was, in the gym or at the crag, definitely keeping my shirt on, blaming my "Cee-Lo Green arms," my "Oompa-Loompa legs" or my "prepubescent wookie" body for my failures to send. People particularly loved the "prepubescent wookie" bit. It's legitimately funny. But not to my therapist who, years later, would call me out on this defense mechanism during our first or second session. 

To be clear: I am not trying to say my struggle to be comfortable in my own body was the same as the next person's. And I wasn't going to therapy because of it. It just naturally came up during the session because I was so habituated in the ways of making fun of myself. And not knowing or loving oneself can lead to a myriad of unwanted behaviors. What I am trying to say is that a lot of us -- a lot more of us than we realize -- struggle with being at home in our body more than we care to admit. Even or especially(?) if you participate in outdoor endurance adventure sports. 

While I was going to counseling I was also training for an ultra-marathon. I wasn't fast. I wasn't good. If I didn't have a "climber's body" (whatever that is) then I most definitely did not have a "runner's body" (whatever that is). (PSA: all bodies are climbers' and runners' bodies.) When I was fifteen, my basketball coach told me I ran like a 40-year old man. By that math, I was running 31 miles like an 80-year old man. But I did it. My short little legs ran 34 miles up, down, and around Lookout Mountain. At the time, my friend Josh and I were only the 8th Strava users to do the Big Daddy Loop Threepeat. 

Since the 50K wasn't a race or sanctioned event, I got no running bib, completion medal, or cool t-shirt. What I did get was a healthy sense of self. None of my therapist's "homework" assignments got me to think about my body and myself differently. Ultra-running did. Running helped me live in my body with confidence and compassion. After the 50K, though, my interest in running has been negligible. 

I reserve the right to be wrong about everything, but riding a bike is much more fun. While I worked on a draft of this post, I got to ride my bike with Catalyst Sports Adaptive Mountain Bike Tour. Some of these athletes could pedal a bicycle; others used hand-cycles or e-assisted bikes. All of them ripped around the trails with the kind of grin that I think few things other than a bicycle can provide. One rider talked about how the event made him feel human again. Another shared that adaptive cycling helped them learn to love themself after years of hating their body.

I have half a dozen takeaways from riding with these athletes and here's just one: human-powered outdoor adventure sports have a great capacity to heal. Outdoor adventure athletes, brands, and marketing have a great capacity to hurt, sure. But strip all that away -- grades, PRs, and K/QOMs too -- and you're left with something simply amazing, liberating even: the discovery of one's abilities through moving your body outdoors.

My short but capable legs have done a lot of rad things. I'm proud of them and what they've done and where they've been.

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This is How God Wants You to Poop (Outside)

I updated THIS chart from LNT to be theologically accurate.

Let’s talk about poop. Pooping is this totally normal thing that we do. I’m no scientist but my understanding is that after we eat food, it turns to moosh in our bodies as the healthy bits (or unhealthy bits) go into our bones and muscles and stuff. The leftover moosh builds up until we can’t take it anymore and we push it out our buttholes. We all do it. You might be doing it right now. 

Working as a backpacking guide in Colorado, I literally got paid to talk about poop. Taking a group of thirteen teenagers on a multi-day trip in the woods means they’re going to poop. It was my job to teach them how to do it responsibly. The normal range for daily pooping is from three times a day to once every three days. So let’s say the average person poops once a day. Thirteen teenagers plus four adults backpacking for five nights equals 85 poops, give or take. 

*insert Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park clip*

Nobody likes to talk about poop or pooping because of another science thingy: the psychological impulse of disgust. Once the thing — the poop — has been removed from our bodies it is other. It’s set apart and its set a part-ness makes it foul and icky. Unclean. This makes sense. Human communities are living things that must necessarily make boundaries between clean and unclean. This is good and practical. For example, you shouldn’t eat egg salad made on the back of a toilet in a truck stop bathroom. The impulse of separating clean and unclean is an ancient one. 

(SIDEBAR: This desire for purity is a good one. The danger comes when we start making distinctions between “clean” and “unclean” people. Please don’t do this. In the Gospels, we repeatedly see Jesus blurring the boundaries between clean and unclean through his table fellowship with tax collectors and prostitutes. Please do that.)

One of my favorite weird biblical texts is an obscure commandment made in Deuteronomy 23:12-14. Here, God sets the regulations for the proper method for disposing of the Israelites’ poop during a military campaign. 

"You shall have a designated area outside the camp to which you shall go. With your utensils you shall have a trowel; when you relieve yourself outside, you shall dig a hole with it and then cover up your excrement. Because the Lord your God travels along with your camp, to save you and to hand over your enemies to you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you."

These banal and mundane requirements of hygiene cloaked in theological language make practical good sense when large numbers of men are living close together in hastily-built and ill-protected conditions. In fact, modern outdoorsy-types familiar with proper Leave No Trace principles will recognize the most widely accepted LNT practice of waste disposal: the cat hole method (LNT Principle 3). For those taking notes, here’s a side-by-side comparison: 

Two out of three ain't bad. 

Although hygiene is the most obvious objective of proper poop disposal, Gerhard von Rad, Walter Brueggemann, and J.G. McConville all assert that the real underpinning behind the ancient Near Eastern Leave No Trace method is holiness. Holiness is, after all, the proper habitat of God. According to these scholars, the rules outlined in Deuteronomy 23.12-14 are determined by the cultic and ritual assumptions of primitive peoples. The cultic ritual is a precondition for Israel’s military success. 

But I'd argue that the rationale is not entirely cultic, nor is it totally about public health. It's somewhere in between. Actually, the whole reason is rather pedestrian. Let’s take a closer look at v. 14. It reads, “Because the LORD your God travels along with your camp…” Or in Hebrew: מִתְהַלֵּךְ בְקֶרֶב מַחֲנֶךָ or “God paces/walks with your camp.” See? Pedestrian. Israel must go outside the camp, dig a hole, and bury it is because God doesn’t want to step in their poop. 

What’s truly astonishing to me is that throughout the long editorial process of compiling what would become the Hebrew Bible, the ancient Israelites felt compelled to include this in their holy scriptures. The proper disposal of one's poop is enshrined forever in the 613 mitzvot. Perhaps you find it a bit nutty to consider what this ancient text and these pre-scientific people did or thought. Perhaps you fancy yourself a modern man, you're thinking, "I don't derive my ethics from ancient narratives, I get my morality from corporations like Amazon and Netflix." Yes, you're very sophisticated. 

Dismissing ancient wisdom just because you have an iPhone is insane. Instead, maybe do the work of finding principles within the Law and making application in a different setting and context? It adds flexibility to a law and allows it to find meaning when the particular circumstances of a law have changed. You can see how this can be helpful not just for pooping outside but also, for example: debt and loaning on interest, which is the paradigmatic evil in the Old Testament. 

"Literalism is the lowest form of meaning."

Or you can roll your eyes all you want at these ancient “primitives.” But I bet if we had more folks think about what they did with their poop as thoroughly as the ancient Israelites, you wouldn’t wander off into the woods at Foster Falls and find a big ol’ pile of human excrement twenty-feet away from a popular sport climb. Yes, we're very sophisticated these days.  

So next time you're out in the woods and you have to take a dump, ask yourself what would ancient Israel do? God doesn’t want to step in poo and neither should you. So please, for God’s sake, leave no trace.

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Zen and the Art of Hike-a-Bike

photo by Brooks

Unpopular opinion: I love hike-a-bike. I really do. Hike-a-bike is the act of pushing, pulling, or carrying your bike, usually because the terrain is too steep or too loose to pedal. In the bicycling community, this would be like saying, “I enjoy paying taxes” or “I love washing the dishes.” A friend once threatened to extend the ride by 13 miles just to avoid a short hike-a-bike up a steep horse trail. Paying taxes, washing the dishes, or pushing your bike up a hill can be difficult and tiresome but also incredibly mundane - Sisyphean even. 

Thich Nhat Hanh claimed you can meditate while washing the dishes. Think about that. The second most-famous living Buddhist (second only to the Dali Lama), a world-renowned and revered Zen master says you can do this transcendent-touching, nirvana-actuating activity while doing something as banal as washing your dishes. That’s amazing. And, I think, if you can meditate while doing the dishes, you can meditate while pushing your bike up an enormous hill. If you don’t ride a bike very much, copy and paste this into your word processor and word search and replace “hike-a-bike” with whatever “hard thing” it is that you do. The same can probably be said about trail running, climbing off-widths, or sinking a putt for birdie. 

A Buddhist once described meditation to me as the middle of a three-circle Venn diagram, where the three circles are concentration, awareness, and mindfulness. Concentration is the ability to focus tightly on an anchor or object of meditation. Richard Rohr, a Catholic contemplative, describes this exercise as “a long, loving look at the Real.” While a ridgeline, the end of a switchback, or the backside of your friend who’s way ahead of you is not the Ultimate Reality, I find the ability to focus tightly on an anchor like this good practice for the real deal — the lotus position under a bodhi tree or washing the dishes kind of real deal.

Awareness and mindfulness are more difficult to differentiate. Both help us be present. Anyone can white-knuckle grin and bear it to the top of a hill. Or clasp their eyes shut  until finally the singing bowl bell gongs. I have. These experiences sucked. Meditation is more than the furrowed brow of concentration. It also requires the space to have a sense of all that is happening around you. In other words, having a sense of our physical sensations and mental contingencies while keeping an object of meditation. 

The textural sound of pea gravel beneath my shoes and tires. The pleasant ambiance of the forest: locusts, birds, and streams. The feeling of sweat in my mustache, hunger in my belly, and fatigue in my legs. Seeing the path of least resistance ahead of me. Noticing the rutted dirt, the blocks of rocks, or even the owl in the tree. Noticing it all for what they are while ever moving toward the anchor. That's meditation. 

If this sounds all too much for you, try this. The next time you’re pushing your bike up some heinous climb, take some deep breaths. Begin to notice 5 things you see; 4 things you hear; 3 things you feel; 2 things you smell; and 1 thing you taste. I promise you won’t regret it. You may not achieve nirvana but you’ll be closer to getting back on your bike and with a more “present-presence” than you would have otherwise. I think a 20% grade climb up loose gravel in a forest is a worthy monastery or meditation cushion. There are no to-do lists, emails, or notifications. Really, the only thing that exists is the present moment. So just be there. Or rather, just be. 

Meditation or looking deeply, Thich Nhat Hanh says, is to see the true nature of things. Which, according to Buddhism, is to see and understand things as impermanent. You don’t have to be Buddhist to appreciate this. The hill I am pushing my bike up; the feelings of joy and grief I experience; the thoughts of compassion and greed that come and go inside my head; indeed, my very life is not forever. How could they? The future doesn’t exist (this is a hill I am willing to die on). 

Don’t believe me? Listen to Marc E., from Collection 8, Episode 3 of The Great British Baking Show. Marc finished his showstopper dharma wheel cake while the other bakers worked frantically to finish their final touches. Sitting on his stool, like a zen master with a Cornish accent, he counseled, 

“I take every opportunity I can just to take a mindful breath. Just kind of brings me back to the present moment. ‘Cause when you think about it, when we’re worrying, we’re worrying about things that happened in our past. Or [we’re] worrying about the future. And ultimately, we’ve got no control over that, have we?… Of course, it’s easier said than done.”

Easier said than done. Like pushing a bike up a hill. Thanks, Marc. 

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