After earning a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry seven years after the tip-off, it felt apropos to spend the summer camping, hitchhiking, and working my ass off on a vineyard and cherry farm in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, Canada to prepare myself for future underemployment, like adjunct teaching, where homelessness and prostitution side-jobs have become realities, or maybe because a degree in poetry can go with almost any job and lifestyle, like a perfect sauce, like Siracha.
I went with my girlfriend (it was her idea!), and for two months we slept in a tent and hitchhiked or walked to work on a farm under the desert sun. Yes—we wore big hats, cool shit like bandanas, and had back-packs that carried water. But it wasn’t all romance and Instagram moments. It was fucking hard. And while difficult experiences generally suck as they’re unfolding, it’s also in these moments that we learn some shit.
So in the interest of sharing my truth nuggets with you, my friends, here’s an internet-friendly list of the 11 things I learned camping in the Okanagan Valley:
It is the size of the tent that matters. If you want to be slick and buy your tent off Amazon, read the measurements and do your homework. In my experience, tents advertised for two people online don’t mean two people with luggage…or feet. If you plan to spend more than a few days camping with your loved one, and intend to still be in love when you leave, buy a big tent! With a garage.
Your instincts don’t change just because you’re camping. You may think camping is the ascetic life, but once you set up tent, you’ll immediately begin noting what you lack—a chair, mattress, pots and pans, a tree-hammock, peace of mind, and if you’re like us, you’ll probably begin to acquire more and more shit. Camping really isn’t that different from living in the suburbs. Your wants and desires don’t just cease. This takes another sort of work. See meditation.
Organization isn’t just something your mom told you was important, like eating your greens, it’s a survival mechanism. Can’t find your shoes in the middle of the night, or even the flashlight to look for them? Good luck with the night-snakes.
Weather is important. If you live in a house, work in an office, and commute back and forth in a car, what’s happening outside (ie. weather) isn’t all that important. Camping is different. When it rains and you don’t have the tarp set up correctly over your tent, you pay the price.
Your body matters. If you don’t eat right, you don’t feel right. And when you don’t feel right, everything becomes more difficult. Make sure you have a plan for how you’re going to eat well. Don’t rely solely on your ability to catch trout from the brook. Bring chia seeds.
Is this love? If you want to test a new relationship, push the moment to its crisis, hell, I can’t think of a better way. Spend any length of time camping and you’ll learn a lot about your relationship, your partner and yourself. If you’re weak-minded, unhappy, or have terrible farts, the truth will be exposed.
Free time is a luxury. This doesn’t apply to all camping, but if your hitchhiking to work and cooking dinner on a fire, good luck finding time to work on your novel.
Hitchhiking. The nicer the car is the less likely it’s going to pull over for you, especially if you have dreadlocks, hippy-pants and haven’t showered in three days. But wonderful surprises happen all the time on the road, so try not to get jaded too quickly.
Listen to other people. Fuck google and your outdated guidebook. Your fellow campers and locals are your best resource once you hit the road. Ask questions. Be friendly. Share your baked beans.
Don’t be afraid to get philosophical. One of our main jobs on the vineyard was to trim the “secondary” branches that continuously sprout and suck energy away from the grapes. I got to thinking one day, we should tend to ourselves the same way we tend to a grape vine. Find our grape and peel away the “secondaries,” the bad habits, anything that sucks life away from our true purpose. Ya dig? Don’t be afraid to think about life and the art of living when you’re out in the bush. After all, it’s kind of the point.
Gratitude. When you make it home, your bed will finally feel like they described it in the commercial, food will be exquisite, sex, shower, sex after (or in!) a shower, sofa, an afternoon nap, even that boring old desk job will creep its way into your heart. The truth is, most of us have it pretty good. If nothing else, camping will help you appreciate what you have.
Well, there you have it—a list of some shit I learned while camping for two months in the Okanagan Valley. I must admit there were times when prolonged camping felt like the worst decision I’d made since taking out loans to go to college. But our experience was also mixed with hitchhiking and manual labor, and not everybody is built for that. In the end, my girlfriend and I survived. This summer I’m thinking maybe we’ll take a cruise.
