Zugunruhe

The quirks of women who hear the call to roam, Part I

Hello, loves. Thank you, thank you for the warm welcome back.

This week, the first part of a collaboration—a correspondence between two women driven to roam.

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Dear M,

Have I told you how much I love starting a fire? That I’m an expert firestarter? I bet you are too.

I think about our spotting homes everywhere. Picture these: A sepia shack across a yellow field, caught mid this-is-as-good-a-place-as-any-to-let-the-breeze-dry-the-sweat-off-the-brow lean. A hollowed-out oval in a rust and cream sandstone wall. The confluence of three thick maple branches overlooking a street whose potholes are short-lived. I think about our packed bags and our early exits from our childhood homes. You asked, last we left off, what that was all about for me. How long was I preparing for flight? When did I get restless? Where did I think I was going?

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Have you heard of zugunruhe? It’s the experience of migratory restlessness. Those of us who migrate, birds particularly, respond to it when seasonal changes in daylight announce it’s nearly time to go. Their diets and habits change to prepare for the strain of flight. Some adjust to nocturnal activity. Some grow larger hearts.

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I wasn’t yet forming memories when I first started hiking the scarlet and beige deserts of Southern Utah with my parents, their friends dubbing me “little mountain goat.” But as soon as I was, I was scouting: I’ll sleep here in this tucked-away, cave-like space. That tall mushroom-shaped rock will be my lookout spot. I’d imagine myself surveying my realm or soaking in moonlight. As we moved, I’d pull stalks of desert wheatgrass, slide sheathes and blades through my palms to release a trail of spikelets—practice for how I’d propagate whatever I needed to survive.

For me, the various go-bags were typically plastic. The one that went with me, still a teen, was a kitchen-sized trash bag. Among its contents were pens and notepads and books, a jacket and beanie, and, oddly, a pillow. Tucked among them, the hurts and misunderstandings that precipitated that departure.

But the latter were separate from the part of me that was always scanning, always molting new, stronger feathers, always seeking perches with advantageous launch angles.

From the crook of branches in that maple tree above manicured lawns, I saw myself going everywhere, tasting everything—all of it gritty and juicy and vague, all of it tinted with urge to start, the certainty time would never be enough—and imagined no one saw me. Along a branch that reached more out than up, I’d stretch, turning from front to back, dangling one limb and then two, so I could feel the bark against my whole body, feel the rush of the height, feel myself growing nimbler and braver, feline and lithe and ready to soar.

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Once, when I still thought it wise to cast, every now and again, for white picket fence, 2.5, and Fido, a man and I Thanksgivinged in the Tetons. The auditioner found my past torrid. I found his tastes dull. But the weekend was dreamy.

I’ll show you: We arrive at the tiny cabin in the woods. The details are hazy. But let’s suppose he splits firewood into kindling, stacks logs and a sheaf of newsprint on the hearth. Let’s say I load a roasting pan ladened with preseasoned bird into the oven next to a pan of stuffing, dark with Italian sausage and whole wheat crumbs, pour fresh cranberries and cabernet into a pot on the stove, sprinkle in cloves and cinnamon and orange zest. Let’s say I stand at the sink for a long moment, light through white lace dappling my face and hands.

We spent the next two days snowshoeing or hiking through a park in which it felt we were the only bipedal creatures, eyes peeled for the ghost bear whose fresh prints around every corner were all we ever saw of her. He took photos. I tried to talk logic to myself.

But all of this is background. Here’s where I’m taking you: I spot them from the road—the two abandoned shanties, past a barren riverbed, across a slushy meadow, flaxen grasses poking from piles of crusty snow, flattened but still alive. “Pull over,” I cry. He shrugs and does.

I don’t know if the moose was before the stop or after it or just then, while he fished camera and tripod from the trunk, and I stood at the edge of the road, watching. I only know the massive creature emerged from a stand of Douglas firs, dance-walked slowly in our direction along the rocky, icy bed where she’d feast in summer and then passed us. And I … what? Felt her movement in my bones?

Out in the clearing, I circle the structures before exploring inside. Neither has all four walls completely intact, but the wooden planks, carob and smooth, are flush and weathertight.

Inside is dark and less dank than I’d have thought. “This could be the kitchen.” I poke my head around a corner “room” with a chunk missing from the roof. He raises his brows and turns to set up a landscape shot.

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I want to show you one other spot. It, I think, speaks not to zugunruhe but, rather, to a related drive within me. Let me take you there: We’re out behind that house with the maple tree. We’ll go beyond the garden and lawn, past the creaky metal swingset, over a small rock wall, and down a short dirt path. See that unkempt thicket? You know what it really is, right?

Here, allow me, I’ll say, pulling aside branches lying perfectly askew so you can step inside and putting them back in place once I’ve followed you through the entrance. I’ll show you how I’ve used garden shears to cut back the natural corridors and squirreled leftovers from a nearby construction project to “build” walls and shelves for books and a cup and plate.

Just home from school one day, I glanced out the window, hoping to sneak down there soon. It was gone, the thicket flattened, as if it had never been there. “How could you?” I demanded, too old to be sobbing, to be so unreasonable, to be lashing out at someone who couldn’t have known; too devastated by the stretch of flat, dry earth where once had stood the symbol of my self-containment to stop.

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Caged birds get restless at the same time their wild counterparts are migrating, hopping and flitting and fluttering their wings.

Just before the man and I left the abandoned huts by the river of the moose, a glint caught my eye. I followed it to the side of the larger of the two structures and found myself, sun at my back, looking into the single glass pain remaining in the window. There, I saw me.

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Here’s where I went when I left: a hidden spot along a river in a nearby canyon to huddle; the dark streets of my hometown to pace away the night; a friend’s house here or there; and, eventually, a small apartment across town. At least at first.

Where did I think I was going? Away. To be part of a wider world. To be, tiny and ephemeral, lost within it. To be self-reliant, beholden to nothing and no one. To be me, wild and free.

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I don’t remember the first time a slantwise sepia hut glanced up while no one was looking and beckoned. Nor do I remember a time when one didn’t, its invitation the changing daylight hours to my zugunruhe, stirring in me a longing deep and primal.

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I find myself imagining the “home” we’d have if we put all our potential spots together. A corridor of doorways, behind each a nest.

Take me to some of yours?

xx

H

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Marya Hornbacher and I dreamed up this collaboration after discovering some odd similarities, only a handful of which are mentioned here, which we figure may have to do with our nomadic propensities.

Moreover, we’ve been in conversation about how deeply important it is right now to work together, to commune with others, and to grow our community wherever we go. Our Saturday write-ins with Caravan Writers Collective have become an essential part of my week. And you all, rolling with me here at this Desk, have, over the past two and a half years, been a joyful, inspirational part of my life.

Look for Part II of this collab over on Marya’s fantastic Going Solo at the End of the World soon. (Feel free to tell spill the tea on the hair and the wedding photos, M)

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For the comments: Have you experienced zugunruhe? And if so, what triggers it? Is communing feeling important to you these days? How are you connecting or working with others? What do your “nests” look like?

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PS. This post is coming to you amid my first week back in vanlife full-time. Which is entirely to blame for this post being a day “late.” Never a dull moment on the road. After a handful of sunny days, I’m hunkered down in a storm getting to know the ins and outs (and one small but annoying leak) of Vivian the van quite well. Ha! You can absolutely count on reports from the roam to come.

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