Summer, and all of its sneering sunshine and enticing activities, infects me with the worst feelings of FOMO.
Every summer, like clockwork, my mind’s anxious gears spin with ideas. Every day is a day to not be wasted. This is the first Buffalo summer I’ve experienced where I’m not trying to make it to every band’s show that I’ve vaguely heard of before, or every festival, or every summer destination. But even so, I’ve had this itch to spend my days outdoors, with my film camera and ugly hiking shoes, traversing green fields and rocky hills.
For a couple of days, I recently hopped in a mini van to camp in the Finger Lakes, at Buttermilk Falls. I stayed in a hammock, hiked in the heat while wearing a beanie and ate vegan food. (I’m trying that out for a bit. Why not?) We swam in a pond on the edge of a waterfall, with spiders and snakes and teenagers who peer-pressured their friends to jump off of high ledges into the water. We biked around Cornell’s campus at night and dreamed about going back to school, somewhere beautiful like that.
Before this mini trip, I was in a down period where I ruminated in the unsure, unsettling and unhappy post-grad anxiety. But during the trip, I tried not to think about any of that at all. I took my time. I stopped to feel the water. Is this what relaxing looks like? I could get used to it, for a bit.