Day After Day

 

My little hobo camp

            The year was 2017. I was fresh off my whirlwind adventures Down Under and found myself in Vermont biding my time. I was working with my Dad and Uncle in the woods for the summer building a cabin, honing carpentry skills, trying to save a double decker bus from the ravenous forest and rebuilding my savings for my anticipated return to Montana. I was living in my little teardrop camper in the driveway of the jobsite, waking at dawn to watch the sun climb up over the Green Mountains and spending my evenings sitting in a lawn chair with my guitar watching the same sun sink into the western abyss. 

Life was simple. Cereal and toast for breakfast. A leafy early morning dog walk through the woods with Deke. Wander over to the timber frame cabin project, sweep yesterday’s sawdust and dig out the chop saw. Wipe the morning dew from the tailgate of my Toyota and lay out my toolbelt. Work through the muggy heat of the day, chasing shade and dodging thunder showers. Cruise the dirt roads home to the parent’s house around six pm for dinner and a shower then meander back to my camper at the jobsite. It was an idyllic, if sweaty existence.

And yet, despite the solid earnings I was making, the comfortable bed I was sleeping in and the beautiful natural surroundings, my moods fluctuated like the phases of the moon. Some days I was rambunctious and ready to take on the world. Some days I was content to live like this forever. Other days, I was a grouch, constantly displeased and unsatisfied, grousing for something better or different. There was no telling what mood I would be in until it was consuming me. 

As I worked, I listened to endless scientific podcasts and TedTalks full of people who were curious about the world and used scientific data to draw conclusions and learn something. I didn’t have any true crime to solve or any massive revelations on the movement of planets or populations, but I could take data on myself. I have an insatiable curiosity about mood swings and outlook. The fact that I can live most days in a similar manner but can feel invincible or worthless on any given day has always flummoxed me. Human motivation is fascinating, both in myself and in the people around me. We all have strange feelings of self doubt and also inspiration to chase impossible dreams. We do nothing and everything all at once. 

And so, in my little backwoods Vermont hobo camp, I started collecting data on my little tablet. Each night before bed, I would input a few pieces of information. The goal was to track an entire year and see if I could find patterns or triggers for some of my moods. Some of the data was objective like the temperature and weather. I would record the predominant event of the day and one song I had heard or sung that day. I would ask one question about the world I would like to know the answer to. I would list one thing I learned that day about the world and one thing that I appreciated about life. Then I would write where I slept and give the day a rating based on my mood. The day rating was entirely subjective, but I wanted to see how I felt about the happenings as compared to the actual events.

I never found the exact answers that I set out to find. I don’t have the scientific data for a podcast or a Ted Talk. I calculated that it rained 130 of 365 days and found that even though I hate the rain, rainy days don’t necessarily correlate to bad days. My average day rating was a 6.8 out of 10, which is higher than the median, but also seems low for all the good things I have in my life. I accumulated a large and strange collection of songs that I listened to. I found that writing down things I appreciate every day gives a shot of gratitude at the moment but doesn’t accumulate to a constant feeling of grace.  I have a journal that is quite nostalgic to re-read. I find that my mood swings are still prevalent and huge, even five years later. 

My biggest revelation from the entire project was that a lot can happen in a year. When I started the data collection, I was just living in the woods and working every day. It felt like every day was the same. But, as the days piled up, life started to change. I took a few road trips then came back to work. I went to Mexico and worked on a sailboat. I returned to Vermont and my camper. I smashed my truck into a deer. I found the site of my future Montana homestead. I ended the year in Spain unexpectedly. Still the days piled up and I kept recording data. Life went places that I never anticipated when I started my little journal experiment.  To quote the great Calvin and Hobbes, “day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon, everything is different.”