Gallivanter – one who wanders around without purpose or a defined plan or for pleasure or diversion. That happens to be Wictionary.com’s definition and one of the more flattering. Wictionary also offers a second meaning; to flirt or to romance. They state that the second definition is obsolete. I beg to differ. A good gallivanter therefore could be defined as one who does the above well. If the walking shoe fits… A good gallivanter could also be defined as one who gallivants with a good heart, with pure intention, I cannot, nor would I profess that all of my intentions are pure, but more of a modified Hippocratic Oath – Do no harm, no intended harm.
The consummate journeyman, expert at nothing, and by that, I mean I am far better at doing nothing than I am at doing most things. Gallivanting, however, I’m pretty good at. I’ve tried my hand at many things. Most don’t stick, so I move on. My life started by moving around and that seems to have stuck. Dad was a journeyman. Electrician. Moved me and my three brothers and mom around the US, constantly. Usually the 6 of us, unbelted on a bench seat in the cab of an old ford pickup truck. Dad typically had a six pack of Schlitz or Coors between his legs. And the bartender says, “We ain’t got no beer, but we got Coors.” I have a crystal clear, like a Rocky Mountain stream, recollection of my younger brother standing at the rolled down passenger window while dad made an assertive left turn through a busy intersection in Galveston, Texas. Then, running with my mom across the maelstrom to pick brother up from the hot asphalt as horns honked and tires squealed. I’d like to say he wasn’t affected by that event, and yeah, I probably wasn’t either. Dad knew that it would just make him tougher.
We finally “settled” in Page, Arizona in 1978. Mom got a job and a little self-respect and began extricating the lot of us from dad’s all knowing “embrace”. The calm that ensued in the wake of Hurricane Richard was calamitous. To escape the peace I spent absurd amounts of time gallivanting around the desert. Scampering up sandstone bluffs catching all manner of reptiles and bringing them home to show mom. Mom didn’t care for that. “Mom, I don’t see how he could have gotten out.” Mom scoffed and I continued with impunity. We rode bikes the 3 miles to Lake Powell and climbed rocks and jumped from cliffs into the man made reservoir. And baseball. I don’t know much, but I know baseball. We lived a baseball’s throw from the local little league field and I found myself there with frequency. Before school, after school, sometimes during school. It turned out I was pretty respectable at throwing strikes and stopping ground balls. I don’t sit still well, even to this day. I fidget and twitch and rearrange unless I’m watching baseball, or God willing, playing the game. The game seems to slow down my perception of time. I can tell you what the managers are thinking and typically what the commentators are about to say.
Baseball and reptiles were among my earliest, intact memories. Hands on activities that kept my attention and fueled my intention. My desire to be in the company of reptiles developed into building habitats for them, in spite of mom’s distaste. I learned how to use power tools and a tape measure and my hands and eventually learned to build an inescapable reptile habitat. Building reptile habitats grew into dog houses, my first business. Dog houses grew into decks and porches and then into construction jobs and years later into starting my own company doing residential and commercial renovation. My desire to escape into the outdoors turned into a job as a river guide in Grand Canyon. There I slept, or didn’t, under the stars for a dozen or so years. And there I found myself, and lost myself and found and lost… That guiding job consisted of a few days in town every 10 days or so to clean up one trip and to pack out the next. The days in town and in the warehouse were typically spent under heavy corporate scrutiny. Time clocks and uniforms and customer service training, and drug tests. Though not aware at the time, it was the structure that I desperately needed and all-together despised. The freedom that came when the boats were pushed off shore and began their descent down through the canyon, the relationships and connections that I formed there; with others, with myself, with the outdoors, with the natural world, were also what I desperately needed. The confluence of those two worlds, the corporate and the natural, left me with a fervent contempt for the former and a lifelong lifeline to the latter. And also with the ability and confidence to navigate with a modicum of success, between the two.
I have done many things in this short life. I have failed as much as I have succeeded. Jobs, tasks and ideas, businesses, relationships. Early on, the discomfort that came with failure was immense. The worries about what others might say about me or even think was at times all consuming. Those thoughts working in collusion with the pressure that society and norms place on an individual, especially in the United States, was debilitating for me, at times. Always searching for what and who others wanted me to be. One of the more beautiful aspects of aging is that as the years have begun to pile up, feeling like I give a shit about what others think of me has begun to slowly recede. Unfortunately, not as fast as my hairline. This trend gives me the impression that the discomfort of failure resides primarily in the ego. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I clearly allowed that discomfort to take up tenancy in my head and becoming aware of the fact that I’d had a squatter living in my mind for some time has allowed me to begin taking steps towards eviction.
I’ve always held firmly to the belief that everything happens for a reason and I have a burning suspicion that the comprehensive course of events of my life has steered me here. I spent most of the last 10 years back in a corporate environment. Healthcare. American healthcare. And in a marriage to a physician in that same healthcare system. I do not know which was more toxic, the job or the relationship, but much of the blame I squarely shoulder, if only in my own mind. I have learned that without ownership, there can be no growth. How can I grow if all of my troubles are someone else’s fault?
In my experience most people I have had the pleasure of knowing have sought to enforce, bolster and support the way that they see the world. To continue to seek out evidence that validates their existence. And I have certainly done much of the same. As I have begun the painfully slow process of vanquishing my ego, my tendencies have begun to follow an alternative route. I spend a considerable time challenging my own opinions. They still show up, and often without announcing their ingress, but as often as that occurs, I do my best to express my views as observation as perception and leave the judgment to others. Judgment, in my mind anyway, is the mechanism that modifies perception into opinion. Other than the fact that cucumbers must to be sliced as thinly as possible and a few other requisites, I am okay with people and things being as they are. As they choose to be. I’m most likely to hang on to that opinion unless I can be presented with a compelling case for thicker slices. That and a transcendent contempt for any type of injustice, especially for those who bully, or are authoritarians, dictators, control freaks or the like, the type of behavior typically elicited by the most insecure of humanity, I am generally good with letting others be who they are. The notion that believing I am right except for what’s right for me, seems all together foolish and short sighted, except when I’m slicing cucumbers or carving up little dictators.
So to date, I have sold nearly everything I own, all my worldly possessions; things that do not bring me much pleasure, but exact a cost to maintain, to keep track of, to store. I no longer want things. I want experiences. I want connection. Honesty and authenticity. Simplicity, though there is little that is simple about travel. In my preparations for this particular chapter of my life, a few people have asked me what I am running from. I no longer desire to run from anything. I walk away from what no longer serves me and I run towards what makes me feel alive, a sharp and gnawing hunger for intensity.
What has proven to be my greatest joy in this life and consequently perhaps my most significant achievement has been the relationships that I have fostered with my daughters. I always vowed to do better than my father. While that bar was quite low, I’m proud of what I have done. For example, when I travel with them in the car, I keep only 1 beer between my legs, never a six pack, and it is typically a much superior beer than Coors or Schlitz. So as I endeavor to gallivant, I do so with a heavy heart that skips the occasional beat as I consider the potential time frames that may elapse without the three of us being together. And my mind will be perpetually scanning for opportunities and destinations where I can entice them into a rendezvous. They know me intimately and they are well aware that I have scarcely allowed a season to pass without adventure of some sort. And I take considerable pride in watching the two of them emerge into adulthood, even if from afar. I also feel confident that they take pride in watching their father bounding on his merry way. So merry is the objective, with a crystal clear understanding that without some misery and suffering, Merry is simply unattainable.
