When a seasonal lifestyle gets in the way of a good meal and a solid snuggling buddy.
By Abigail Sussman
My latest crush is a committed locavore. He eats eggs laid by happy chickens that range freely on a nearby farm. Any produce he doesn’t grow in his own garden he purchases at the farmers’ market. He buys beer from the microbrewery less than five miles from his home, and he bikes everywhere. Not surprisingly, he likes his women like he likes his carrots: local.
Eating from one’s backyard is a seasonal experience. Greens pile high in the spring, tomatoes hang heavy in the summer, and squash run rampant in the fall. While the time of year decides what my crush eats from his garden, it also determines who (if anyone) sleeps in my bed.
I adore my crush’s home-centric habits, but I am a backcountry ranger. My local dating status is also a seasonal affair. In the summer I sleep in tents and remote log cabins and patrol the wilderness. Local food is limited to wild blueberries that I share with neighboring bears, and conversation is restricted to occasional backpackers. Finding a date is hard when you haven’t showered in four days, but it’s nearly impossible when you haven’t seen another person in three.
I find comfort in the fact that distance does not preclude closeness—technology and loyalty help bridge the gap. Many significant relationships are conducted almost entirely over the phone. But romantic love requires an intimacy that isn’t reconcilable with distant zip codes, different time zones, or diverse mountain ranges. To commit to someone, must I first commit to somewhere? To live—and to love— locally, must I become a local?
One of my past relationships ended with an ultimatum aimed at bridging our seasonal distances. When forced to choose between his Cape Cod writer’s cottage and Washington’s Cascades—where I was discovering glaciers, old-growth forests, and a rugged wilderness—I could not move east.
My longest relationship was with a fellow seasonal bum. He wore Carhartts stained with chainsaw grease, slept in a homemade bed in the back of his truck, and wielded an ax as a trail builder. Our fieldwork schedules were exact opposites, so we rendezvoused in each other’s backcountry camps—each was the other’s clean-smelling weekend tent mate who delivered chocolates, fresh fruit, and new conversation. But neither of us could commit to a single place, so we ended up parting ways after a couple of growing seasons. He moved to the city; I retreated farther into the mountains.
As a single 30-something, I make my own choices. I decide whether to take a new job, move to a different town, tangle with a predictably short-term lover, or withdraw into the welcoming embrace of the mountains—snow-covered peaks don’t resent my desire to scale new heights, seek out different horizons, or head west to lie on the rocky beaches of Puget Sound. This freedom is both liberating and lonely.
My current locavorian, locaphilian crush adheres to principles that both attract and exclude me. I understand the appeal of his doctrine: Eating locally develops a relationship between farmer and consumer. Similarly, loving locally develops a partnership which requires more than a recurring one-night stand. But, just as some locavores relent for exotic treats like chocolate and coffee, would a locaphile give in romantically for someone as tempting as a mango?
Most of the time, I’m content with the friends and family who’ve become my life partners, ardent allies, and staunch supporters. When I want to feel close to someone, I wrap myself in my sleeping bag and write a letter that I mail whenever I hike out of the wilderness. I relish time alone in the backcountry, where I can shed clothes to wash off the stickiness of elevation gain, embrace the palpable feeling of being the only human for miles, be silent, or sing loudly off key.
But there are times when the fiery sunset, the horizon of jagged peaks, and the moonlight reflected on a still lake are not enough. Yes, I can chop my own wood, carry a heavy pack, and find my way when there’s no trail. But there are things I cannot provide for myself—the security of strong arms around my waist, the rhythmic comfort of a heartbeat other than my own.
It is during cold and rainy patrols, when the days are measured not by my watch but by my map, my aching thighs, and the dwindling weight in my pack and I am lost in a veil of low clouds, that I envision a phantom future—the home-grown greens, the not-too-close neighbors, the easy bike ride to town. And there, just out of sight, in the corner of the garden, admiring the first ripe tomato of the season, is a sketch of the man with whom I will share these moments.
This boot-soaked, muscle-weary, high-mileage daydream includes a locaphile, but he is loyal not only to place but to person, in love with community and individual. Local to me.
