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WILD

finding inner peace outdoors

By Ellie Pritts

May 10^th, 2020

"Let everything happen to you...

Beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final."

– Rainer Maria Rilke

This excerpt from this poem has been a sort of rock for me - I find myself continuing to come back to it over and over again. It puts things into perspective and helps me to live in the moment and accept uncertainty and change, things we can all count on experiencing in our lives no matter what.

I was in the middle of a pretty incredible back to back adventure from the islands of Hawaii to the remote desert of Utah when some very big changes sent shockwaves throughout the world and challenged my perspective on, well... everything.

$2 in paradise

The last time I was in Hawaii I was 5 years old. On the flight there the stewardess gave me a $2 bill which I kept in a scrapbook with all my other $2 bills. I remember seeing a sea urchin on a beach and marveling at all its spines. I remember seeing donkeys carrying coffee beans down a smoking mountain, which I later learned was called a "volcano", and I remember the boat I went on with a see-thru bottom that allowed me to see the ocean underneath.

It was just my mother and I there, exploring a paradise I now only have a few memories of. But I always knew that one day I needed to go back and explore again, on my own as a grown up.

The ultimate impulse buy

I'd just finished one of the biggest photo shoots I'd been hired to do and I wanted to celebrate. Then tickets to Hawaii went on sale, and that was about all the convincing I needed.

I was immediately overwhelmed at which islands to visit and hikes to tackle. Suddenly the week or so I had there felt too short, and I hadn't even arrived yet. But in the end I decided to focus on the islands of Kauai, O'ahu and the big island.

Landing on the moon

The experience of flying into Kona's airport alone completely floored me. I was stunned by the huge lava field the airport seemed to be built right on top of. It felt like I was landing on another planet. Then we got off the plane and the airport itself was one of the most charming things I'd ever seen. I was only slightly disappointed when I wasn't greeted with a lei and a mai tai, but there was excellent shaved ice right at my gate so that certainly helped.

This sense of amazement and wonderment set the tone for the rest of my trip. Of course, the whole trip was a giant "you had to be there" moment but that did not stop me from trying to capture some of it photographically.

I literally can't even.

Words aren't going to do any of what I experienced justice. Even these photos hardly do, and I'm somewhat saddened by that.

I think I fell in love with Hawaii the way people fall in love with people... and I'm neither a good enough poet nor artist to truly express it. So for now, just enjoy these photos I took. I wanted to capture the beauty and serenity of this magical place. I hope these images bring you even just a little of that serenity.

Don't dream, it's over

As if to underscore the surreal beauty of my surroundings, there was the equally surreal international crisis mounting throughout this trip. It wasn't a pandemic yet and I was thousands of miles away from... anything. It felt like an oasis where time was, ever so briefly, suspended. We were untouched by the fear at that moment. But we knew it was only a matter of time.

The hardest goodbye

To be honest, I very seriously considered not leaving Hawaii until things "calmed down" (something we initially thought was mere weeks away...)

A big part of me wishes that I had stayed, even though Hawaii, just like every corner of the world, did not remain suspended in time and unscathed by the virus. In the months that have passed since I left, I've realized that I genuinely feel a connection with Hawaii that I have not really experienced before, and I travel a lot. It feels like I have unfinished business there, if that makes sense.

I certainly can't remember crying any other time I left a place.

Paradise, lost

My overall dread towards coming back the mainland US was tempered by the fact that I was going directly to a cabin in the middle of nowhere, Utah. I'd traded one remote paradise for another. In Utah, I hiked off my anxiety and staved off the existential crisis I knew was brewing...

"O" is your the Only one I see...

Rural Utah is also a very beautiful place full of wonder. Even in the best of times it remains pretty isolated from much of humanity. I happened to be there during the off season just weeks before most of country would be sheltering in place.

There were hardly any other people to be seen, just mountains and caves and vibrant red sand. I was alone but did not feel alone with all of that around me. I felt at peace. It gave me space to think.

Silence

As disconnected I was (we're talking dial up internet, y'all) I was still receiving bits and pieces of news about what was happening in the world at large. And it wasn't sounding good. Again I toyed with the idea of staying away for awhile longer, but there were just too many unknowns to plan properly.

The Great Assesment

In my solitude here I knew I had to re-assess my "real life", or whatever would be left of it. Everything was changing, and so quickly I could hardly keep up. I normally embrace change, but I found myself petrified at the giant question mark that was My Life with no guarantees or certainties.

But then, were there ever guarantees and certainties? How many of the things I considered as such were truly important after all?

Uncomfortably Numb

The day I got back from Utah, Los Angeles began one of the biggest shutdowns in the US.

I found out I had just a few hours before nearly every business here would be closed indefinitely. I rushed to do as many errands as I could, feeling a dull numbness starting to creep into my psyche. It was that "pinch me" feeling but not in a good way. The worst kind of surreal.

Diving into these photos brought me so much peace during those hectic first days of quarantine. I edited and re-edited and un-edited ad nauseum and I loved every second of it.

This is not.

I don't want this to be a blog post about my quarantine experience. It's neither interesting nor profound. But I feel there are patterns emerging in the things we're thinking and feeling, collectively. "Alone, together" as the inspirational health department billboards here read.

What I want to do is inspire. I want to do this in several ways, primarily simply visually. But I also want to inspire anyone reading this to be strong, to be unafraid in the face of what is happening to our world right now. I want us to try and see how we can grow from this, how we can adapt and evolve and be conscious about what we really want our lives to look like when this is all over, as far away as that seems right now.

Slowing our collective roll

While currently there is the enormous pressure of uncertainty, it also feels like a lot of other pressure has been lifted. Things have slowed. There is time.

Time is the most precious thing any of us has, and it is finite. Yet I think many of us live in a way that doesn't really take that into account, or maybe we just avoid thinking about it because it's unpleasant. But I think there is a lot of suffering that can be avoided once we embrace the limited time we have, on Earth, with family, in that house or at that bar with those friends. Each of those moments is precious. Each of our moments alive is precious.

We've all been forcefully reminded of this through whatever tragedy or tragedies we've experienced in life, and right now we're experiencing one big one all together.

The future is bright

There are so many things I cannot wait to experience with the world once we've gotten through this. Make no mistake, this is a heartbreaking tragedy on a global scale. But I truly believe that all of us are going to grow and learn more in the time it takes to conquer this than we otherwise would have, perhaps in our whole life.

Life is ultimately what we make it, and now is the perfect time to decide what you want your life to be.

After all my solitude, I realized how important it is for me to be visually inspired by my surroundings. It's more important to me than living in a big city, more important than being able to walk to my favorite bar or shop at that chic thrift store in Los Feliz. This is why, when my lease ends next month, I'm taking the opportunity to leave Los Angeles and relocate somewhere where I can be outdoors easily and often. I don't know if it will be forever, but again nothing is. For now, I'm taking each moment by moment to be thankful for everything I have. So thank you for sharing these moments with me :)

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