Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

This is not a drill! Fall, ya’ll! ©SheilaMoeschenPhotography

One morning, sometime in the middle of August, when I was out for a walk, I took a photo of a tree already starting to show its fall colors. When I posted it later on that day, the response was swift and furious:

Nope! No thanks!

Too soon!

IT’S STILL SUMMER YOU KNOW!

Well. It’s not like the tree was wrapped in patriotic bunting with a menorah underneath it and a giant inflatable Peter Rabbit holding a box of Valentine candy just to the right. Of course I realized that it was on the meteorologically early side for the leaves to turn, especially in Massachusetts. Sometimes we don’t get full blown disco ball fall until late-October or early November. I don’t make the rules. The tree was too lovely to pass up. And, honestly, this year summer wore out her welcome for me by mid-July when the astronomical heat index made something as simple as dragging the garbage bin to the curb feel like a 30-mile hike in the Sahara. This was my version of “dressing for the job you want.”

It’s true that the changing seasons and varied climate are one of New England’s biggest selling points. “Don’t like the weather, wait five minutes!” goes the terrible Dad-like-joke that everyone who lives here will make at some point and then immediately hate themselves for saying it. But it’s accurate. A light sweater in the morning may be followed by putting on shorts in the afternoon and pulling up an extra blanket when you go to bed. Living in a place like New England means that you are habitually confronted with your inconvenient mortality. It wasn’t that people were shocked by the picture I took, it was that the tree seemed to go from green to gold overnight without consultation. The nerve! That’s why it’s called climate change, not climate control. If only, right? Then we could sleep more soundly at night, smug in believing ourselves to be tiny gods and not what we actually are: homo sapiens, model type: basic.

Around this same time my husband and I started watching the History Channel series Alone. It’s a reality TV-style competition that works like this: 10 people are individually deposited in various locations within a remote setting uninhabited by other humans. The first two seasons took place on Vancouver Island, Canada, a beautiful, cold, harsh temperate rain forest. They don’t know one another and are spaced out at random intervals—9 miles here, 4 miles there. The goal is to see how long they can survive. That’s it. Your objective: don’t die. They are given GoPros to document their experiences and yellow walkie-talkies to radio the production team for medical assistance (which, depending on the issue, may result in their removal) or to “tap out” of the competition and go home. The last person surviving wins $500,000 and a very, very long hot shower.

Usually I watch these kinds of reality competition shows with a lot of ludicrous swagger. “Glass blowing?! I could totally do that. I, mean, how hard is it really? It’s just a big metal straw!” But this show was something else entirely. Three episodes in and one of the contestants is rhapsodizing about her roasted mouse—the first protein I’ve had in, like, 15 days!-- and I demurred.

“I don’t think I would make it a week,” I said.

“I don’t think you’d make it off the boat,” he replied.

I really couldn’t argue with that. The drop-off boat had a bathroom and probably a decent snack bar.

It wasn’t just the “bush craft” (legitimate term that did not make me giggle every time someone used it) that I found absorbing. Sure, it was impressive to watch people fashioning gill nets to try and catch fish or curing tree sap to use as fire starter in the wet, rainy climate. When someone explained how they were using a “wattling” method to build their structure, a “pop-up” fact appeared on the screen to explain how this technique dates back to 900 B.C. when early humans wrestled whales with their bare hands and didn’t see the need to film it all like was some kind of big deal. I enjoyed these. They made me feel smart so that when my husband and I would be out somewhere, I could point to something like an empty soccer field and say, “I’d wattle myself a big structure right out there. See? No widow-makers around, close to that guy’s swimming pool where I could set up my gill net.” These info drops also gave me a healthy appreciation for how quickly I would actually die by my own stupid hand if I were out in the legitimate wild and not, what I consider wilderness, which I define with the question: “Could I walk to a Whole Foods from here?”

So the novelty of watching someone filet a mouse was short-lived for me. Rather, I couldn’t get enough of witnessing the emotional and psychological transformation of these people. Alone is about more than staying alive, it’s about having to suddenly really live with and confront yourself in a way that some of these people did not bargain for. Like season two’s Larry.

“I hope a bear gets this guy,” I said.

“That’s dark,” my husband replied.

“Yeah, well, that’s karma!”

“I don’t think that’s how it actually works.”

“In this case, it should.”

Larry was just mad at, like, everything! He chose a terrible spot for his shelter, got mad about it, decided to move, and then was mad he had to relocate at all. He was mad that he couldn’t catch any fish. He declared an angry, expletive-loaded personal vendetta against a mouse that had invaded his shelter and kept him up at night. At one point he was fumbling through the wet, slippery terrain and slipped on the roots of a nearby tree almost taking a serious fall. He caught himself, swore, and smacked the tree like she should have been the one to step aside as he came thrashing through the woods.

“Oh this jerk just made my list of things to do today!” I said.

“Settle down, Lorax,” my husband said, rolling his eyes.

Whatever. I silently gave Nature the all clear to drone shot his ass with a method of her choice: mudslide, lightning strike, bear attack. I wasn’t picky and it would have made for really, really exciting television. Win-win.

The more twisted up Larry became over the totally unpredictable circumstances he found himself in by choice, the more I wondered: Why? Why did you sign up for this punishing, grueling experience guaranteed to not just test your limits, but push you beyond them? Larry seemed genuinely surprised that no matter how hard he tried Nature refused to cooperate and play nice. I suppose that the story he had his heart set on telling after all this was over was the one about man versus nature with man being the victor. Sure. And then the ghost of Jack London laughed and laughed and laughed. Larry ended up being the runner-up in his season. He stayed angrily in the wild for 64 days. The guy who won, David, outlasted him by 48 hours. That had to sting when the producers told him. Fine, it wasn’t a lethal spider bite, I thought, but it would have to do.  

There was a reunion show at the end of Larry’s season. I’ve always loved the follow-up, “where are they now” kind of TV specials. Everyone wants to know if they kept off the weight or took the relationship to the next level or were able to maintain the preposterous skincare and grooming regimen with the unaffordable products. And, let’s face it, we all tune in hoping, deep down, to see the backslide. It makes us feel better about our own failings. In the Alone reunion special they replay “highlight” type footage, discuss memorable or turning point moments, and talk with the contestants about their experiences and choices. By now they would have had to watch themselves through the edited docu-footage with all its personal rawness. After viewing himself, would Larry have taken the opportunity to reflect, to have a few insights about, I don’t know, his clearly addled psyche? Any regrets, Larry? Anything you’d do differently?

Nope. He was very satisfied with everything he did and the way his time on the island played out. Larry wouldn’t change a single thing.