It’s cabin fever time and, no matter where you are, you long to be elsewhere, doing something different. Hawaiians long to get off the island and race the Iditarod. In Colorado we want to get out of Dodge and go somewhere cabana boys are serving complimentary cocktails. We lust for a world without snow and snowblowers, shovels and sweaters. We yearn to do exciting things, explore exotic places, go where you can get malaria or need to be rescued by a helicopter.
Cabin fever is a malaise occasioned by monumental impatience with routine and layered clothing, bores and barflies, lookie-lous and consumers. We get sick of sharing childhood memories with tourists. We are tired of directing traffic to the hot springs, recommending plumbers, and describing what’s served at which restaurant. Something snaps.
We need a dose of change. We don’t give a rip whether you buy a condo or come to the trunk show, because we want to be outrunning the bulls at Pamplona or rafting the Niger in an inflatable canoe. Instead, we clean the garage. We dream of booking a camel safari, drinking kava with a native chief, hiking the Great Wall. Instead, we go to the dentist. We long to do something we’ve never done before. Instead, we take the dog to the vet.
It’s midwinter, and Hilda is yearning for a massage at an underwater spa. Harry wants to climb the Matterhorn. She wants to go shopping in Dubai. He wants to eat goat with Mongolian Bedouins. She’s thinking 17th-century hacienda in Quito, and he’s thinking wildlife preserve in Tanzania. So they compromise: She gets a new pair of jeans, he buys a nice jug of whiskey, and they renew their subscription to Outside magazine.
Up at Dry Lake, most of us seek relief from cabin fever down at the Corral Club, where the Boys at the Bar have rejected suggestions that they beat the winter doldrums by reading Boswell’s Life of Johnson or rewriting the Bible. Instead they recommend the following time-tested, surefire, blah-busters:
Attend a City Council meeting and laugh till your ribs hurt watching them agonize over a vision statement for the wastewater treatment plant.
Go down to the assessor’s office, find the names of everyone who has lived in your house, and concoct weird stories about them.
Spend an afternoon with the dogcatcher.
Attend a homeowners association meeting and guffaw while they decide how to pave the board member’s driveways.
Go to the Chamber of Commerce and ask where to sign up for a prairie dog shoot.
Walk Main Street asking strangers which shop has the best T-shirts.
Invite the neighbors’ out-of-town guests over for Rocky Mountain oysters.
Write a letter to the editor opposing the next school bond, even if it hasn’t yet been proposed.
Head to the next Planning Commission meeting and give an impassioned speech in favor of the development du jour, and giggle until you’re asked to leave.
Select a cemetery plot.
Everyone dreams of traveling with no map, no itinerary and no deadlines. My friends named David do it best. One dreamed of walking up to an airline counter and booking passage on the next flight. After a couple or three Bloody Marys at an airport bar he did just that, toured Seattle, and returned home three days later. The other David booked a cruise, had such a good time he refused to get off the ship, and learned how to play steel drums before he left Caribbean waters. One had the guts to say, “Let’s go,” and the other had the guts to refuse to go home. Of course, both are now divorced. It’s not easy being a maverick.
We all want to be alone on the planet so long as it’s someplace where everybody knows your name. We want to prove we can tame frontiers without violating wilderness. It’s OK to live wild and free so long as we’re safe, to find excitement without danger, to experience adventure surrounded by the conveniences of home. We want to be rugged frontier men on the one hand and community fathers on the other. We want to go to remote places so long as they’re easily accessible for the family, including Granny and the dog. It’s swell to live off the land so long as the ketchup is within reach.
Truth is, you can’t have it both ways, which is why the safest remedy for cabin fever may be watching the Discovery Channel.
