The World Can Wait

I spent the last week in the Upper Peninsula with my family,

camping in places that are about as far removed from my normal life as I could reasonably get, without completely disappearing into Grizzly Adams mode.

We were out in the woods, away from the usual busy campground experience and far enough from everything that my phone was mostly, and thankfully, as useless as Portra in my film fridge. There wasn’t much cell service, there wasn’t a computer sitting nearby, and there wasn’t much reason to care about what was happening online, not that I could care even if there was because I didn’t know. For a few days the podcast, photography work, emails, social media, and all of the other things that normally occupy my time simply weren’t available to me in the way they are at home.

I didn’t realize how much I needed it until I was there. Christ, life has been insane the past year and a half since the show launched. I really never expected the success it’s had, let alone that it’s slowly leading to career opportunities for me. Who would’ve thought that ranting into a microphone across Google Meets would lead to anything?

A lot of my life revolves around being in front of a computer.

Photography is obviously a big part of that, but the podcast has added an entirely different layer to it. There are episodes to record and edit, photographs to work through, Substacks to write, people to get back to, videos to put together, and all the little pieces of running something that never seem particularly important on their own, but somehow eat up an entire week when you add them together. Even when I’m technically done working, I’m usually still thinking about something I should have done or something I need to do next.

Being somewhere without reliable service took that option away from me, which was definitely good. There wasn’t really any point in checking my phone because it wasn’t going to do much most days, besides be a map. I couldn’t sit down at a computer because there wasn’t one. I couldn’t convince myself that I should spend an hour working on something, because I couldn’t, so I spent the week actually spending time with my family.

I went fishing with my son and took pictures with him.

Sometimes we were actually trying to catch fish and sometimes we were just out there because we didn’t want to be responsible for setting up or tearing down the tent, which is honestly the best reason to go fishing anyway. I brought a camera or three with me and photographed things throughout the trip, but it felt different from the way I photograph when I’m home. I wasn’t thinking about whether I had something I could turn into a post or whether I needed to come away from the trip with some sort of body of work. I saw things I liked and photographed them because I wanted to remember them.

Photography has become so intertwined with the rest of my life that sometimes I forget that I can just take a picture because I like something and have a camera. It doesn’t have to be part of a project. It doesn’t need to make sense with everything else I’ve photographed. It doesn’t need to perform well online or become something I write about later. I can just see something, take a picture, and move on, like the photo albums of old. Our relatives weren’t worried about the composition of their shots, they were capturing a moment. I know I’ve been harping on it, but I’m convincing me more than you.

I spent time playing volleyball with my daughter, which is not something I would have been doing at home while staring at a computer. I mean, I help her practice because she’s nervous to make the team, but this was an extended opportunity for her to, as I love to say, “suck less.” We weren’t particularly concerned with whether we were any good at it, although she is, and I think that was part of why it was fun. There wasn’t anything attached to it beyond the fact that we were together and had a ball sitting there.

That’s probably what I liked about being out there. Nothing needed to become anything else.

At home, I’m constantly turning experiences into something. If I go somewhere with a camera, there’s always the possibility that the photographs become an article or a video or a podcast conversation, or an Instagram post. If I see something interesting, I’m already thinking about how I might talk about it. That’s part of what I enjoy about making things, so I’m really not complaining about it, but there is a difference between documenting your life and actually being present for it, and I think I needed a reminder of that. Participating in my own life seems to be the mission this year.

The nights were probably my favorite part of the trip because there was so little light pollution that the sky looked completely different from what I’m used to seeing. The Milky Way was visible, and there were stars everywhere, complete with shooting stars. I didn’t photograph them, obviously, because I am neither talented enough, nor am I patient enough to attempt that on film with limited knowledge of reciprocity failure.

Living around cities and towns makes it easy to forget how much of the night sky we’re actually missing. Even in places that seem reasonably dark, like around my house, there’s usually some glow coming from somewhere. Detroit sits on the southern horizon, or a medium sized city is nearby, or somebody has their car sales parking lot lit up like they’re expecting the Super Bowl to be played there at three in the morning, despite not having a customers since 9 am the previous day. You get used to seeing a certain number of stars and start assuming that’s what the sky looks like, you forget there is so much more and how small we are in existence.

Standing there with my family, looking up at the Milky Way, was probably the closest thing I’ve ever had to one of those stereotypical camping moments where you’re supposed to suddenly understand something about your place in the universe. I didn’t have some massive philosophical revelation, nor did I understand anything significant about my existence, but it was nice to be reminded that there is a whole lot more happening above us than what we normally get to see. More importantly, nobody was asking me to do anything about it. Unfortunately for them, I know enough about astronomy to be mildly annoying with constellations and existential dread facts that the children hated.

I didn’t have to photograph it, orpost it, or explain it. I could just stand there, fighting the mosquitoes.

I think that’s what I was actually looking for when I went up there, even though I didn’t necessarily know it before leaving. I wasn’t tired of my family, photography, or the podcast. I wasn’t trying to escape my life, I just needed to get far enough away from the machinery of my normal life that I could stop thinking about it for a while and reset my brain.

There is an exhaustion that comes from always having something available to you. The computer is always there, the phone is always there. Another message, another notification, another photograph to edit, another episode to work on, another idea that I should probably write down before I forget it, ope, it’s gone. None of those things are bad, and most of them are things I genuinely enjoy doing, but that doesn’t mean I need to be doing them all the time. Being disconnected for a few days made that pretty obvious.

I came home to all of it, of course.

The computer is still sitting on my desk, the podcast still needs work, there are rolls to be developed waiting for me. Emails and messages and all the other things that existed before I left, but somehow managed to survive without me.I don’t think the answer is to abandon any of it. I like what I do too much for that, I just think I needed to remember that there is a life outside of making things.

Sometimes I can go fishing with my son without thinking about the photographs I’m going to get out of it or play volleyball with my daughter without wondering whether I should have brought a camera. I can sit around with my family and do absolutely nothing productive for an afternoon and not feel like I’m wasting time, even if we are. I can look up at the night sky and appreciate it without immediately turning it into another piece of content.

The Upper Peninsula was a week where I didn’t have much of anything to do, and it turned out that was exactly what I needed. I came home with photographs, a few memories, a ridiculous amount of bug bites, and a renewed appreciation for being able to disappear for a little while. Zero ticks though, which is WILDLY impressive and speaks to the power of Off Deep Woods Sportsmen Edition (10/10).

More than anything, though, I came home remembering that I don’t always need to be making something.Sometimes it’s enough to just be somewhere with the people I love and actually be there in the moment.