I sit down at my desk, open my laptop, and squirm in the chair as this feels like work more than it should. Than it’s supposed to be for something I enjoy. Than I thought it would….BOILING RIVER!

Ten minutes later I’m driving south on Hwy 89 towards the town of Gardiner and the northern entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The highway cuts through tall, sand-colored, jagged hills and follows the Gardner (not the same spelling as the town) River southward as both large expensive houses and smaller cabins dot the landscape. I’m jealous of the smaller dwellings and wonder who needs that much space on the larger ones. The tinge of guilt and feeling of adventure are at odds with each other but this is the way it is, and probably will always be.

Everybody knows the distracted dog gag “SQUIRREL!” from the movie UP or has experienced it with their own dog. I am saddled with the writing equivalent except it’s worse. Much worse. At least when the dog does it it is instinctive or organic. Mine is completely self-induced. You might want to label it procrastinating but by definition “procrastinate” means to delay. I’m avoiding. Rooted firmly in the idea of running away from my novel and never doing this again. Ever. Or until my inner Robert scolds me enough to sit down and write. I always come back, but I almost always run too.

Here’s how it works. First I sit down at my desk to give myself the illusion of attempting to write. Of course I’m very sincere and stern that this time I am going to write. Then I check my email and Instagram even though I checked both forty-five seconds ago. Then my brain yells “Squirrel!” which is not a squirrel or any concrete thing distracting me but my brain delaying by telling me I need to go for a drive, get something at the store, make coffee, or insert any activity but writing here. Why doesn’t it want to write? I don’t know. It’s silly. It’s lame. It happens all the time.

That is why I find myself driving towards Yellowstone NP with a towel and swimsuit in hand. I’ll let the guilt and adventure sort it out. Right now I want to soak and enjoy the drive.

If I thought the crowds would be light on an early Sunday evening, I thought wrong. The parking lot has one or two open spaces but is otherwise full with mini-vans and Subarus, mostly non-local license plates. A line forms outside the uni-sex bathroom so I change in the car and head down the half-mile walk to the springs. There are two or three handfuls of people walking in my direction and the same amount heading back from the springs. My inner self attempts to calm me but my fear of not getting the solitude I want right now is confirmed when I reach the boiling part of the river.

I’ll save the full experience of the Boiling River for the upcoming Hot Springs Week but suffice to say the soaking area consist of several large pools where hydrothermal runoff mixes with the cold waters of the Gardner River. I find a smaller pool to myself upstream from the larger crowded pools until seven other people jam the small pool. The optimal soaking zone is about three feet by three feet and I’m on the edge of it. The mixture is so uneven my left side cooks while the right side is cold.

I walk the path back to the car unsatisfied. Is it the guilt? The awkwardness of the older Asian man using my crotch as a landing point when he stumbled into the pool? Or am I just fucking hungry and my usual cranky hangry self when I don’t eat. I pass through the town of Gardiner and seeing the bars with the names “Two Bit Saloon” and “Iron Horse Grille” and the inordinate amount of Comfort Inns/Super 8 motels, I grumpily think out loud this town is too touristy. At least now I have an answer, I’m simply hungry.

A few miles north of town an idea hits me and I slam the brakes at a river fishing access area called Slip n Slide. It’s nothing more than a small dirt parking lot next to the river and it’s emptiness brings a smile. I get out, discard the shirt, and walk sideways down the fifteen foot drop to the river. The water is cold. Not ice cold but stop and think about this cold. Unsatisfaction is a great motivator and I shuffle my feet along the bottom until the water is stomach high and I dive in. Whatever I was looking for at the Boiling River I find here. As the sun sets behind the rolling hills and standing neck deep in cold water the guilt subsides. It doesn’t disappear, I don’t want it to, but I can enjoy this moment.

Body dry buy hair still dripping I head north. I know this little game of mine will continue. It’s not one step forward, one step back when it comes to writing. It’s a step sideways, a fall down, a get up, a slip backwards, and then a great leap forward. I’m okay with it and I am not okay with it. Where this wandering path takes me I don’t know and truthfully don’t care. The path is more important than the destination but I couldn’t stop if I tried. It’s who I am and who I want to be.