Almost forgot this is the whole point
By the time I went to California, I had been living in Cornwall for six months. I arrived in Los Angeles with my brother and while he slept soundly in the hotel room – having sensibly stayed up as late as he could to beat the jet lag – I was wide awake at 4am waiting for the McDonalds across the road to open. I remember returning with the loot: hot, salty hash browns, bitter black coffee and ice cold orange juice that I sipped between bites of potato through a straw.
Ten days later we had road tripped from LA to San Francisco and I was being ferried from SFO to Hopland, the first town you hit in Mendocino County on the 101. I was quiet in the back of the car, unsure of what the next five days would bring volunteering for an event called The Do Lectures where I didn’t know a single person.
When we arrived it was nearing 40º and there was work to be done. We set up camp under impossibly large oak trees and we explored the vineyard like it was our playground and we ate dinner with total strangers, totally unaware five days later so many of us would still be friends a decade later. We woke up at 5am for the next two days, setting up bell tents while the sun still rose, the light shimmering between palm trees. We cooked, we cleaned, we connected. After 24 hours my phone ran out of battery and I simply never bothered to charge it until I left.
Something interesting happens when you become detached from the rest of the world. Time stops. At least it did for me. Was it five days or five years that we lived in tents on the ground and slept under the stars with the tent doors open because it was 20º at night? Was it five days or five months that we ate hot grilled oysters and pizza and drank wine from the vines we ran through, giddy and high on the pure life of it all? Was it five days or five seconds that we danced under the moonlight and didn’t care what we looked like and forgot about the people who did?
There are only ten photos. I took three of them in that first 24 hour window before my phone died. Thank god for other people and the power of live photos so I can hold down my screen and hear snippet of laughter or the boom of music or someone in the background saying ‘thank you for keeping me grounded’. I’m aware it all sounds a little trite. Too wholesome to be true. I’m almost relieved it mainly exists in our memories and not online. That this was the last year Do Lectures was held in the States makes it all the more special.
After five days of true connection, hard work and inspiring conversations, it’s impossible not to crash back into reality. On the last night, the echo of the last band playing in the vineyard, hazy from too many glasses of Californian white wine, I remember crying deeply and hysterically to my friend Autumn, about the him back home who I could never have. I was devastated to leave our little kingdom, because I felt like I had to leave the best version of myself that had been illuminated there, and return to the shadows where I lurked and begged for scraps and validation. I remember turning my phone back on and seeing the message I always wanted: I miss you. How easy it is to go backwards.
There are only ten photos but there there is one video. Every time I watch it I start crying because I think this might be the happiest I’ve ever been and I’m wondering how I get back to here. I am in love with my life but this was on such a different level. Perhaps it was the microcosm of it all - the way we sealed ourselves into this world, held tight by one another’s kindness and creativity and boundless optimism. Perhaps it was because we were months away from the first Trump presidency or that we were young or because we didn’t look at our phones for five whole days and there was nothing to compare ourselves to except the sky, which was endless and big and scarred with stars.
I think I know the source: good people, good food, less screen time, more presence. And to step back into the light.
Utterly amazing.