My future is finally wide open—and I want it to be settled
10 months of travel, plus: Mexico, the Fabelmans, and climbing's soul
Greetings from Bethesda everyone. I apologize for the lack of writing over the last few weeks. It happens now and then, I try not to beat myself up too much (for what it’s worth I also haven’t been able to finish a book in three months)—right now I’m hoping that finally hitting “send” on this one will get things a little more unstuck. There is much to report, and a lot ahead, but maybe I had to get this one off my chest.
Fact is, I’ve been digital nomading pretty hard the past 10 months.
That time included almost a month in New Zealand to see my sister, several months climbing in New Hampshire, a Christmas holiday in New Mexico, and two trips to Spain, the first to climb with a group of friends, the second to close on the Cornudella property. This winter, the time concluded with almost two months in Mexico to kitesurf, followed by the most epic solo road trip ever, 55 hours of driving over a long weekend to get from Baja California back to my house outside Washington D.C. (for anyone counting, that’s longer than it takes to drive from Lisbon to Moscow.)
None of it had been planned that way. I had expected to do most of that moving around with my partner. But in May last year, the relationship ended. We’d been together almost 10 years. What followed—all that travel—I had planned it all before the breakup.
The past 10 months were follow-through. And without her, the nomading turned into a kind of self-imposed mourning period. There’s been a lot of solitude, the good and bad kinds. All this travel had the somewhat unintended effect of limiting the depth of my connections to others. In fact, someone from New Hampshire recently texted me about how bad of a neighbor I’ve been, and I had to agree—I just haven’t been there.
I may finally be back from my travels, but that doesn’t mean I’m exactly settled. In fact, this house in Maryland is the remaining vestige of my ex’s and my shared life together. Both our names are still on the lease, although we’ve been trading off use of the place more or less since the split. In June, however, the lease ends.
Meanwhile, there are no more trips ahead that had been planned before. Everything I do from here, everywhere I go, I go having planned it alone.
Well—except for my son. I have rarely written about my shared custody agreement with his mom. And yet that agreement’s constraints have been a huge part of my life and decision-making process for the past decade. It is the silent influencer of events, rarely mentioned but ever-present.
Where I go next will depend not just on me, but on what she and I agree on. He is getting older—he’s twelve now, almost a teenager—old enough for us to start taking his opinion into account, and to spend time away, either from her or from me. Certainly old enough to go on adventures—whether he joins me on my next one has yet to be determined.
One thing I am certain of, though: while my future is as wide open as it’s been in a decade, I am really feeling a need to settle. I cannot wait to park myself in one place (not Bethesda, Maryland), stop nomading around, and invest. If only to be able to say to others: I am here, here is where I will be.
#1: The most underrated country to visit in the world
It’s likely I just said goodbye to Mexico for a long while, but I don’t want to leave without giving this amazing country some parting words of appreciation.
Even as well-known as it is, Mexico remains severely underrated as a travel destination. It’s huge and diverse, with mountains, desert landscapes in the north, chilly Pacific surf beaches in the West, and warm and windy Caribbean beaches in the East. It’s got a gigantic, dynamic metropolis in Mexico City, but also highly liveable midsize cities like Mérida in the Yucatán, hippie beach towns in Oaxaca, and a thousand off-the-beaten-path towns and villages of every size and character, spread in every direction.
When most American tourists think of Mexico, they probably think of big resort towns like Cabo san Lucas or Cancun—I advise you to avoid these places at all costs. A good rule of thumb: do not go anywhere they might try to sell you a timeshare (this applies to everywhere, not just Mexico).
La Ventana itself, where I have been kitesurfing for much of the last two months, is itself becoming a destination for digital nomads, with its cheap accommodations and high-speed internet. Soon, though, it will outgrow its slightly shabby, dirt road charm, and its roadside taco stands and fruit stands will be replaced with high-end restaurants for twice the price (Despite what the LA Times says, La Ventana has a ways to go before becoming “gentrified”).
I do have two criticisms. First, it is surprisingly hard to find good, cheap wine in Mexico. I can only go so long on beer and margaritas before I start to miss a normal, $5 bottle of Spanish vino tinto. Second, there is a lot of trash everywhere (Flying to Spain half-way through the trip really did put this into vivid perspective).
Still, I will always have a fond place in my heart for this wonderful country.
#2: The single most important message to send my kid
A few weeks ago, I watched Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical movie The Fabelmans, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot in the context of my own parenting.
Slight spoilers ahead, so beware:
In the movie, the kid (i.e., young Fabelman/Spielberg) is torn between his mom’s artistic, follow-your-dreams sensibility and his dad’s more traditional admonishments that he should put away his filmmaking “hobby” and get a real job.
This is always a tension for parents: on the one hand, we want to prepare our kids to succeed in the “real” world, which we take to mean learning how to earn money, have a career, all that—but we also want our kids to realize and follow their dreams (oddly, many parents seem to feel the best thing to do for their kids is to sacrifice their own dreams).
Yet it can be hard to see where those two goals of earning a living in the world and the unfettered pursuit of your passions might intersect: most artists never make it. The world is full of failed screenwriters, directors, actors, novelists, musicians, and so on. Show me a kid who wants to grow up to be a professional sports star, and I’ll show you a parent who says, “It’s good to have a backup option, honey.”
In The Fabelmans, it’s the kid’s mom, played by the absolutely incredible, talented-beyond-belief Michelle Williams, who tells her son that he doesn’t have to, and should not, give up on becoming a director just to please his dad.
“You don’t owe your life to anyone,” she tells him in one of the movie’s final scenes. “Not even me.”
Perhaps it’s a message only a mom can truly deliver. She birthed him, after all—in some sense young Fabelman/Spielberg does owe her his life. Which is why it hits so hard. Our kids understand well enough that we have expectations of them. But if I could deliver one message to him, have him understand one thing, it’s that it’s his life, and he doesn’t owe it to me or anyone.
#3: Is climbing losing its soul?
Finally, just in case y’all have missed my sweet, sweet climbing content, I want to drop some links here on recommended reading.
Outside Magazine published a widely-shared piece last month titled, How Climbing Gyms Lost Their Soul.
I read the piece, and I mean: I kind of see it?
Ultimately, though, I’m more of the Andrew Bisherat school of thought that every generation always likes to lament and naval-gaze and say, oh, remember when everything was pure and better, and climbing is no different.
Still: in the last 10 years, the sport has exploded, and I do think there is something special about climbing that should be properly communicated to the new generations entering. This is why a show like The Climb is so important—it shows how ethics can be transferred from one generation to the next.
I think that transference is super valuable and important. Souls aside.