You've Got To Go Outside

"Everything is horribly computer"

Everything is horribly computer.

Not in a dramatic, end-of-the-world sense, but sneakily, your summer, your blissful summer, becomes a sequence of tabs. Tabs open, tabs closed, forgotten and timed out. You wake up, check something, respond to something, attach something, send something. Lunch is a break you schedule into your tasks. Sunshine is something you notice indirectly through the reflected glare on your screen.

So, you’re doing an internship? How fascinating. How rare of you to commit to Outlook calendars and Slack pings while the rest of the world insists on continuing, inconveniently, unchartably, to exist in three dimensions. Your parents must be thrilled. Legacy, secured! LinkedIn, updated. Gold star, pending.

I promise I’m not bitter;  I’ve done the internship route. I even tried to outsmart it, and I still found myself sitting, jiggling my knee and waiting, watching the clock like it had personally offended me. There is something about institutional lighting that makes you feel like time has stopped, or worse, that it’s moving and you’re not.

Thus, I am rejecting computer summer in the dramatic way I go about everything. I’m opting into what I’ll call farm summer, though not in an aesthetic way; I refuse to spend my second-to-last stretch of sanctioned freedom behaving like I have lost my own life. I’m still in school, and I want to treat myself like it. The thought of spending June, July, or August staring wistfully out of an office window — the way I regularly do from the fourth floor of the library, pretending the sea line is some kind of reward I’ve earned for finishing a reading — instead of feeling the sun, or even rain. 

I am, by all accounts, chronically unsatisfied; always searching, always circling, playing Duck-Duck-Goose with my hopes and fears until something taps me on the shoulder and says, “you’re it,” and I have no idea what that means. Because here’s the thing no one tells you: after years of trying to think my way into peace — therapy, journaling, poetry, fiction, blogging, overanalysing my own overanalysis — the only thing that reliably quiets my brain is doing something with my hands. Tolstoy’s Levin says it best, in Anna Karenina, scything grass with the peasants: “it’s such cheerful, and at the same time such hard work, that one has no such time to think.” Something repetitive, something slightly boring — that only becomes sacred if you let it.

On a farm, monotony is not a flaw; it’s the point. You milk almost every cow the same way, at the same time, every day. There is comfort in that sameness, a rhythm that doesn’t ask you to reinvent yourself hourly. The cows expect you: they notice if you’re late. They are better managers than any human I’ve ever reported to. They’re peaceful creatures, but not passive; they thrive on routine and friendship; they sense kindness with an accuracy that feels almost accusatory if they don’t sense it in you. And they give kindness back, freely, without the strange social negotiations humans insist on. A cow will nuzzle her nose into your side without asking what you’re doing this weekend, she’ll snot up your shirt without apology, and she’ll even press her head into your stomach in a gesture that is, unmistakably, a hug.

I’m a country girl in ways that are difficult to explain to people who aren’t. It’s in the perpetual tan lines, ugly and inconsiderate, that never quite fade. It’s in the hay flecks that somehow made it into my luggage and crossed an ocean with me, as an insistence that I don’t forget my roots. The love of my life, if we’re being honest, is not a person but a rotation of dairy cows: the dramatic, almost operatic lament of a mischievous Jersey; the deliberate affection of a Brown Swiss; the ridiculous and joyful hop of a Dutch Belted; the steady, knowing presence of a Holstein who looks at you like she’s already figured you out and decided you’re alright. They can turn your day around in ways no email ever will.

And if you don’t have a farm—and most people don’t—that’s not really the point. The point is the ‘outside.’ I’m not working on my parents’ farm; I’m packing up to Vermont to get paid minimum wage; it will be unpredictable and sweaty. The ‘point,’ if you need one, is to reclaim a version of yourself that isn’t optimised for productivity but for presence. Because if you don’t have a farm — and most people don’t —there’s still the question of what to do with yourself once you’re outside.

That’s the worry, isn’t it? Not going outside, but existing there without a purpose: no task, no assignment, no one waiting for the finished version of whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing. We’ve gotten so used to structured time that unstructured time can feel like a mistake.

This can feel daunting. So here are some small, slightly unserious, completely free alternatives. Not a plan, more like a loose collection of suggestions.

You can make graffiti. Not the kind that gets you in trouble, necessarily — though I’m not your mother, and certainly not a cop — but chalk on pavement, a marker on something already marred, a message on a porta-potty wall; there’s something oddly comforting about making something that isn’t meant to last. No archive, no evidence, no pressure.

You could make a mud cake: fully commit to it. Find a patch of earth, add water, shape it carefully like it matters; decorate it with leaves and pebbles like you’re eight years old, and be deeply serious about it. 

You can do somersaults in the grass until you’re dizzy, attempt a handstand and fail and try again, roll down a hill in the park until your body remembers things your mind forgot. It’s pointless, which is what makes it radical.

Swimming — especially when it’s free, especially when it’s cold, when the arctic breezes line up on your skin — feels like cheating. Like you’ve found a loophole in the system. You submerge, and suddenly the noise is gone, replaced by something quieter, heavier, more honest. Go, right now! East, Castle, West; the options are unlimited. 

You can listen to new music without doing anything else at the same time. No scrolling, no messaging. Just lying there, letting one song blur into the next, not needing to decide whether you like it yet.

You can create your own blog. Not strategically, nor professionally. Just a place to put things — half-thoughts, cheeky observations, things you almost forgot. You don’t have to tell anyone about it; you can practice observation, memory, and note-taking without the pressure to have a finished product. 

My favourite free activity is holding a grudge. Take it for a walk. Turn it over in your mind, let it stretch out a little in the open air. It might soften, or it might not. Either way, it feels different when it’s not contained. On the flipside, you can also daydream and create the love of your life. Just let your thoughts wander without trying to organise them into a narrative that makes sense.

None of these things will improve you in any measurable way. They won’t make you more employable, or more efficient, or easier to CV. But computer summer will always be there. The emails will wait. The tabs will multiply patiently in your absence. But this version of you—the one with grass stains, still returning to an oceanside town come fall, with salt in your hair, dirt under your nails and absolutely no idea what time it is — is a little more fleeting, and this version is worth showing up for. 

Illustration from Wikimedia Commons