The scariest part of sandboarding

Greetings from Peru!

Love notes from Siel is a weekly newsletter from Siel, who’s currently on a Remote Year trip around the world. If you love it, subscribe for free.

Dear friend — 

The scariest part of sandboarding is listening to instructions about what not to do while sandboarding. 

I mean, considering the fact that sandboarding consists of sliding down a steep sand dune at a high speed with no protective gear, precautions make sense. But hearing about all the potential consequences of not following instructions to a tee — you could dislocate your shoulder! You could really smash your chin! — was kind of frightening. For a minute, I thought about not attempting the feat at all.

But can you really travel to the gigantic sand dunes of Huacachina, Peru, then not sandboard down them? I think not.

So I did it! I lay on a board on my tummy, elbows in as instructed. The señor in charge gave me a push and I was off head first — wheeeee!!!! 

“Legs apart! Legs apart!” the señor yelled urgently after me! But his voice seemed very far away — so I just kept going — 

Luckily, nothing bad happened. Everyone made it down safely. By everyone, I mean all the people in my Remote Year cohort — about twenty-five people brought together on a year-long journey traversing twelve countries.

What drives a person to sign up for a year-long journey around the world? There’s no one answer, judging by my cohort. The participants run the gamut, though there are patterns. The majority of the group is in their thirties, with a few in their twenties and a few around retirement age. Most have full-time remote jobs — for tech companies, corporations — but quite a few have their own gigs — talk therapy, engineering, life coaching. There are roughly equal numbers of men and women. Most are single, but two couples are part of the group. About a quarter identify as LGBTQ. A handful have kids. 

And a number of us are in a sort of transitional state, for the lack of a better descriptive phrase — with many unsure about where they’ll call home once the year is over. Some know for sure they won’t be returning where they came from, though they don’t know yet where they’ll go instead. Others say they’ve recently had what they describe as a personal crisis of one sort or another — something that made them decide they wanted to change their life and choose circumnavigating the globe as a worthy first step.

And now, we’re all in Peru together.

I actually didn’t realize we were going to be sandboarding until we got to the destination. Remote Year does a lot of the planning for you — you can simply opt in or out of each activity — so while I did say yes to a weekend trip to a place called Huacachina, I didn’t bother to read up on it. It was only once we arrived that I realized we’d been transported to paradise — an oasis in the desert, surrounded by beautiful sand dunes! Then they brought out the sandboards —

Maybe this is how I should have been living life all along. Not planning so much, not setting schedules, not trying to figure out whether it’s better to do this or that, weighing if one option is better than another, which choice might make me happier — and instead just hopping on board whenever boards appear.

I think the pandemic has polarized people into two groups. One group has gotten heavy into planning — to make the most of a short life by trying to mold and shape and cajole into the exact direction they want it to go. They are buying new homes and planting gardens. They are setting novel writing goals and post-covid weight loss goals and furiously swiping on dating apps to find “the one.”

The other group has decided that life is unpredictable — so why plan much at all? Why not just wander the world for a year, and figure out next year when it gets here?

Which group are you in?

Love,

Siel

Afterwards we watched the sunset

Three links you might love

1. What happened to Marie Calloway? If you read what purpose did i serve in your life with great interest and have since wondered what’s become of the author, this Buzzfeed article won’t tell you — but will still offer an interesting read about women, writing, and sex.

2. What a strange story between two writers. One donates a kidney, the other writes about it. Then the lawsuits begin.

3. What you should read next. I haven’t written any new books but I’ve blurbed another one: my friend Michelle Ross’s Shapeshifting. Here’s the blurb: “Michelle Ross writes with biting clarity about motherhood, womanhood, and the strange intensities of human connection. Her stories investigate terrifying closeness and tender estrangements — and never take you where you think they’ll go. A moving and emotive collection.”  Preorder now. 

   

   Subscribe | Ask Siel a question | Recommend a book