Less Is More

You don’t survive medical training without being hard on yourself. You can’t function as an internist without being obsessive-compulsive. Even though Bill and I are retired physicians, we’ve retained previously-useful values: a hyper-vigilant alertness of the world around us and the fear of mistakes. Even though our decisions nowadays are no longer life-and-death, we still agonize over each one. Rumba or tango class? PBS News or Cardinals baseball? Panera or Starbucks? 

I laughed to recognize similar tendencies in Arthur Less, the self-doubting, anxious author who is the “hero” of Andrew Sean Greer’s 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Less. Less, like us, overthinks first world problems.

Less’s anxieties include “telephone calls (frenetically dialing like a man decoding a bomb), taxicabs (fumbling the tip and leaping out as from a hostage situation), and talking to attractive men or celebrities at parties (still mentally rehearsing his opening lines, only to realize they are saying their good-byes).”

Less is a self-described “minor author, one who never sits next to anyone on a plane who has heard of his books.” As the book opens, he has strung together an around-the-world-tour of writing and teaching gigs, awards ceremonies, a desert excursion, and a writing retreat to work on his novel. Mostly, his traveling gets him out of attending the wedding of an ex-lover. 

Speaking of traveling, the pandemic travel layoff has killed any confidence Bill and I had in knowing how to do it. Do we still have TSA PreChek? Do we really trust that QR Code on the phone to be the ticket? How many hours before takeoff to get to the airport? How do we find the hotel shuttle? And what about Covid precautions? It’s like we forgot everything. 

Friends in Massachusetts invited us to meet them in Arizona. Knowing of our travel anxieties, they booked the rooms in Phoenix and Sedona. They rented the car. They would drive. They would even explore the hiking options. I offered to line up a birding guide.  

Then, like Less, we ran into problems. Less can’t work the electronic key to his Berlin apartment and has to climb in an upper-story window. He doesn’t realize that the conference in Mexico City is in Spanish (which he doesn’t speak). He breaks his ankle in India. 

A week before flying out, one of our traveling friends became seriously ill. Yes, we were sympathetic. At the same time, the weight of decision-making crashed down on us.  

Trouble struck even before leaving town. The Phoenix Airport Hilton insisted that, to get a second night, I had to pay $80 over the agreed-upon price for the first night. I argued but they wouldn’t budge.     

We spent a nice day in Phoenix – birding at a water treatment plant and being treated to dinner by my all-grown-up great-nephew Charlie. Also, an emergency Walmart run as Southwest Airlines trashed my suitcase.  

Then we headed north to Sedona. Our resort-y motel was five miles from – and importantly, as it turns out – five hundred feet higher in elevation than Sedona proper.  Our rental was on a steep, windy road high above scenic, world-famous Oak Creek.

There was a DIY vibe to the layout of our place. The front room had a table and chairs, a mini-fridge, a microwave and a tiny sink. It led into a dark, windowless bedroom. A faux fireplace on the wall gave light, but, of significance later, no heat. At the back of the bedroom, and three very dark steps up, was the jacuzzi-equipped bathroom.

Funky room-layout aside, we were ready to hike and birdwatch. Of course, we kept an eye out for the weather. We worried when we read on the Weather Channel app that the latest atmospheric river, whatever that is, would dump snow on higher-elevation areas of Arizona. 

Even though it hadn’t started snowing, we decided to stay put. What if road conditions deteriorated while we were out and we couldn’t get back? 

It was a cozy day, despite the foreboding feeling. We had bread, cheese, peanut butter, yogurt, half-and-half, and berries in the fridge. We could make instant oatmeal and Starbuck’s packet coffee in the microwave. We read, watched TV, checked the Weather Channel app. I started writing a new essay on Rob Delaney’s A Heart that Works. To quote Arthur Less: “Boredom is essential for writers; it is the only time they get to write.”

It didn’t start snowing until evening. The heavy, wet snow fell in cotton-ball clusters. By the next morning, our car – and everything else – sat under a foot of snow. Snow slid from trees and the eaves in large clumps. 

Bill and I headed out to survey the landscape. The road was eerily devoid of traffic. A huge tree had crashed onto the highway. Branches bent dangerously with the weight of the snow, and cracked like gunshots when they snapped. On the steps leading down to the creek, a tree had taken an electric wire down with it.  

Back in our rooms, I watched TV while enjoying coffee and oatmeal with berries. Another cozy day, I figured. Just then – the TV and the lights went dark. And stayed dark. 

We ventured out. We found out from the desk attendant that our water and heat weren’t working either; from a power company lineman that the entire canyon had lost power; and from a fellow renter that he planned to burn Duraflame logs in his real fireplace. A few were digging out their cars.

 Should we stay or should we go? We were looking for reasons to stay. We didn’t know the snow-worthiness of our rental car. It was parked in the farthest, steepest part of the lot. Some reported that the road was closed. Were there rooms available in Sedona?

We stayed upbeat. We walked, read, wrote, ate bread and cheese, and drank bottled water. We dug our car out. Then, more walking, reading, writing, eating bread and cheese and drinking bottled water. My one concern was about using the toilet. “We have to use our one flush wisely,” I said to Bill. 

Our upbeat mood faded with the daylight. What can one do in total darkness, I wondered. How did cave people cope? Now I knew why bears hibernate – out of boredom. 

At dusk, Bill went to charge the phones in the car. I lay in bed under two quilts and two blankets and waited … and waited. I couldn’t even text him. What if he’d succumbed to carbon monoxide? Worse, what if he was having a good time listening to music? 

We settled in for the night.  Bill – call it Boy Scout training or call it neuroticism – had packed a real flashlight. It nestled between us for our treks to the bathroom. 

We were up at first light, having “slept” about ten hours. I said to Bill, “We gotta get out of here. Who knows when the power will come back?” He agreed. Within a half hour, we were packed and heading down the canyon toward Sedona.

Our first stop was Starbucks – for coffee, the bathroom and to charge our phones. At the gas station, while Bill pumped, I booked a motel on my phone.

We kept our date with the birding guide, and saw some cool birds. We had a leisurely drive back to Phoenix, and then flew home.  

Ever since, however, I have appreciated the luxury of running water. While wetting my toothbrush, washing my hands, cleaning vegetables, taking a shower, I take in the wonder of it all. Water at my command. I also think about people who don’t have water at their fingertips: the unhoused (we saw many in Phoenix) and migrants. How hard their lives are, on this basis alone.

I also feel more competent. It turns out that you don’t have to agonize over every decision. That’s freeing. 

They say that travel educates. Among technical stuff, such as Less figuring out how to get his money back from the European VAT, and me learning to trust my decisions, both Arthur Less and I learned self-compassion. We learned to be less (pun intended) hard on ourselves. 

Tell me: What’s one thing you’ve learned while traveling?