Even in relatively remote places, life can sometimes feel hectic. A couple evenings ago I felt the need to get out of the house and just be elsewhere. Our household number has grown past capacity, and though everyone is plenty friendly, the house felt crowded that afternoon.

Since the murres are busy laying eggs, I’d wanted to visit my common murres and thick-billed murres on High Bluffs. However, as often happens, the fog denied me the hike I’d been happily anticipating. Probably as a combination of circumstances, something that generally doesn’t happen – my feeling irritable – made me recognize I needed to go for a hike.

Heading out of town, I strolled down the road with my 2 trekking poles propelling me along, “The road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began…” running through my head and giving me a grin. In my head I was headed to the end of the road and then beyond to Tolstoi, the easternmost point of St. George.

As I walked along my usual running route, I noticed the various flowering plants we’ve been identifying for the last month. A few rock sandpipers kept flushing from the road just ahead of me, flying 10 feet forward to land, and then flushing again as they led me down the road. The wind brought wisps of fog in that built up behind me to hide High Bluffs from view, but I was walking under light clouds, blue skies, and sunshine.

After fewer than 45 minutes, I reached the Northern fur seal rookery that marks the end of the road. While watching the seals, the closest of which were less than 75 meters from me, I realized I haven’t paid much attention to them yet this year. I alternated between eying the cliffs stretching down to Tolstoi and studying the seals through my binoculars.

Northern fur seals, the primary reason the state of Alaska was purchased in the first place, were lazily waving their flippers as they relaxed in the sun. Soon I decided it looked like they were having a grand time, so I should join them. Obviously I didn’t proceed past the warning sign to be amongst the seals, but I did take my pack off and drop down on the comfortable green grass.

Lately I’ve spent enough time watching the same cliff faces as I survey kittiwake and murre nests for the presence of eggs that my pre- true slumber dreams have featured my scanning for eggs and recording data. In other words, I work my way to sleep. While I’m by no means overworked this summer, apparently my brain thinks I need to work when I’m sleeping.

I slipped my Tigers hat over my face cowboy-style, lay back with my hands behind my head, and closed my eyes. In what felt like a short time, I was off in that pre-slumber dreamland of God knows what; I just know I wasn’t dreaming about work. Comfortable and worry-free, I napped in the sunshine of St. George.

When I awoke with a smile, I held my supine position as I listened to the roars and grunts of fur seals, the chirps of gray-crowned rosy finches, the melodious trills of pacific wrens, the calls of lapland longspurs, the raucous cries of kittiwakes, the pound of the surf against the beach, and the wind running through the grass.

As I lay there I thought about how refreshing it was to just be in the present and let my mind wander. Everything seemed so peaceful. In society we seem to always be running to this store or that event, and of course we’re always behind schedule and rushing to make up time. One reason fieldwork is so great is that we work on the animals’ schedule and by the weather’s dictation. We don’t have to make it to some appointment to meet with anyone or rush home to have dinner on the table at a reasonable hour. This is an Alaskan summer; dinner can fall anywhere between 18:00 and 22:00, and bedtime is almost always after midnight.

Isn’t it sometimes said that the best things in life take time? Particularly in America, people need to slow down and enjoy the little things in life. We book our schedules full of activities and forget to relax or appreciate the world around us.

Money and personal gain have taken too much precedence in mainstream – probably primarily corporate – America. Workplaces don’t want people to take time off, and escapes to nature have to be scheduled rather than naturally included in life. Somehow our world has lost its balance, but those of us who work in the field have found our own.

When I woke up from my nap, I was a smidgeon disappointed to not have a fur seal looking down at me, wondering what I was and why I was lounging in the grass. Maybe it’s because they all knew exactly what I was doing.

The world’s just spinning / a little too fast. / If things don’t slow down soon, we might not last. / So just for a moment, let’s be still.    — “Let’s Be Still” by The Head and the Heart