I AM A FOOL. A short-sighted fool. It’s important to make that clear. What does one do when one finally realizes this, even though the foolishness can’t be undone?
One heads to the woods of course. They always help.
The October woods were delicious, a feast for all the senses. Although most of the aspens had shed their leaves, willows choking the valley center were still aflame. Spruce, pine and fir were still sharing their phytoncides, volatile airborne compounds that play havoc with so-called negative emotions. The mulchy woodland floor was carpet-soft, the air damp and scent-laden, the shifting scenes were patterned and intricately textured, layered in trunks, branches, twigs – a woodscape more intimately revealed than it is in summer, a place one can truly see into. When the leaves are down, the secrets of the woods are revealed.
I passed through the trees and up the valley slowly, traveling only a mile and a half before I chose a familiar location for camp. This visit wasn’t about miles or movement. I wasn’t here to pass through; I was here to be ‘in’. I wanted time in one spot. And I chose this spot for one primary reason, for the shade it offered. Of all the treasures the woods gave, shade had become the most valued.
It’s been a perspective-altering month in my small corner of the world.
First in mid-September came a medical crisis to someone close to me that, for two weeks, upended life. Mercifully, a final diagnosis offered a mild reprieve, turning deadly serious to merely very serious. (I’d share more, but this isn’t my story to tell.) Then came a diagnosis of my own: skin cancer: a basal cell carcinoma on my back, and along with it a dire prediction from a dermatologist (based upon an honest and frank discussion of my life-long habits and the state of my skin) of more basal cell carcinomas to come, along with a need to watch out for worse.
“But at least,” the dermatologist said consolingly, “if you’re going to get skin cancer this is the one you’d want to get.”
Better to not get it all, I thought.
Several friends, told shortly after, were curiously dismissive. “Oh, I’ve had four of them. It’s no big deal.”
And I thought: skin cancer – no big deal? Ultraviolet radiation that has damaged DNA so that genetic mutations have occurred, that have overridden normal cell growth and have spread – no big deal?
Yep, I’ve been an absolute fool in my choices and habits over the past four decades. Self-delusion and self-sabotage personified. I knew full well that too much sunlight on bare skin, and especially exposure to intense high-altitude high-UV sunlight, was harmful. I knew that skin cancer was a real thing, a genuine risk. I knew that people died from it every year (10,500-23,000 in the U.S. alone SOURCE). And yet, as irrational as this might seem – and now seems to me – I convinced myself that I was somehow immune!
I mean: What. The. Actual. Fuck. Was. I. Thinking?
I’ve made so many other healthy choices. I’ve stayed active my entire life. I rarely drink alcohol, have never smoked. I avoid junk food and eat extremely carefully (although I recently found out that the brand of oats I’ve been eating for breakfast every morning for years, Quaker Oats, have long contained a carcinogenic pesticide residue – which is a whole other story.) But I’ve made so many good choices for long-term health. And then I go and give myself skin cancer! Foolish is an understatement!
Until this skin cancer diagnosis I thought I was fairly rational in my beliefs and choices. Probably, most of us feel that way. We believe what we believe, and what we believe is correct, and we dismiss and ignore contrary beliefs and even evidence. Confirmation bias, belief perseverance, and belief entrenchment are almost universal. Our beliefs become part of our identities. Questioning them becomes almost impossible. They become blind spots. Our ability to believe only what we want to believe – our capacity for self-delusion – is simply extraordinary.
It’s why political viewpoints can be so polar opposite, even though we all have the same fundamental needs. It’s why religious beliefs are often so varied and extreme. It’s why people maintain unhealthy habits that bring short-term rewards and long-term risks. It’s why people smoke, and why many convince themselves: “oh, it won’t happen to me… and even if it does, it’ll be then, not now!”
And that’s what I convinced myself… while backpacking hatless and in shorts and tee beneath the high-altitude sun, while basking beside high tarns after a swim, and while running shirtless and free across Colorado’s mountains, a nature boy in his element, at one with the natural world, no barriers cutting me off from it, wind cooling the sweat on my skin, my tan part of my identity, a sign of vigorous health, a badge of life lived outdoors, and a protection (I mistakenly thought, seeing that I never burned), running along high on endorphins while harvesting masses of beneficial vitamin D (unaware that there’s a limit to how much vitamin D we can make and that this point of saturation is soon reached). There was no risk, only gain. I’m immune. It won’t happen to me…
But now it has, and I look back with astonishment and horror at how short-sighted I was, profoundly humbled by how thoroughly I was able to ignore the science and the obvious and instead self-delude for decades. How, I now think, can I ever trust any of my beliefs again?
I’ve tried hard in the past not to judge other people for beliefs that are clearly irrational, for habits that are clearly harmful, for blind spots they can’t see, and I’ve mostly succeeded… although not always. But from now on, having seen how irrational I can be, not judging others will be a damn sight easier.
It’s not only perspectives that have been altered but habits, too. The good news, my daily mantra: today I get Yet Another Chance. No matter what has gone before, I get Yet Another Chance. The bad news, however, and the difference with skin cancer from other mistakes I’ve made in the past that can be left behind, is that I can’t undo the damage I’ve done. It’s cumulative. Long-lasting. It’s something I have to live with.
I am now a sunscreen applier. I am a sun avoider. I am a UPF 50+ sun hoodie wearer. A wide-brimmed hat wearer. A niacinamide supplement taker. A lover of shade, of stormy days, of the hour near sunrise and sunset when the UV index is low – even though low for someone with compromised skin is still too high to leave skin unprotected. I’m someone who now wants to reach out when I see others running shirtless or capless and shake them by the shoulders. “A tan is NOT healthy,” I want to scream. “A tan is a sign of one thing only: damaged skin.”
Yes, in recent weeks everything has changed.
Perhaps the most profound change is to my relationship with the open-to-the-sky natural world. This environment was, until the basal cell carcinoma, a place I could relax into, no barriers needed. It was home to me. But now it’s become a place I have to protect myself from. This change is HUGE. I no longer view Colorado’s clear blue skies and intense light as a gift. Instead, all I see now is a threat. Even cloudy days bring a threat. Clouds don’t stop harmful UV light. The immensity of this change cannot be overstated. Merging without barriers into nature was – and is – central to my life. But now I need barriers. My relationship with nature cannot ever be the same again. It’s a paradigm shift I’m still processing.
Is Colorado, I now wonder, with its 300-plus sunny days a year, and its thin atmosphere, even the best place for me to be living?
This last weekend I wandered into the high country for the first time in over a month. (During the ‘other’ heath crises I wasn’t even thinking about backpacking. There were other priorities, although I maintained my daily nature habit close to home.) But finally it was okay to go and so I went, but not to climb high and tramp far above treeline beneath the blazing, burning, blasted Colorado sun, and not to camp somewhere exposed where shelter from UV light can’t be found; instead, I wandered into the woods seeking shade, but also traveling in hope that I could still find comfort, belonging, and safety within the natural world despite the newly-perceived impossible-to-ignore threat forever present overhead: the sun of Damocles.
I camped in a hidden off-trail location where I’ve camped before several times – a home I now know intimately. The location offers great variety and immense beauty. There’s richness in the spread of deciduous and evergreen trees, and in the balance of open and closed-in habitat. There’s a rough meadow through which a mountain creek dances and sings. Squirrels chatter, birds call. Elk scat and moose hoof prints affirm the presence of others. Rain fell as I arrived and I celebrated that; better, by far, than pounding sunlight.
But the weather passed, sunlight returned as it always does, and so I kept my sun hoodie on, sat in the cold October shade, and worked to accept that this, essentially hiding away, sun-avoidance, was my new approach to nature.
The woodsy interlude passed with glorious slowness. I did little for twenty-four hours, simply savored my one small lovingly-chosen spot of our sacred earth. By Colorado standards, the location was undramatic and unassuming. It would likely never grace any calendars, coffee-table books, or go viral on Instagram and become a bucket-list must-visit place. It was little different from many thousands of other woodland places across the state, easily overlooked, inconsequential to most people, but for twenty-four hours it became the center of the universe to me… and it filled me to the brim. It brought peace, reassurance and joy. It provided the belonging I craved, although not quite the same sense of relaxed safety and deep comfort that I’ve grown used to and treasure. But it did help me tap into the deep well of happiness that nature inspires, and for the first time in weeks I slept well. For the first time in weeks, I woke up several times laughing.
And in the morning, sitting in the shade, I scribbled down the first draft of this blog.
So yes, as I said back towards the start of this blog: I’ve been a fool, and because of it it’s been a perspective-altering month. But happily, certain core truths remain unchanged, as the woodsy interlude confirmed. Nature’s power to soothe, fulfill, and awe remains. And so does my gratitude for it.
My habits within nature might have changed, but my nature habit itself will go on.
Albeit, with barriers, and far, far more humility.
