The Choices We Don’t Make

I enjoy discussing the concept of free will. As a general rule I don’t believe in it. This may sound contentious, even borderline cantankerous, but to me it’s more of a semantical thing. Because there is no actual way to identify the exact moment in time a decision was made amongst a cascade of neurotransmitters, thoughts, and muscles that constitute an action, it’s fair to say the idea that we are the conscious authors of our own behavior is nebulous at best. Do I think this means people are completely out of control of their actions and simply moving forward through a pre-determined (perhaps higher power-ordained) universe? Certainly not. But I do think it means most “choices” we make are actually confusing soups of genetic predisposition, environmental factors, and brain chemicals. And I also think there are some choices we don’t make at all.

The older I get the more I start to notice when my perceived control on a situation is slipping. For most of my adolescence and adulthood I have struggled with severe anxiety that often manifests in control obsession, fastidiousness, and bursts of rage. The rage seems to be the way my brain likes to cope with the feeling of loss of control. But I’ve historically found it very difficult to identify that moment; the moment that I switch from feeling on top of something in my life to feeling trampled by it. I perceive relative calm explode expeditiously into rage and it’s often not until I calm down, frequently amongst the wreckage of the things I’ve said or done, that I realize what triggered it. But slowly, very slowly, I have worked increasingly hard to attempt to expand timeline on that cascade of events that leads to rage; to peer into the soup and identify where my brain perceives the loss of control and begins to turn to its coping mechanism. I’ve had mixed results.

More than thoughts or emotions, physical cues are useful in identifying the switch from relative calm to rigged to blow. The usual suspects of anxiety—racing heart, flushed skin, narrowed focus—appear on the scene. But often by this point the choice to be reactive already feels made. I’m at the top of the rollercoaster, and there’s no attendant to let me out no matter how hard I scream.

All this isn’t to say I bear no responsibility for actions made in anger. I bear all of it actually. Just because we don’t feel we’ve chosen to do something consciously does not absolve us from the consequences of what gets done. But realizing how hard it is to identify a moment of choice in certain situations has so many implications for how we treat people. And how we think life treats us.

Most of the situations that feel out of control in my life are related to my anxiety and rage. But as I’ve worked harder to watch myself in those moments, I’ve developed the ability to watch myself in others as well. And I’ve noticed that some choices just really don’t feel like choices at all.

In early November I approached a house in rural mid-Michigan to make a package delivery. As I walked up the steps to the back porch, a litter of kittens descended on me. There are a lot of cats and kittens in the country. This wasn’t the first time I’d taken a few moments out of my day to scratch an ear or two. But this assault immediately felt different. One kitten, a scraggly-looking black fluff ball, climbed onto my squatted knee, looked me directly in the eyes and made his best kitten plea for attention. And just like that I felt the control slipping. I wasn’t anxious. I wasn’t becoming angry or scared. But still, I could feel my ability to make a real choice completely wither away. I told myself I would only wait approximately 30 seconds for the customer to hear me and come outside (and presumably offer me a kitten, as is expected among hosts of barn cat litters) and if they didn’t come outside it wasn’t meant to be.

But as 30 seconds turned into a minute and one minute into two, I began to feel the urge to just make off with the kitten like a thief in the night. Luckily I didn’t have to resort to a life of crime. Several seconds past when I started to really worry I wasn’t going to receive an offer for the kitten, a woman peered out her back door and then stepped outside. “I’m sorry,” I said “they’re just so cute.”

“Would you like one?” she asked, following my script exactly.

I made a show of pretending to deliberate, more for myself than for her. I tried to tell myself that the last animal I raised from infancy absolutely shattered my heart, and I was still missing a bunch of the pieces. But truly I knew that the choice had already been made. And maybe that was ok.

Months later Roland is an essential part of my daily life. Much like my dog Logan, who also seemingly landed in my lap through a series of similar non-choices, he is keeping the darkness at bay through a particularly challenging winter. His presence feels so essential to my well-being that I start to wonder if the choices we don’t make are made for us by instinct; something deep in the hindbrain that senses the need for a scenario to go a particular way and overrides normally strong logic and reasoning.

I don’t perceive my inability to make a rational choice in that moment as weakness in the face of an animal in need. As a regular rescue volunteer and pet care industry worker, I’ve encountered thousands of animals that could have easily come home with me at any moment. What I see is a sort of magic. And whether that magic lies in an instinct we don’t understand, the inherent intelligence of the material universe, or just in pure emotional intuition I don’t much care. But I do care to notice these moments and cherish them. To relinquish the control I perhaps never really had and allow life to happen.

Logan the quarantine foster fail dog and Roland the delivery kitten. Two of the best choices I never really made.

Casual Racism and the Need for Social Ostracization

While I’ve been happy to share others’ posts and converse with friends in person about the current circumstances of the continuing civil rights movement in the United States, I’ve been somewhat hesitant to do a deep dive into my own feelings through this blog. That’s because I think my feelings on the subject aren’t that important. What are important are the voices of black and brown people in this country who have been continually targeted for abuse, marginalized, and gas-lit. Because I still feel this way, I’ll keep this quick. But every once in a while I am consumed by the overwhelming urge to say something the way I want.

If you have not noticed racial injustice in this country you are, in fact, a racist. Yes even if you have black friends. Even if you support black businesses. Even if you have consciously never made a decision against someone on the basis of the color of their skin. If you’ve been able to look on at American life at large and see little or no discrepancies in the way people are treated in relation to the melanin in their skin, you are the reason we have a fucking problem.

I know this has been said before, but I just want to stress how clean-cut and simple this is. As primatologist Frans de Waal discovered, even monkeys can tell when a friend is being short-changed:

So if humans claim not to notice injustice as it unfolds in front of them, what does that mean? To me it’s pretty clear. If someone doesn’t notice that their fellow human keeps getting a cucumber while they get a grape, it’s likely they don’t actually see that fellow human as fully human. As a deeply social organism, injustice speaks to our very genes. The only way to turn this off is to convince oneself, consciously or unconsciously, that there is something inherently different about the cucumber recipients. That they are, in fact, being treated fairly by being treated differently and this jives with the social order.

This is why I don’t play ball with so-seeming “casual” racists. Sure, it’s easy for everyone to cut off the crazy uncle who drops the N word. But I see so many people maintaining relationships with people who continue to live without acknowledging racial injustice. Who continue to vote and live and speak as if the very lives of black and brown people in this country weren’t continually, disproportionately at stake.

If we want to take a cue from early humans or even, as I did prior, from other social primates, we have a powerful tool in our hands that we are not always using. Short of outright eliminating a threat to a tribe or troupe, social primates ostracize. In our society assault and murder are illegal (for good reasons) but social exclusion is not. You reward and condone people for their behavior by maintaining relationships with them. If you can hide your revulsion of someone who sees an entire group of people as less than human long enough to play 18 holes of golf with them you are not revolted enough.

Social isolation is often the only language short of violence people understand. We cannot continue to act as if indifference to systemic human suffering is a political view. It is a threat as real as disease, war, or famine. Make no mistake. To accept anything less than anti-racism is to continue to watch the growth of a malignant tumor on the human species.

There is Almost No Excuse Not to Adopt

Evidently, an unpopular opinion: most of us don’t need animals anymore. Why are we still breeding them? In a world drowning in unwanted companion animals and with ever shrinking needs for working animals, the incessant breeding of specific kinds of pets seems insane to me. Several years ago I thought the conversation on buying versus adopting companion animals was pretty well put to rest. But years of observations, Instagram posts, and conversations with other humans have convinced me that, apparently, the subject is still open for debate. Why?

Being a person with a history of misanthropy and more attention placed on animal than human welfare has put me in a unique situation. As I learned and matured over the years, I began to recognize many issues involving animals are more complicated and nuanced than I judged in my younger years. It’s not always right or enough to say animals must not be bred, killed, or used in any way. At the end of the day, I will support things like vital medical research on animals, the use of service animals, and even eating animals (in certain scenarios, more on that in another post).

Dying is a part of every life, and though this is true of humans as well, the death or suffering of a human is recognized by most to be the evil most worth avoiding; even at the cost of animal life. But I still retain the emotional and logical backing of the original argument that non-human animals are not ours specifically to torment and derive satisfaction from. Thus I do not support the gratuitous and callous use of animals in things like cosmetics testing, circuses, and filmmaking. A lot of people accept and even reflect these views. So I am always surprised when the suggestion that humans should never breed animals other than for a direct need goes over like a lead balloon.

I think the main problem is that people do not want to admit to themselves or others that often breeding an animal, or perpetuating the breeding of animals by purchasing them, is done solely for economic or entertainment purposes (again, I am omitting animals bred for service here). A person may argue that desiring a companion is not the same as desiring entertainment and that adding a pet to your family is a benefit to that animal as well as yours. But it stands to reason that any domestic animal can be a companion, especially if the human side of the relationship is willing to work with the animal as they would in a companionship with a friend or relative. As such, a person who truly wants a pet to form a sincere, respectful, and enjoyable relationship for both parties should be willing to do the extra work of finding a dog or cat that already exists. I’m going to assume you’re already aware: there are many of them. This argument does not even begin to address the health issues of so-called “purebred” animals. There’s plenty already on the internet for your perusal on this topic.

If you believe that non-human animals exist on this earth solely for the use and pleasure of humans, we have a core difference. And that is OK. I actually can’t convince you that you are wrong because that is a statement about the moral nature of reality that I’m not equipped to debate. But if you claim to believe animals have rights, that they inhabit this world in the same faculty we do, then I’m not sure what about the argument against breeding is hard to swallow. You can believe that humans should come first. You can agree that when it comes to nourishment, medical need, and mental stability animals should be used to bolster human health and safety. But you can still agree that there is a line. That beyond need, creating animals solely to use them for pleasure is unethical. That it is immoral to acquire an animal to boost your ego, “train” you to have a child, spice up your office, or even make your house feel less lonely. That to get a pet solely for your own interests, and not also to free that animal from a life of marginalized loneliness, is selfish.

If you want to build a relationship with an animal predicated on love for that animal, not on its utility or attractiveness, you should adopt. Why? Because if you care about that animal you should care about the lives of other animals like it. You should care that a purchased animal was created to fill a need inside YOU and only you while a homeless animal lost a chance at a better life. Because you might be a good pet parent, but the breeder you supported sold to three more people who will abuse their pets and ultimately dump them in a shelter. Because your enjoyment of a particular “breed” of animal is not more important than the issue of pet homelessness. Because your son would love a 1-year old mutt just as much as a golden retriever puppy. Because it’s the right thing to do.

So I’m just sick of the excuses and I really don’t accept any of them anymore. If you claim to care deeply about companion animals yet purchase them, I cannot abide you. I don’t even care what type of animal it is. At this moment their are four unwanted ball pythons within 50 miles of me. There are at least three kittens at my sisters house that need permanent homes. There are rescues for horses, llamas, and sugar-gliders. You can adopt. And you should.

100% of the best doggos I know were adopted

Castaway 7: Homecoming

If this strange journey has taught me one thing, it’s that time truly is relative. That it’s possible to notice the passing of an individual day more than an entire month. That doing nothing really does expand time; and that this is not always a good thing. That familiarity can make time contract and vast stretches seem to fall into a void, knitting together edges of your life that stood across vast oceans before. That it takes conscious effort not to allow this familiarity to become complacency.

When I saw the Imua pulling up to the same wharf we’d been left at six months prior, I almost could have forgotten the space between the two events. Its image was so familiar that I might have wondered if I’d dreamt the whole thing in a Dramamine-fueled coma. But the overwhelming delight at seeing new, yet familiar, faces was evidence enough of my isolation. Upon stepping off the ship, one of the Fish and Wildlife employees we love the most handed us all a perfectly ripe banana. Never has a piece of fruit brought me so much joy.

The changeover with the new CAST crew was a whirlwind of social activity. My crew and I filled the new crew’s minds with more information than could possibly have been retained, trying to pass on as much of our knowledge of the strange home they were inheriting before our time came to an end. I was surprised by how quickly my awkwardness at seeing new people after six months faded. As a person with a history of social anxiety, I expected to be especially plagued by those feelings when the insecurity of being unpracticed entered the picture. But it actually seemed that my sheer exuberance at the interactions was enough to cloud the doubts I would normally feel. Though I had to retire early after dinner on the first day to decompress a bit, I felt very socially competent most of the week. In the days that followed I believe I’ve even come close to experiencing what it’s like to be extroverted. I have chosen to sit at a bar twice instead of a table to interact with strangers. I have made pleasant comments that could lead to conversations with line companions. I’ve smiled at babies. Who am I?

When the ship finally began to pull away from Johnston, I was somewhat startled by how little I felt. Though it had been a home to me for longer than several other places I’d lived, I was just so ready to move on. Leaving it in the hands of new friends also made the separation feel less final. I did realize with a twinge of sadness that I’d neglected to say goodbye to my garden. But when I shouted across the growing divide to the new crew members “don’t forget to water!”, they responded with “just did this morning!”and I knew it was never my garden and it didn’t need me. It was on to bigger and better things too.

As Johnston boobies flapped alongside the boat and the island grew smaller and smaller, I felt relief more than anything else. Though I experienced true seasickness for the first time during the return trip (not recommended), I found the opportunity for rest it provided a godsend. Upon arriving in Honolulu, there wasn’t much time to revel in the amenities of civilization. Boat disembarking immediately turned to boat unloading, and the work continued in a frenzy until everything was moved back to the bunkhouse we’d stayed at in November. It was surreal to be back in that place. Once again I started to feel suspiciously like I’d never left. But the new faces that greeted us inside begged to differ.

My first foray into city life was sublime. My crew mate and I made a bee-line for our favorite bar. We ordered the beers and pub food we’d dreamed about so many times on-island. We saw rainbows over Diamond Head and listened to the cacophony of urban sounds. We reveled in a hard job well done and the pleasures that awaited us.

My journey finally came to its climatic close at the Detroit airport. Five in the morning on June 22^nd, 2019 stands as the only time I have run through an airport without trying to catch a flight. Throwing down my bags to embrace my parents and partner at the baggage claim will forever be one of the greatest moments of my life.

I don’t know that I’ll visit another of the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands. There are several more with similar volunteer programs that I could apply for. A large part of me is fairly sure seven months is just a little too long to be parted from those I love. But there will always be a part of me that wonders what else is out there. At the very least I know that remote life itself remains wide open to me. Even at the end of the six months, I was still happy living in a tent and most of the physical comforts of society could have been forgotten in comparison with the emotional ones.

Until the next bizarre adventure, thanks to whoever took the time to read these posts. If you’d like to know more about Johnston Atoll or are interested in becoming a member of the Crazy Ant Strike Team follow this link. If you’d like to know more about the other U.S. Minor Outlying Islands follow this link.

Mahalo.

 

***This is a personal blog and the opinions expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the US Fish and Wildlife Service***

Castaway 6: Over The Blue Horizon

We are in the last month of our banishment—er, I mean deployment—here
on Johnston. I can feel the desire to be reunited transitioning from a
constant dull ache to actual anticipation. It is finally starting to
feel like it will really happen. Like the end is not some unreachable
horizon but a point on a map we are drawing nearer to, even if the
progress feels slow. In under 30 days, I will see other humans. In
around 40 I will see my humans. I remind myself of all the psychology
that insists the mental pleasures of anticipation outweigh those of
actually getting what you’ve been waiting for. Though I’m inclined to
think it’s a little easier to relish waiting a few hours for a donut
than months for dearly missed loved ones.

Lately I’ve been plagued by strange ominous dreams in which my loved
ones either ignore or scorn me. It’s as if my primate brain is sending
out alarm signals. “You haven’t seen x, y and z in an unacceptable
amount of time! They may not even care for you any more!” I know these
dreams are fictitious and I pay them no heed. But they are interesting
in that they remind me of the dreams that used to haunt my sister and
I as children, in which our parents would abandon us or do cruel
things like destroy our favorite stuffed toys. The irony (and often
hilarity) of these dreams was that they bore no resemblance to
reality. We had some of the most loving and attentive parents children
could ask for. I’ve since found that others experienced these paranoid
dreams as kids. I view it as a marker of an immature, and thus
insecure psyche. These dreams were just another form of nightmare in
which the monster, though just as unreal, was a bit closer to home.
Though I’ve maintained communication with my friends and family
through messages, I don’t believe this contact fully “registers” in
the brain. Logically, I know everyone will be waiting for me with open
arms, but my subconscious roils with insecurity and paranoia for not
having actually seen or heard the voices of every primate’s most
important security blanket: their group.

I now see the ocean surrounding us as less a beautiful landscape and
more an impenetrable wall. Homebody though I may be, the fact that I
physically can’t leave is starting to get to me. I feel caged. We may
seem to have the run of the island—deciding which invertebrates live
or die and abducting tropicbirds for our nefarious scientific
purposes—but nothing is more humbling than watching the birds fly out
past the horizon each day and remembering that, unlike their kind, we
are stuck on this chunk of rubble with the geckos and mice, for better
or worse. Snorkeling still offers some reprieve, as the majority of
the world comes to meet you at the sea wall. Fish, rays, and sharks
are a wonderful reminder that, though it may seem like it, the blue
mass around us is far from a barren desert. Johnston Atoll belongs to
the ocean and it’s here that it really comes alive. Though
unequivocally important to the seabirds we study, the land and trees
themselves are more of an afterthought.

Tensions have grown between some of the members of the group, an
unavoidable consequence of seeing no-one but each other for months on
end. I find myself clinging to my friends some days, and wanting
nothing more than to be utterly alone others. During the all-island
tropicbird MIC, the largest survey conducted every year on Johnston,
exhaustion and frustration often got the best of us. It can be
difficult to remain cordial when you can feel your back savagely
burning under the relentless sun. Or when you’re tripping through
broken concrete and rebar on top of a hazardous waste landfill. Or
flushing your eye out after the fourth stream of guano to hit you that
morning got you right in the face. Called both lovingly and grudgingly
Trash Paradise by several previous volunteers, there are days when
Johnston earns that name very well.

As the changeover between our crew and the next CAST approaches in
June, we’ve started organizing, inventorying, and generally spiffing
camp for its new inhabitants. This process is therapeutic as it’s a
final push to get rid of the extraneous clutter that’s been hanging
around and make the space as welcoming as possible. But it’s also
strange to think someone else will be living here soon. Sitting in my
favorite spots, caring for (or say it ain’t so, neglecting) my
kombucha-brewing SCOBYs, rearranging my specific brand of
organization. I also lament the prospect of passing on my precious
garden. Tending to and sitting in it has been one of the most
consistent sources of pride and tranquility here. What if there are no
gardeners on the new crew? What if the tomato worms and mice take
over? What if they don’t like arugula?? The possibilities for
vegetable-related travesty are endless. It’s thoughts like these that
confuse the general homesickness I feel most of the time. Like it or
not, I care about this place. I may be ready to return to the greater
world beyond these endless blue walls, but there’s no denying this
place has become a home to me.

 

***This is a personal blog and the opinions expressed are the author’s
own and do not necessarily represent those of the US Fish and Wildlife
Service***

Castaway 5: The Weird and The Wonderful

Johnston Island is a contradiction. Beautiful and hideous. Exasperating and comforting. Plentiful and barren. Its vistas are endearing in an absurd way. Plumeria and hibiscus flowers surround a decaying tennis court. Birds nest in the thousands around a crumbling multistory building. Turtles bask on a beach marred by discarded telephone poles and marine debris. I myself am consumed by a striking contradiction in feeling. I love and hate Johnston. I want my sunrises and lazy afternoons to stretch on, but my weeks and months to contract. Half of me wants to use my time here to the fullest, the other to whittle it as efficiently as possible. It takes near constant presence of mind not to live in the future. Many of our survey tasks are somewhat mindless, like walking between points of a memorized route or scratching at the ground to disturb ants. It’s hard not to drift off in these moments, exploring all the lovely people and things that await me upon return. Audiobooks have been one of the greatest life preservers against this temporal drift. Better I be immersed in a story than in some false projection of possible futures, their promises filling me with vacant desire.

 

Luckily not all our work is mindless. As we continue not finding yellow crazy ants and the birds in our reproduction monitoring plots grow, we are able to spend time banding the juveniles before they fledge. Banding a bird means applying a small numbered metal circlet to the birds right leg so that it may be identified in future population studies. Banding these birds is the first real wildlife handling I’ve done since college. Though I hate distressing any creatures, the process is quick and painless. And I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fun. Banding is one of the activities that reminds me why I’m here. And my ability to pick it up relatively fast gives me hope I may not be in the wrong career path after all.

We’ve also started to notice changes in the wildlife and invertebrate composition here on Johnston. Though I wouldn’t say we experience “Spring” at this latitude, the slightly rising temperatures seem to be coaxing certain species out of wherever they were hiding. In some ways this is wonderful, with the arrival of more white, grey, and sooty terns. Or the sighting of more turtles, eels, and sharks. In other ways it is frustrating and even terrifying, with the heat bringing out garden pests, ants, and—my personal mortal enemy—centipedes. I struggle to put fresh vegetables on the table as it is, having produced only two zucchini, one eggplant, and some herbs and arugula for my crew so far. With the coming months bringing even hotter weather, I’m starting to feel as if I’m fighting a losing battle with Mother Johnston.

 

I think most people who live here must experience a similar mixture of extreme feelings. For many, this is the most remote spot they will ever set foot on. The pleasure of having a whole island nearly to oneself is undeniable. To be on Johnston is to live someplace almost wholly taken back by nature. And living in an atoll means being more surrounded by that other world—the marine world—than I ever thought possible. But being here also means you’re at Mother Johnston’s absolute mercy. You must roll with the punches, whether that means a perfect rainstorm right when you need it or a boobie shitting on your head.

 

**This is a personal blog and the opinions expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the US Fish and Wildlife Service**

Castaway Part 4: Halfway Heartbreak

Our crew has finally been blessed with the knowledge of our departure date. The boat to deliver us from Johnston Island will purportedly arrive June eighth. Five days of shattering social contact will then take place between my crew and the new CAST, known affectionately as “the changeover,” in which we will train the newbies on all things Johnston. Then we will leave the poor saps behind and head back to Honolulu.

This puts us almost exactly half way through our stay here. In many ways this makes it easier to grapple with, seeing as we’ve already survived as many months as we have in front of us. The finish line is finally in view and we can stop making jokes about being abandoned here to eat radioactive coconuts for the rest of our days. But initiating the countdown has also drawn emphasis to the time we have left. Though I still enjoy the Johnston lifestyle, I have finally identified some things I really miss, such as couches that don’t have ants perpetually crawling across them and beds not made of air.

Still, the material desires are completely inconsequential and could even be ignored, if it weren’t for the looming shadow of what I really miss. My people. I am not alone, but I am lonesome. I feel an ache that can’t be placed, a desire to search for and ruminate over some unseen affliction. Originally finding it easy to still my mind in the early weeks, I now struggle to meditate. When left unoccupied, my attention bounces erratically from past to future, picking at emotional scabs and obsessing over possibility. It often seems as much a task to focus on the present as if I were in physical pain. I imagine unlikely hazards befalling my loved ones whilst I sit on this bizarre, impossibly far away hunk of rubble. I make plans and change them. I play the movie of my reunion with my family, partner, and friends over and over again.

Tranquility still surrounds me. The birds still fly in from the ocean every evening. The Milky Way still stretches above. But sometimes majesty is lost in the absence of love. I want to believe I have the capacity to appreciate beauty regardless of company. That it is inherent in my nature. That all else failing, the intimacy between I and the earth will buoy me when I have no one to turn to. But there is a certain sadness in the moment shared between a single human being and a single shooting star. Between a vast ocean and one heart. Perhaps beauty is not a benevolent gift of the cosmos, but of the complex and conniving machinery of natural selection. Perhaps we only revel so that we may draw another closer in our ecstasy.

Or perhaps I am weak. Needy. Perhaps my inability to focus on the beauty that surrounds me displays codependency. Perhaps the desire for the physical proximity of certain individuals is just another aspect of the hedonic treadmill. To say so would be valid considering the life history of the species I belong to. We need one another to survive but our nature does not exactly program us for tranquility and peace, even when we get the things we most desire. But if attachment to the people in my life makes me just a cog in the machine, then so be it. There is no force in the universe I’d rather be beholden to than the love for my people. If I’m destined to always grasp for something, I’d rather grasp for humans than objects, places, or ambitions.

As I stare down the line at that somehow close yet somehow so very far away finish line, I repeatedly tell myself to savor this time. That I will look back and miss the days spent hiding in the ant cave from the midday heat, baking brownies and watching stupid TV comedies with my island sisters. Or seeing the adorable fluff of a tropicbird chick peak out from under it’s striking parent. Or the vastness of the ocean and the silence of disconnection. Though I may have left a lot behind, I’d be remiss to forget how lucky I am to be here.

Red-footed boobie and chick

 

***This is a personal blog and the opinions expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Castaway Part 3: Camp Comforts

Shitting in the ocean is one of the greatest things. The first time I waded in about belly-button height and squatted tentatively as if the movement might not occur. The second time I leapt from an aging pier, plunged into deep blue waters and relieved myself while treading and swam back to shore. Yes we have toilets here. The fancy composting kind with the rolling barrels inside. I use them frequently and have no complaints. But sometimes you’re a mile from camp and no more than two hundred paces or so from the most beautiful bathroom in the world. No commode can compare. It’s almost as if the masterminds behind shitting into a white bowl of fresh water were onto something but somehow missed the actual point. Shitting into water is only great when you are also in the water. I remember we used to get frustrated with tapirs defecating in the stream dangerously close to our water source at our field camp in Costa Rica. “Why the hell do they have to shit in the water?!” we’d lament, suspicious this particular offense hinted at a cosmological plan to fuck with people trying to live in the wilderness. But I understand now. Absent of the knowledge that shitting in fresh flowing water obviously ruins the “freshness” of said water, I’d shit in it too.

Living on a deserted island with four other people obviously engenders a somewhat “open” dynamic. Being the kind of person who’s been relatively comfortable with nudity and necessary bodily functions for the last several years of my life (I was not always this way), I didn’t have a whole lot of adjusting to do. You could say I fit right into life on Johnston. Thus, the interesting bit of this adjustment has been pondering the way we do things in “normal” life. The stripped-down (literally and figuratively), no-bullshit lifestyle here brings a magnifying glass to the myriad ways we live in utter stupidity in so-called civilization.

Since I was old enough to comprehend the scarcity of fresh water on this planet (around two percent of all the water, only one being drinkable and the rest jammed up in icebergs that are slowly melting into the very salty, very undrinkable ocean) I recognized shitting in it was probably ill-advised. But it was always the sort of “oh well, what else can we do” feeling that followed this acknowledgment. Now, upon using the workable alternative, I’m completely flummoxed. Not too long ago, I read a Vice News story by a reporter who went to live at an eco-commune somewhere in Canada. She was horrified by the prospect of using a composting toilet. Let me re-iterate that. She was horrified by the idea of shitting into a plastic bin with a rotating drum instead of a porcelain bin full of water. The apparatus the shitting takes place on is almost indistinguishable, especially once you’re positioned on it. I suppose she just hated the idea of being that close to other peoples’ dung. And perhaps she didn’t realize that if properly cleaned and maintained, composting toilettes smell and appear far better than their putrid cousin the port-o-potty and many a public restroom. Either way, she probably could have dug her own cat-hole in the woods had the prospect of other peoples’ shit horrified her so. But my guess is she was even horrified by her own shit; a sad reality to live in. I suspect our penchant for shitting in water and flushing it “away” has more to do with the culture-hangover of puritanical body shame than it does practicality.

Many people probably think I’m roughing it out here. The truth is, life is so easy and straightforward here it’s a stark reminder that human existence doesn’t have to be that complicated. Sure maintaining camp takes some extra time and effort: refilling water filtration devices, hand-washing clothes and dishes, staying one step ahead of the ants and mice. But the tasks don’t loom like their “civilized” counterparts do. Cooking a meal never requires a trip to the grocery store (unless you count walking a hundred meters to a bunker with a little wagon in tow). Taking out the trash happens once every couple weeks if you burn all the paper and fibers (this also brings to light the startling fact that landfills are packed, in part, with things that could have been fodder for s’mores). Doing laundry simply requires doing laundry, not accomplishing several other things before the buzzer sounds and you have to put the next load in. Having limited clothes means the dirty ones can’t accumulate; having limited possessions and no internet means limited distractions. I also usually don’t see eels and spotted eagle rays in my basement, so there’s another perk of the ocean laundromat. There is no such thing as traffic.

Laughs also come easy out here. The things my crew and I find hilarious have quickly degraded from kitschy to hopelessly absurd. Not long after we arrived, one crew member found a disembodied mannequin head on one of the shores. “Linda” now appears in all our group photos. We spend our nights watching an animated children’s show called “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and make incessant references to the characters the following work hours, giggling maniacally at mixtures of cartoon-world jargon and seabird sounds. We hash out clandestine secret societies such as the “Johnston Flat Fork Society,” named for an inexplicably two-dimensional eating utensil discovered among the conventional kitchen items. I’ve yet to experience boredom.

Setting aside the frequent and ever-stronger pangs for loved ones, living here has been just my cup of tea. We also drink a lot of tea, which is great. Though we still have the civilized pleasure of sitting in front of a glowing screen at night (a solar-generator charged during the day powers a projector at night) my crew and I spend our free time reading, making art, brewing kombucha and baking. Though I must confess I spend a good chunk of my spare hours falling asleep in hammocks.

At the risk of sounding braggish, I’ll divulge that there is work going on here. Previous weeks have had my crew conducting “mean incubation counts” for red-footed boobies, tropicbirds, and great frigate birds. These surveys entail counting every nest with an egg or chick on almost the entire one-square-mile island. The coming weeks bring hand searching and an all-island ant survey, both of which will have us on our hands and knees in the midday heat looking for tiny creatures we all hate. There are definitely weeks in which free time is precious and we have little energy for anything other than just laying around. But as I’m told, a busy camper is a happy camper and we have close to five more months to whittle away here.

 

**This is a personal blog and the opinions expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the US Fish and Wildlife Service**

Castaway Part 2: Johnston Island—First Impressions of a Forgotten Landscape

 

It’s been a little over a week since we were marooned. After four days at sea on the Imua, and four more nights sleeping on the docked vessel we finally moved ourselves from ship to shore and waved goodbye to our setup crew last Friday. Second thoughts be damned, we are stuck here for up to eight months with no hope of escape. Though this might sound dramatic, the feeling would have been mutual had you been standing on a deserted wharf as your one link to society slowly pulled away. Barring health or weather emergencies, we expect to be here until around the end of June. No return trip is currently planned however as it will depend on scheduling and boat/crew availability. It is never expected that a strike team will be on Johnston for longer than eight months though.

Our first week has consisted mainly of revitalizing camp and clearing routes for our upcoming monitoring of the ecological health of the island. Camp itself is shockingly comfortable by my standards. Life centers around the Ant Cave, a kitchen, library, lounge, and meeting place all-in-one housed in military bunker designed with nuclear blasts in mind. This means no windows—hence “cave.” It was also highly cluttered when we arrived; filled to the brim with old food, files, gadgets, and mystery boxes and buckets from past crews. Despite this, the Ant Cave maintains a certain charm. The large bunker doors are never closed, so light and fresh air (and, admittedly, pests) filter in at nature’s discretion. This gives a sense of being outside even while in a dark, high-ceilinged dome. There is a medium-sized array of solar panels that provide us with enough juice to consistently light and power electronics in the ant cave. Stove and refrigerators are powered by propane. There is no plumbing, but we have a makeshift sink rig as well as composting toilettes. The front and back areas of the Ant Cave are covered with large tarps to provide additional shade for eating and relaxing.

Beyond our giant outdoor dining room table lie our personal tents. Each of the five of us has been graced with more personal space than most field camps could dream of. A nine-person camping tent shaded with a large tarp set in a clearing of iron woods. Each setup is a comfortable distance from the next, and only one of the dwellings is even visible from the Ant Cave. I set to work personalizing my own space pretty quickly, and my “yard” is almost too endearing (I sometimes don’t want to leave).

Johnston as a whole is a bizarre mix of beauty and decay. Having been built up as a military base, the substrate in most areas is concrete. There are crumbling bunkers scattered around and areas that bare indicators of residential use. At one point, over a thousand people lived on Johnston. Undeterred by the seemingly inhospitable conditions, vegetation pushes through the cracks and has overtaken most of the abandoned island. There is no shortage of trees and bushes for seabirds to nest in. Only the runway and main thoroughfares for bicycles and gators remain clear.

Most of Johnston is enclosed in sea wall. Thus, there aren’t many spots to walk directly into the crystal-clear aquamarine water. But getting over the sea wall in most areas requires nothing more than hopping a small concrete border and descending a sloping embankment. About a dozen feet or so beyond the divide, giant table coral heads teeming with fish cluster just a few feet below the surface. Sometimes the ocean comes to great you in full force at this dramatic separation between island and water. I was scrubbing my tent’s rug at the sea wall one afternoon when a four-foot giant moray swam casually between my legs. It took me fully by surprise since the otherwise striking silhouette of its undulating body was hidden beneath the rug until it was almost touching me. My pre-programmed reaction was to leap onto the sea wall. Though I know morays aren’t looking at people as a source of food, their snake-like appearance doesn’t fail to trigger the amygdala. Once I was out of reach though, I watched in stunned silence as the green-brown predator continued away from the sea wall, likely in search of something more edible than a welcome mat.

The most powerful emotion I’ve experienced upon being left at Johnston has been relief. A month living in Honolulu did plenty to inflame the anxieties that had somewhat subsided since leaving DC, and the lack of personal space on a merchant vessel didn’t offer much reprieve. The sigh of relief I breathed upon entering my tent the first night felt like a long-delayed exhale to an inhale that had possessed me since my last re-entrance to society from remote living almost five years ago. Subsequently, the moments that have really taken me aback so far have been steeped in solitude. Peering through my tent window at the several stars visible from my pillow. Coming up a hill into a field as the sun rises, flanked on either side by nesting boobies but not a human in sight. Swimming naked off one of the tiny “corner beaches” with only fish for company. Sitting on the sea wall watching the sun and birds return to their respective hiding places. Of course I haven’t forgotten about my crew. I recognize that I live in a small village, not a private retreat. We all have strengths, weaknesses, and quirks and there will be difficulties in maintaining a functioning living space together. But a one square mile island provides quite a bit of room for five people. Obviously, I already miss my loved ones at home. But I will be interested to see if my introversion eventually expires, and I start hungering for some novel human interaction. Only time will tell.

***This is a personal blog and the opinions expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the US Fish and Wildlife Service***

Castaway Part 1: The Departure

It’s hard to say goodbye to someone you share most moments of your life with. They’re there when you wake up, when you go to bed, when you celebrate your successes and when you mourn your failures. They’re there when you don’t even necessarily notice or appreciate that they are. Then suddenly they’re not. And all those little moments that seemed so insignificant, and passed by so easily, emerge as salient reminders of what you’re missing each day. Luckily for me, I have a new family of friendly strangers to cushion the blow. I’m not sleeping in a glaringly vacant queen size bed, but a snug top bunk above a new friend. Though my departure from home is disarming, it’s almost certainly more so for the one I’ve left behind.

So here I am in a barbed wire enclosed yet somehow still charming bunkhouse in Honolulu, awaiting what may be the strangest seven months of my life. A world apart from my partner, who I’ve left to endure the Michigan winter I’d been striving to escape my entire adult life. It’s worth explaining why I’m here. I’ve taken an eight-month position with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. My official title? Volunteer Ant Killer.

The backstory is long and I’d rather go more into detail about it in a future post when I’ve become more of an expert. The short version though is that during World War II, the U.S. decided to expand a remote atoll off the coast of the Hawaiian islands to use for military operations. Fast forward to now and Johnston is a decommissioned deserted island boasting a bizarre post-apocalyptic facade, but with a twist: it’s a cherished nesting ground for rare seabirds and the location of an ambitious invasive species control operation. Enter CAST–the Crazy Ant Strike Team! An appropriate acronym for a group of volunteers seeking elective exile from pretty much everything. The members of this biannual project ship out to Johnston to preform eradication of the invasive yellow crazy ant and monitor seabird and marine life populations. Are they die-hard bird and fish lovers? Ant haters? Disenchanted misanthropes? Experience collectors in search of a good story? It’s hard to answer for more than one CASTer at a time.

 

Johnston Atoll, among the most remote atolls in the world. 500 miles from the closest landmass and visited for government business only. There are times when the closest human population center is technically the International Space Station.

 

The reactions I received when I informed my friends and family I’d be joining this effort were a mixture of surprise, fascination, and a little horror. The process usually went like this: “I’m going to Hawaii in November!” “Wow that’s amazing! What will you be doing in Hawaii?” “Well, I’ll only be in Hawaii for a month then I’ll be shipping off to a remote island for seven!” “Wow, how exotic. What island?” “Well, it’s not really an island…it’s more of a decommissioned military base with buried radioactive waste and a serious ant problem.” “Wait….what?!”

Those who really know me weren’t that surprised however. Living on a remote island as far from large human populations as possible sounds just about right up my alley. The specific nature and history of Johnston however was a little hard to stomach though even for my closest loved ones. Though today reported as safe to inhabit, Johnston has served as a veritable dump for various toxic wastes such as agent orange, dioxin, and weapons grade plutonium. Though I wouldn’t say I’m not concerned, I’m more fascinated than worried personally.

I have to give some credit where credit is due therefore to my partner, family, and friends. Thank you for supporting me through this undeniably eccentric part of my life and career. What may look like an insane decision to many looks like a life-changing and door-opening milestone to me. My reasons for joining CAST run the gamut from passion for wildlife to obvious misanthropy. These motives propel me through most of my life, but they don’t eclipse the love I have for and receive from my loved ones. You all are my guiding light, my pillars, and my chief concern through this process. Know that I will take care of myself and that you will be missed each and every day.

So as you may have caught on, this will be the beginning of a special blog series. Though one of the most remote places in the world, Johnston boasts one of the most important amenities of civilization: internet! Though it will spotty and unreliable, I’m hoping it will be good enough to keep this blog updated with my strange goings-ons. I’ll be in Honolulu for the next month training, packing, and preparing for life on the atoll. After that I’ll be CASTaway (see what I did there?) to live amongst the ants, birds, and stars. If you’d like to get in touch beyond following this blog, feel free to drop me a line in the “About” section of this site. Mahalo!

 

***This is a personal blog and the opinions expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the US Fish and Wildlife Service***