The Unnamed Longing

The Unnamed Longing

7/28/23

By Karen Davis-Brown

“We don’t have knowledge and so we have stuff, but stuff without knowledge will never get you there.”

Greg Brown, “Two Little Feet”

It is a cool, still July morning in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The first daylight is just beginning to show through the branches of the trees to the north. Down the slope to the south below us the river runs peacefully, its flow barely noticeable to the human eye. There is a haze of warming air over the night-chilled water and the reflections of the trees on the other shore emerge in greens and yellows on the river’s surface as their tops increasingly catch the sun’s first rays.

We sit before a cheerful and vigorous fire, thanks to the generosity of the trees that surround us. The only sound besides the crackling of the flames is the chorus of birds as they sing call-and-response, each to their own kind, near and far. Some loons up the river are unusually loud and gregarious in their greetings this morning.

At this hour, we are the only humans who are outside in the morning air. Most of the others brought along little houses to this wild place and are warm and comfortable in our surrogate beds and kitchens. Perhaps they have turned on the tv or radio to catch up on the latest headlines. They may feel sorry for us as they look out their windows, that we camp so primitively. They may believe that they are experiencing the nature around them in its fulness, or perhaps this is the only way they feel they can manage to be here at all. They may feel rich in their possession of such luxury as they pick and choose how to engage with the world outside their door.

But they are actually quite poor. They don’t see the growing light or hear the birds or feel the warmth of the fire against the chill. In truth, they are depriving themselves of the peace and joy of this morning.

It is true that I don’t know their individual circumstances. Perhaps they are ill or perhaps they are consumed by worries about myriads of things in the life they had hoped to leave behind for a time. Though “neighbors,” most choose to look through us with only a perfunctory greeting as we pass them on the road. I don’t know what to say to them, so I just say, “Hello.”

Yet, we are all here for a reason, perhaps one we can’t even articulate. As we move into the weekend, this campground and every campground for miles around will be full of people taking a few days or weeks away from their routine homes, occupations, and human relationships to “rough” it, to “recreate” in this peaceful and beautiful place. They share a longing for something that society does not allow them to name.

?I would wish for them that they could closely and thoughtfully examine their understanding of comfort and be able to push the boundaries of their comfort level, in order to more fully experience the world around them. I would wish for them that they could examine the source of their fear of what lays beyond the door of their trailer or RV. I would wish for them that they could still the mental spin in their heads for just a few moments and look around.

These wishes may seem easy to grant, but, in reality, the whole rest of our lives works against this acknowledgement let alone the challenge it presents. We are constantly faced with so much marketing oriented to this longing --?the latest machines and gadgets and stuff promising to maximize this experience -- but that really just exploits this need, turning recreation into a transactional and distant exchange rather than a real and relational encounter. The social, cultural and media influences that structure our world views and constrain our lives make it very difficult to clearly recognize and name this impulse and intuition that leads us to spend so much money on things we believe will bring us closer to nature but, in reality, create an impermeable barrier.

So, this hunger in us is never really fulfilled. How can we learn? What effort would it take from us so that we can learn? How can we develop clarity and willingness, and shed our socially constructed sense of “sacrifice,” to remove the barriers to a truly personal and visceral experience of light and water and the chill air and the warm fire?

Getting “outside the boxes” and out of motor-driven machines would be a start. Sleeping closer to the ground and to the air outside. Learning how to build a fire and to cook over it. Getting off our ATVs and walking. Getting out of our motorboats and off our jet skis and into a canoe or kayak. Unplugging long enough to truly refocus, experience, and name the longing for what it is: The need for connection and relationship with the natural world of which we are only a small part but to which we nonetheless belong. We need to ask, what objects stand between me and the trees and birds and waters that surround me, with a wall or sound or speed? Then we must push beyond our current comfort zone and shed them. In the end, we will be far richer in this broadening and deepening of the experience that we seek and for which we yearn.