I quit my job recently. Of all the decisions I've made in my life, it is definitely the most irresponsible. There is no backup job; I didn't have any prospects. I only knew that my choice was:
Be miserable and rage-filled daily or.
Or. I have no idea what's on the other side of that conjunction but when you're at rock bottom, even with a hard-stop period at the end of it, it offers at least some hope.
So, I’m now unemployed, on a job search, and, in general trying to figure it out.
It being everything in life. Not just the job, but how to make the world a better place, how to fight systemic racism, how to dismantle our 2-party political system, writing poetry, should I invest in a set of non-stick cookware, is a Costco membership worth it, et. al.
As part of this soul search, I thought it was necessary to disconnect from the world and get out of the city. I wanted to walk in some greenery, ponder the world, and take some time and space away from daily routine to think. Ernesto has been busy with work and some classes, so it was a nice opportunity to give him some time to work at home, too.
Tl; dr the soul search was a very big mess.
I booked a hotel near Starved Rock State Park with the idea that I would stay the night in the hotel and then spend all day in the park. As I did some research on the park before leaving, I found out that the derecho* from the previous week closed the entire park. They thought it would be open Monday (the day I was going), but it was tentative.
(*Can we all take a collective moment to admire the fact that this weather phenomenon just showed up in 2020, destroyed Chicago – and Starved Rock – and then vanished? Where did she come from? Whence is she going? Why did she have to kick us while we were all ready clutching our COVID balls on the ground?)
My general idea for this trip into the wilderness was (to take a concept from my friend, Johnny) "Yes and…" Essentially, I would commit to adventure, not knowing, seizing any opportunities that came up. Rather than the "Or." Of my professional life, my personal life was going to be wide, ellipses-like open.
As part of this, I decided I'd take the risk that the park may not be open on the day I was going and just wing it if that was the case.
Because I was unsure of my success in finding a trail the next day, on my way toward Starved Rock, I stopped Sunday afternoon at Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve. I thought, "That is probably a nice place to hike."
Wellllll…
So, it is a nice trail, if you like an 8-foot wide gravel path filled with dozens of families with some trees on the side. Also nice if you like taking a side trail which takes you beside a massive barbed wire fence and energy/power plant lab thing. Honestly, I thought there may be some Stranger Things shenanigans going on beyond the barbed wire fence. It is a massive compound with mysterious concrete buildings.
I was very commited to not being an angry snark monster, so the first 20 minutes of the "hike" I tried very hard to be zen.
Me: "Wow, look – a bridge!"
Stranger: BUT YOU KNOW CHERYL SAID TOMMY WASN'T GOING TO –
Me: "That's a nice grassland. I wonder what was originally here before the land was settled."
*CRUNCH* *CRUNCH* *CRUNCH* *CRUNCH*
Me: "So, I need to think about career; what do I want going forward?"
Strange Child: AHHHHHHHH! MOM! AHHHHHHH! IS THIS GRASS?!
Me: "Do they sell vodka on this trail?"
I also realized I should never try to take a "pensive" walk on a Sunday. There are always families everywhere and (God love'em) children have an amazing way of screaming just so that you can hear them for at least 200 yards in either direction. Add to that the gravel path that meant, no matter who was on the trail within 100 yards of you, all you heard was *Crunch blab talking blab crunch* for the entire hike.
There was a nice 10-minute stretch of my 90-minute adventure when I had some thoughts that were not "Is that child dying?" or "What are the odds I could get into the upside down right now?" but mostly it was a slow-burning disappointment that my weekend of nature was going to be my weekend of overheard conversations and the crunch of gravel.
In the evening I stopped by Wendy's because I need some small pleasure, so I got a spicy chicken AND some nuggets. My friends were doing a Zoom game night, so I jumped on. Since I was budgeting and staying at a Super 8, the Internet was spotty enough to mean it took me 30 minutes to join, and then I mostly looked at distorted blobs due to lag.
It was at that point that I remembered the point of this trip was "Yes, and…" so, I really should just take a minute and enjoy the fact that I no longer wanted to cry most days because of my job and I had some time off to adventure, even if that adventure was walking around on a loud sidewalk overhearing conversations about first dates.
When I woke up the next morning, I was very not surprised to find that Starved Rock was now closed "for an indefinite period." I was in a better mood (I 100% thank the chicken nuggs for this), so I got on the internet on my phone and started "Yes and'ing." The first thing I saw was an IHOP for breakfast, so I jumped in my car and headed out.
IHOP was a success – I got chocolate chip pancakes and saw a lesbian and a gay. It was a very small town, so this was very exciting. The IHOP also played c-tier covers of popular songs, which I was very much into. "Hello" by Adele still sounds good when sung by the girl who played the lead in Bye, Bye Birdie in your high school production.
The next stop was Target because I needed to buy something to cover the massive blister I got on the sad sidewalk hike from the previous day (because, of course I got a blister from that barbed-wire junket). At Target I discovered socks are very expensive. You can either buy 1 pair for 10 dollars or 400 pairs for 15 dollars but there is no way to buy 1 pair for 2 dollars. I felt very clever when I bought a box of cheap band-aids for $3 and beat the man.
After Target I had the big decision of where to spend the day. While I hate driving my car in the city, I do love a good country drive, so I decided that I would venture to a "nature preserve" that was an hour away. I figured I could listen to some jams and then go for a nice walk.
It turns out that the "nature preserve" in Peoria, IL is actually a "private club." This does not mean a golf course or … even a nice car in the parking lot, but rather a bizarre house in the middle of nowhere with a basketball court, a pond, and a 1/15 chance of being murdered. I paused in the parking lot for exactly 1 minute before turning around and going back to the main road (a single lane branch-off road that turned off a two-lane road to nowhere).
At this point I really didn't know if I'd get to find a trail. I was in the middle of nowhere and every foray into nature had been a disaster up to that point. I consulted my trusty Google maps and found a small park about 15 minutes away it said "great for kids" which – after the day before… ooooof – but, even if I could find a picnic table under a tree, I could at least find a little bit of the "nature experience" I was looking for.
BUT. THEN. IT. HAPPENED. The park that was "great for kids" was actually a real park with trails! Maps! Nature! There were over 6 miles of trails that went in and out of the woods and there was no one on them! I could hear birds! I was living my best Taylor Swift folklore life, aimless perambulating through the trees, meditating on life, sitting on the grass and watching quail and squirrels. I WON NATURE.
As with anything enjoyable, after 2 hours I was kind of over it; I realized I didn't bring near enough water, was hungry, and needed a break. I returned to the main park by my car and sat at a picnic table. It was really serene: the wind blowing through the trees, a cloudless blue sky, delicious snacks I'd bought at Target…
This lasted exactly 10 minutes before it was all over. This park was huge – I'm not overexaggerating when I say that there were maybe 30 picnic tables scattered all around. 20 of them under a shaded awning. For some reason, two women traversed the entire park, passed every open, shaded picnic table, and sat directly beside me to eat lunch and talk about returning to college.
I tried not to be rude, so I finished a chapter of the book I was reading and then took off. I attempted to get back on the trails, but the second set of trails was not trimmed up and I ended up very lost and walked in a giant circle, returning back to the parking lot. I still was hungry and had to be available or a job interview in the late afternoon, so I hopped in my car and took off.
I "Yes, and'ed" a chili cheese dog and Blizzard from a Dairy Queen, then went back to the hotel and did the interview.
After resting, I decided to make one last attempt at nature. I found a "preserve"* about 20 minutes away that was named after a kindly old woman. I figured I could walk around another hour before sunset and then call my "nature excursion" weekend a success.
(*After this trip I will maybe never go to another nature preserve. They are ... never what is promised.)
This nature preserve pretty much represented the whole trip. I pulled into the parking lot and… that was it. It was a parking lot. The highlight of the preserve tour was a full garbage can that was toppled over near a bush which may have at one point marked a trail head.
After that, I gave up. I gave my car a car wash then got a sad salad at Wal-Mart because the chili cheese dog and nuggs had done their work on my digestive system. When I got out my car in the Super 8 parking lot, I looked out and saw the sun setting over a bean field. The sky was half storm/half clear, so it was really quite beautiful.
I put my things in my room and then brought my salad back down and sat on a parking block and watched the sun set. The salad was really sad – 1/5 of it was not even iceberg lettuce but the actual lettuce stump at the base of the head. Sprinkled throughout were "ham slices" but it very well could have been sliced rat meat and I wouldn't have been surprised.
But, overall, the sunset was really nice. There was no gravel or children around, so I mostly sat undisturbed.
The book I was reading in the park was a self-help book by Brene Brown called Braving the Wilderness. Yes, I'm reading lots of self-help books because my self needs help in this current moment, but there was a passage that came to mind as I thought about 2020 and how the whole year was pretty much a sad trash can in a parking lot.
Essentially, she says that when you're looking at your life, you expect a map, some sort of direction, whether from your friends, peers, or family, or a map of your design you draw yourself – but it's never like that. There are no maps; the important thing is to follow each foostep because that's the way we actually get to our destinations – not by any plan or strategy – but one step at a time, day by day.
Poetically, the trip had been just that. One sad, often misstep, after another, but I'd gotten to a place I wanted to go, a pink and violet sunset at the edge of a field of green. Chewing on my rat slices and salad stumps, I had a moment of clarity, a brief glance ahead at the spaces in the dark where my next steps would fall – there wouldn't be a map, but I could at least be open to the sheer number of places to put my feet:
Gravel? Yes, and…
Mud? Yes, and…
Spongy mat-substance on children's playgrounds? Yes, and…
Even if the next step was a parking lot with a trash can full of salad stumps, there could be opportunity in it. What else are you going to serve with rat meat?