The Dog Days of Service

Is this the best I'm gonna feel today?

I’m at the ranch, I’m on the road, I’m not leaving the property today.

I promised Sarah, Hannah’s mother, that I would strap my boards to the roof of the van and vacate the den in Santa Monica by June 22nd. When the day came, I drove a few hundred miles north out of Los Angeles, stopped halfway when I realized I was about to lose a log to the freeway, and eventually landed on a 120-acre rainbow somewhere between a tractor and a bee colony. As I write this, July is still one week out. Until the room I’m moving into is ready, I’ve been invited to stay in my (new) housemate’s trailer while he’s away.

Scott’s trailer is an old Airstream Argosy, situated too far out on the land to pick up wifi or service. Every evening after dinner I respond one last time to any outstanding messages on my phone, fill up my water bottle, and wish everybody still lounging around goodnight. I walk past the barn and up the hill, squatting in the dark for one last pee behind the big rock, long enough to take in the blanket of stars above. By the glow of a single bulb, I twist my hair into braids and splash cold water on my face once inside the trailer. Climbing into soft pants and socks, I tuck myself in against the panoramic windows that face fields of lupine already bloomed. I marvel with each passing night at the depth to the feeling of signing off. I know with certainty that nothing can reach me — no messages, no emails, no DM’s. In the morning there is nothing to check, and so I don’t until many hours have passed after daybreak.

I imagine if living like this was still the norm in the United States. I remember the “wifi plazas” I saw in Havana on a visit to Cuba in 2016: crowds of people sitting around together in the same spot just to use the internet. I know the insidious surveillance and control that underlies what I’m talking about — I don’t think it is a good thing that access to information is regulated or weaponized by governments. But I do think about who I would be if I needed to walk to service zones intentionally in order to get my fill instead of always just being in service, more or less without my consent.

I’ve now spent more time on earth being connected than not. My boundless access to information or other people, and my own “being accessible”, has been an omnipresent standard in my life. With the exception of meditation retreats, weekend camping trips, or the years I lived in Vermont, I’ve been available to an invisible network without much effort — yes, even in rural Mexico. This decades-long circumstance of being a user is so baked into my corporeality that when it becomes severed, I notice.

There is internet in the main house. Being on Scott’s hill grants me service of a different kind: access to the earth, and to my thoughts. Having a barrier between myself and a network isn’t common, and the option to deliberately remove myself from 150 mbps with a quick walk is fun. It is also revealing.

I think the short distance between house and trailer is precisely what enhances the vibrancy of my thoughts and feelings, like I’ve been teleported somewhere otherworldly. And yet, I am not in another world. In fact, I would argue that I am more of-the-world than ever when I’m near the trailer; being out there just renders my moments something surreal because my norm is not earthly. It hasn’t been for a long time, but like many of you, I am eager to change that.

I told a friend about about my near-divine experience disconnecting every evening and of the hesitancy bubbling up around re-connecting once my time in the trailer is up. She suggested I “just switch to airplane mode” once I move into the house. But what makes these breaks from service so impactful is that they don’t require emotional labor from me, they are just a result of circumstance. The circumstance feels good, being an addict and not having a choice.

The trailer takes my agency away. Thank God, because I have too much.

Stay tuned for another letter this week for paid subscribers only: a round-up of what I’ve been bookmarking and dog-earing, and the tale of you guessed it: my Hot New Wrangler-Clad Crush.

Love,

Anna