W(h)ither Social Media?

Around the turn of the calendar to this new year I finally acted upon a decision I’d made some time ago: I cut my social media presence down to almost zero.

I removed all but a couple of generic photos and all but a couple of posts from my Facebook profile (it’s been set to private from the get-go so you’ll need to be a designated friend on Facebook to see anything). Some posts that are still there are photos posted by friends in which I’m tagged, and for whatever reason Facebook won’t let me hide them from my feed (I removed all other similar posts with no problem). Believe me, I tried. And I haven’t had the Facebook app on my phone in many years so that wasn’t an issue.

I also deleted the Twitter app from my phone but kept my account. I kept that mostly because I don’t want to lose the account name in case Twitter cleans up its act and I see a reason to return. Not likely, but it could happen.

And I deleted my personal Instagram account but kept the account I created for my boat, just in case I end up sailing away and want to create an online presence based on boat life.

If these actions all seem rather arbitrary, well, they are. They’re what work for me at this time. I’ve hidden my Facebook profile in years past but this time that didn’t seem like enough. And I chose not to completely delete my account because the platform is the only way to reach a certain handful of friends with whom I want to keep the ability to stay in contact. But I’m not going to get on the site on a daily (or to be honest: much-more-than-daily) basis any more. I’ll check in once every couple of weeks, see if a friend has sent me a message and sign out again.

I never posted much to Twitter. That platform was never anything more than a tool for reading what people of like mind who are more eloquent and/or informed than me were saying—the very definition of an echo chamber. And I’m tired of listening to echoes.

Instagram had grown on me in recent months but I got fed up with their algorithm that, for some reason, would re-feed me old posts by a handful of friends rather than most recent posts from others I followed. And then there were the incessant ads that had become more intrusive that the never-ending cacophony on television.

Relatively speaking, I don’t think I was as involved in the world of social media as most. Much of the reason I kept my presence on the platforms was for professional reasons: the jobs I’ve had in the past and those I’ve been putting in for recently all require social-media proficiency. If I want to be the digital director for a TV news station again, or some other similar occupation, I have to know what works on social media. The thing is: my job search, which goes back to well before the pandemic, has been a frustrating exercise in futility. Yeah, I know what works on social media; that’s the least of my worries. What I don’t know is how to get some HR bot to let me talk to the hiring manager about a position I am both very interested in and very qualified for. Yes, there have been a few of those, and I have nothing to show for it.

Whoops, sorry. Rant over. Where was I?

By giving up these modern-day talk boxes all I’ve really done is save myself from developing digital addictions. It’s an intervention, really, designed to benefit my health. I don’t have any delusions that because I’m no longer a daily user of Facebook that Mark Zuckerberg is going to see the error of his ways—and to be sure, I firmly believe that he and his counterparts across the social-media spectrum are guilty of at best a complete abdication of civil responsibility and at worst a sinister and immoral exacerbation of the worst traits common to homo sapiens all in the quest for ungodly amounts of wealth. But hey, in our current societal system, that’s certainly their right. But it doesn’t mean I need to contribute to it.

Hmmm, maybe that was another rant. Again: where was I?

Anyway, yeah, I’m done on social media without completely abandoning it. It feels kinda like I’ve grown up, gotten married and had a family, but I kept my old flat from my crash-pad days and stashed the key in some drawer in my kitchen. Every now and then I’ll head over there and make sure the dust hasn’t built up to the point of being a fire hazard. But beyond that, nope.

The thing is: yes, social media allows me to stay in touch with far-flung friends. But so does email. You know what else does that? The phone. And even in-person interaction (once this damned pandemic is over). Seriously. I’m going offline (he says in his online website…oh, irony). Snail mail, anyone?

Another irony: I’d have thought in these pandemic days when in-person contact is all but forbidden that social media would have been an ideal way to bridge the space between people and make us feel more connected. Instead, all it’s done is widen the chasm and make us all more isolated in our own little bubbles of similar rants and raves. A mile wide and an inch deep, indeed.

To those who remain on social media I say: enjoy. “To each his own,” my mother always used to recite. Have fun. I hope you get out of those platforms whatever it is you seek. I care about you and how you and your families are doing, but I’d rather talk with you about your company or your favorite football team or your political posturing, not listen to you spout all that stuff from up on some electronic soap box. Better yet, I’d rather chat with you about YOU: what you’ve been doing, how you feel, your beliefs. Let’s set a time and catch up. I look forward to it. I’ve missed you.

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A Pair of Baptisms

baptism
1b : a…rite using water for ritual purification
2 : an act, experience, or ordeal by which one is purified, sanctified, initiated, or named

ONE
I talk to myself a lot when I surf. That actually shouldn’t surprise anyone since surfing might be the most incorrectly named activity on Earth. “Sitting on a piece of fiberglass in the ocean doing nothing with occasional spurts of intense activity,” would be more accurate.

That means there’s a lot of time for internal dialogue. Not only do I talk to myself but a lot of times I’ll talk to my long-gone mother, father and/or younger brother, especially when I’m in the water at my home break on Plum Island. No surprise there since that’s where my brother died and where all three of their ashes were spread in 2017. I like to think they’re just a little ways outside the lineup, smiling and keeping an eye on me, and always happy to share in the enjoyment I get from those occasional spurts of intense activity. Ah, who am I kidding? I even like the sitting-around part of surfing, too, especially when I can chat with Mom, Dad and Scott.

But a lot of times it’s just me having a conversation with myself. Not really a “conversation,” mind you. More like a running commentary on whatever happens to flow through my never-quiet mind. World events, personal events, jokes, songs, observations of the animals (typically birds) around me, conversations with the ocean itself — these are all common threads coursing through my cranium while I’m sitting there on my board in the ocean.

Side note: Before you go judging me, stop and think about your own never-ending internal dialogue. It’s universal, except among good, practicing Buddhists, and even they’ll tell you how hard it is to quiet one’s monkey mind. Anyway…

So it was that a few days ago I found myself sitting in the water off the aptly named village of Waves, North Carolina. I like it on the Outer Banks — the quiet, sparsely populated areas on Hatteras Island — and had come here after the soul-crushing sale of my family’s Plum Island home had closed in late November. After the closing I wandered the mountains of New Hampshire for a couple of days, then spent Thanksgiving with dear friends in upstate New York. A quick visit to Further in Maryland and then on down to Plum Island’s bigger sibling, the Outer Banks.

Away from the overrun parts like Nags Head and Kill Devil Hills, the Outer Banks are a LOT like Plum Island…just bigger and farther away from civilization. Jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean as they do, the OBX are a great place for surfing and, on the sound side where the water is shallow, kiteboarding. I’d been there before and thought a little escape there again would be good for me. So off I went and now, on the final day of my week-long stay, a stay in which the weather had not cooperated once — no waves to surf, and either too much wind or no wind at all so no kiteboarding — I FINALLY got a little bit of surf to enjoy. And given that this was early December, it was no surprise that I was all by myself. And before people say I shouldn’t surf by myself: it was small and mellow, so I wasn’t worried. The water was also summer-at-Plum-Island warm, too, so I wasn’t worried about hypothermia.

And in between waves, my mind got to chattering again. My folks and brother came up, and I greeted them, welcomed them into the fun I was having. I thanked the ocean for the waves and, remarking that this was the same ocean as home, realized: I no longer had a home.

IS the Atlantic my home, as I’ve written before? Maybe it is, but no longer the Atlantic at Plum Island. Maybe the entire ocean is my home. Maybe I should transplant myself back to where I made my temporary home for several years in the Pacific Ocean in north San Diego County. And hell, what if some job finally came through (let’s not get into THAT exercise in futility) and it was inland…would any ocean still be my home?

Bottom line: What do I say when someone asks me where I’m from? Where’s my home? What if I move somewhere, does that place become my home? If so, after how long? And when I die, hopefully not for a long time, where will my ashes be spread? With Mom, Dad and Scott? Up in Alaska? Wherever I wind up next or wherever I am when I finally kick the bucket?

While it might sound as though I left the water that day stressed and perplexed, the cleansing waters of the Atlantic Ocean had the opposite, calming effect. The ocean granted me a delightful session in the surf there in Waves, a wonderful little gift of joy on the day I was to depart back to the mainland, the world and whatever was to come next in my life. Yes, I was now homeless. But the ocean had granted me a clean slate.

TWO
Three days later my Subaru and I raced through a torrential downpour going northeast on I-495 in Massachusetts.

It was a stretch of highway I could have driven blindfolded; I’d literally driven this section of 495 more than a thousand times, no question. I thought back to some of the times I’d driven here before: going to or from my family’s home in New York, including twice-weekly trips in my 1962 VW Beetle to practice with the Hudson Valley hockey team for the Empire State Games in the summer of 1983; driving to and from school in New Hampshire, back before Route 101 was turned into a superhighway across the Granite State; in recent years heading to courses near Concord and Littleton to golf with my dearest friends; and so on.

I remembered one time in particular on this stretch with my younger brother coming back from New York. It was late at night in the summer of 1985 and he would be dead before the first week of August was over. That spring he’d finished his first year at prep school in Maine so he knew whereof he spoke when, a mile or so before our exit, a car with Maine plates went blazing past us and Scott said, “Maine is so big, that poor sonofabitch may still have six hours to go to get home.” I still think of that scene every time I see a Maine license plate south of Kittery.

Usually, as I cross the winding Merrimack River for the third and final time on 495, in Haverhill, Massachusetts, I feel like I’ve already made it home even though I’m still half an hour away. But at that point I’m past the urban blight and traffic of the city of Lawrence and it’s smooth sailing to my turn-off in Amesbury. A short jaunt on Route 110 leads into Salisbury, then side roads carry me across an ancient stone bridge back one final time to the south side of the Merrimack and into the city of Newburyport. Through downtown alongside the river, out onto causeway across the marsh and over the small drawbridge onto Plum Island. Home.

But this time as I drove up 495 and the windshield wipers could barely keep up with the pouring rain was the first time in my life — the VERY first time — I wasn’t returning home. Why was I here, I wondered. I wasn’t nearing the end of a journey. In fact, I was just beginning one. To where, I had no idea.

In mundane, logistical terms, I was returning to where all my worldly possessions remained, stashed in a storage unit just over the border in coastal New Hampshire. Ostensibly, I was going there to drop off some stuff I had with me, and to grab some other stuff I didn’t but would need (namely: more clothes) as the northern hemisphere dove deeper into winter. But beyond that, I had no real idea WHY I was in the area. Or why I would ever come back, as heartbroken as I was to leave Plum Island.

The rain continued to pour down all night, stopping only in the morning after I’d reached my storage unit and started figuring out what I could and should take with me (and also what I couldn’t and shouldn’t). It was clear and cold that night and, the car fully loaded, I left the following morning. I haven’t been back since.

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So…What Now?

November sunrise on the Outer Banks of North Carolina

OUTER BANKS, N.C. — It’s been two and a half weeks since I became homeless. On the morning of Friday, Nov. 20, I took a final few items to my storage unit while the buyers did a walkthrough with my realtor. I returned after they’d left, jumped in the Atlantic for one last (quick and chilly) swim as a Plum Island resident, and then loaded up my car and drove away.

I spent that weekend in a hotel in Concord, New Hampshire, not far from where I spent three glorious, innocent years in prep school. On Saturday I circumnavigated the White Mountains, visiting places I’d not seen in more than thirty years, places like Profile Lake and the cliff where The Old Man of the Mountains once stood. I savored that lovely autumn morning in Franconia Notch all by myself and then continued north and east around the Presidential Range, past places I hadn’t been to since I’d sat in the back seat of my family’s station wagon as a 9- or 10-year-old, my father at the wheel as he drove his kids to all the touristy places that had been there when he was young. They were still there two weeks ago.

The summit of Mount Washington was shrouded in a cap cloud but the lower ridges and valleys basked in sunshine and I made my way south of Conway where I turned west onto the Kancamagus Highway, one of the prettiest drives in the country, especially in autumn. Over the top of the pass and down past Loon Mountain, I crossed over my northbound track on I-93 and continued west, up the flanks of Mount Moosilauke. I made this drive a few times during college, including the Sunday of Winter Carnival in February 1985 when I drove my younger brother to his prep school in Maine. He’d missed his ride back so we wrapped ourselves in blankets and loaded up in my 1962 Volkswagen Beetle with no heat and a boom box for tunes, and made the seven-hour winter trek across the north country, a 19-year-old and a 16-year-old way out of their element but not knowing it. In fact, we loved it. It was an unintended adventure — the best kind of adventure.

As I retraced my steps, I realized that back in 1985 neither of us knew that less than six months later, Scott would be dead. Of course we didn’t. How could we? I don’t think I’d thought of that aspect of our drive together at all until two weeks ago.

My Subaru climbed Route 118 and I turned up the dirt road to Dartmouth’s Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. I hadn’t been there since my freshman trip (a now-defunct Dartmouth tradition) in September 1984. The gate was closed about a half-mile up the road so I parked and walked the rest of the way to the new lodge, a replacement for the old building that I remembered. It’s a stunning structure in a beautiful place and I remembered back to being convinced to run up Mount Moosilauke by my trip leader, a recent Dartmouth graduate who’d been a biathlete in the 1984 Winter Olympics. I made it in a respectable time (half an hour faster than the other person on my trip, a football recruit, whom Glen had also convinced). I also remembered how that night, after the traditional campfire ghost story about the mysterious Doc Benton, another trip participant, the son of a U.S. Senator, had climbed on top of the bunkhouse and tromped around in an attempt to scare folks. I traded emails with Glen a few years ago while I was living in Alaska and working with another Olympic biathlete, but have no idea where Clay and Bud are nowadays.

I continued west to the Connecticut River and then south through Hanover, the town where I went to college. I put in for a job with the alumni magazine there this year and got turned down, and as I drove the picturesque tree-lined streets I got a little miffed thinking of what a great place the Upper Valley would have been to live in, especially now that I’m not the punk-ass, know-it-all 20-something I was as a student.

Down I-89 back to Concord and the first Chinese takeout food I’d had in eons, and on Sunday morning I walked the grounds of my prep school with an old, dear friend and classmate. Despite the challenges St. Paul’s has faced in recent years, it remains hallowed ground to me and will always be special in my heart.

I then drove east to visit two of my closest friends and then back to my storage unit on the coast, where I loaded up my car and made my way to the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. I spent two days there, poking around the land of Arlo Guthrie and Alice’s Restaurant, and also did a job interview via Zoom before continuing west to spend Thanksgiving in Syracuse, New York, with another two of my dearest and closest friends. While I was there, Dave arranged for all of us to get a COVID antigen test; the test came back negative which was surprisingly comforting to receive. Mostly, though, it was great to spend a lot of time with people who mean so much to me, especially as I venture out into the world with almost no ties to my old life remaining.

Further looking a little forlorn after a year on the hard. It was good to see her…it’s been nine months.

On the Monday after Thanksgiving, I drove south across New York and Pennsylvania to Annapolis, where on Tuesday I visited Further for the first time in nine months. She looked a little dirty and a little forlorn in her stands in the marina yard, but with a couple of weeks of love and care, she’ll be right back into tip-top shape. Those two weeks will take place come springtime; there’s no point doing it now as we head into winter.

And just under a week ago I left Naptown and made my way down here to Hatteras Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I came here, to a place I’ve been several times before, because I like it a lot. And because this time of year it’s pretty deserted — a good place to hunker down during a pandemic. Mostly, though, I came to enjoy some surf and some kiteboarding in the East Coast Mecca for both sports.

Sadly, Mother Nature has had other plans. The swell, which on the Tuesday I was in Annapolis, was overhead and clean, has been little more than waist-high and choppy. And the winds on Pamlico Sound have either been too light to hoist a fat ass like me or they’ve been nuking (as they are right now) to the point where it’s out of my league after having not kited in so long. So thus far I’ve struck out on the watersports front. I’m here for one more night in hopes the wind will ease enough that I can get in some kiting today and, hopefully, tomorrow morning, at which point I will start my trek back north.

Despite striking out on waves and wind, I’ve had a great time here on the Outer Banks. It’s a beautiful barrier beach island, much like Plum Island. The Outer Banks are just bigger. Much bigger. It’s kind of like Plum Island on steroids out here: bigger, farther away, more isolated. I’ve been here once during the busy summer and I have no interest in doing that again, but this time of year it’s really, really nice.

So that brings me up to the present. And the future.

Right now, I’m focusing in two areas: one, getting my career going again, and two, finding a place to hunker down for this pandemic winter. They are not mutually exclusive areas.

As I mentioned above, I did a job interview (via Zoom) a couple of days after leaving Plum Island. The enterprise is focused on sports news, and in bridging the gap between local and national. Well, hell, that’s right in my wheelhouse: I spent years wrestling with the local/national divide at Citysearch and one could say I have a bit of a background in sports. Seems like a slam dunk, doesn’t it? We’ll see. I’ve interviewed with other would-be slam dunks including, a couple of years ago, a digital news job with Scripps, the same company as my last “real” job. Those have all gone nowhere so I realize there’s no such thing as a slam dunk, especially in this day and age with content people getting laid off left and right. But this job is intriguing and seems such a good fit that I would like to hear more, so I wait.

I also did a phone interview yesterday with Tegna. They’re looking for a digital team leader, the same job I did for Scripps in San Diego, at a station in New England. Their digital recruiter, a former news leader for Tegna, knows tons of the people I know and have worked with, so we’ll see how that one goes, too.

The bottom line is: I’m searching for work, in news or media or wherever else that might be a good fit for what I do well. And now that I’m homeless, I am truly open to any location. So if anyone knows of a job that I might be good for…

Otherwise, I’m looking for a place to hunker down for the winter, and I have a few possible options. One is right here on the Outer Banks: surfing and kiteboarding in water slightly warmer than home in New England (by about 10 degrees or so), a more slightly temperate winter, solitude, and there are a couple of AirBNB places that are affordable. I’ve also thought about Florida, mostly because that idea of a warm winter is very enticing, but with that state’s reaction to the coronavirus I’m wondering if that’s a wise place to be. What about San Diego? I’d love to go back there but a) it’s super expensive, and b) I’m afraid that Governor Gavin Newsom will close the beaches again (and then go out to a group dinner at French Laundry) and then I’ll spend a lot of money to watch nice, unapproachable waves pour onto the shore.

Sidebar: Hockey is not an option during these COVID days (indoors, cold, 20 guys breathing heavily) so that’s why I’m thinking this might be a good winter for me to opt for a warm locale. Plus, a warm climate means being outdoors and active, thereby getting my fat ass back into shape.

Other possibilities include renting a small cottage on Plum Island, but I’m not sure I want to be in cold water if I can avoid it and I’m also not sure I want to watch someone settle into MY home. A friend offered me his empty apartment in Boston because he’s in a bubble with his immune-challenged girlfriend, but anything that makes city living interesting is closed until healthier times. There might be a mother-in-law apartment in Annapolis which would make working on the boat easier, but many of the things I love about Naptown are off limits thanks to the coronavirus. I’ve thought about Utah or Colorado, where I could backcountry ski my way back into shape. I’ve even thought about loading up my toys in my car and heading west, camping for a couple of weeks at the beach then a couple of weeks up in the mountains, alternating back and forth. Unfortunately, with travel restrictions ramping up, that’s probably out. Finally, I’ve thought long and hard about a winter on the beach in Mexico, but that seems to be evaporating what with Mexico’s handling of the virus being as bad as ours and with airfares climbing.

Sunset in the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island, the night before I left for good

So there’s much to ponder, which is what I’ve been doing a lot of out here on the Outer Banks. I’ll start north tomorrow, with a first stop in Annapolis to check on that potential apartment. Then I’ll make my way to New England to pick up any mail (I have a mailbox/forwarding service in Massachusetts) and then hit my storage unit for whatever it is I need in whatever destination I choose. And come March, when Maryland starts to warm up, I’ll get to work on Further, with an eye toward a May launch — and steering her to whatever course my life is headed on at that time.

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