How I Stopped Doomscrolling and Started Watching This [Summer Read-Aloud]

  Sam Vander Wielen: Hey there, and welcome back to On Your Terms®. So for the next couple of weeks, I’m gonna be doing something a little bit differently as part of a little summer series of sorts. For the next few weeks, I’ll be reading you a few of my essays that I’ve written on my Substack. My Substack is just called Sam Vander Wielen, because as you can probably tell by now, I’m really, really good with coming up with creative names for things.

But I have a Substack called Sam Vander Wielen, where I share personal essays and behind the scenes, a lot about grief and loss, coming back from that grief and loss, and learning to, I don’t know, uncouple myself from overconsumption and overworking, and really learning how to be more present in my life.

So all you have to do for the next couple of weeks is just kick back, put in your headphones, maybe even go for a walk, and listen to my reading of this week’s essay from Substack. If you’d like to subscribe to my Substack so that you can also read these on Substack or on the app, go ahead and just click the link down below. It’s completely free.

How being attacked by a bird in Patagonia forced me offline. How to start paying attention in a world full of noise.

In December 2024, when I hiked the Andean Mountains throughout Chile and Patagonia, I had a run-in with a bird. I was having a particularly bad hiking day.

I was pissy and frustrated. Every single hike was harder than I expected it to be or than I was told it would be. I pride myself on being strong, athletic, and up for every adventure, but my body was showing me it wasn’t in the same place as I thought I was in my mind.

My heart rate never went below 175. I was constantly hungry and thirsty, but didn’t wanna eat or drink anything because I was sick of peeing behind a tree in the forest and then carrying dirty toilet paper in my backpack for 10 hours. And then along came this bird, a real son of a bitch if you asked me.

It seemed like his sole mission was to harass me. He followed us on the trail, hopping from branch to bush, and I could see what he was thinking behind those crazy little beaded red eyes. “You’re not in good enough shape for this. You think you’re an athlete?

Think again. You can’t keep up. You’re holding everybody else back.” I told you, he was a real asshole. I wasn’t into birds. Those beady little eyes and those creepy little wings, the way they dodge at your head when you’re not looking, the fact that they can poop on you and ruin a perfectly good shirt at any minute.

By the way, I don’t care if it’s good luck, it sucks

The seagull that stole an entire Core Brothers ice cream cone right out of my hands on the Ocean City, New Jersey boardwalk. I thought birds were kinda creepy, actually. I was sort of afraid of them. When I was 10, I’d accidentally let a black bird into my room by leaving the screenless window open overnight.

My mom told me to shut the door and leave the window open for him to leave. Six months later, when I was rooting around in my sweater drawer to pull something out, let’s just say I found out he never left. “That bird is following you,” our impeccably chiseled and mysteriously unwinded Chilean guide, Karina, astutely noticed.

Then seemingly out of nowhere, that crazy little bird dove down from the branch and looked like he was going to attack my head if I didn’t duck. I had my phone in my hand, because, you know, when did I not have my phone in my hand back then? And I snapped a picture as quickly as I could. By the way, if you don’t already subscribe to my Substack, it’s worth it just to go see this picture of the bird swooping at me.

Look at him. He looks insane. But something happens when you travel places that are so big, so grand beyond comprehension, that you truly understand your place in the world. The fact that you’re a speck on this planet that doesn’t feel as large as it is when you’re so closely sucked into your insular day-to-day, that you don’t matter all that much , but, like, in a good way.

That there are magical spaces and natural wonders that have been here for long, long before us, and that will be here, hopefully, long after we’re gone. . I am a little worried about those glaciers, though. Or that you’re just a tiny, tiny temporary witness to it all.

After Patagonia, as I traveled home to Long Island, I noticed the snowy white egrets sitting in the beach grass, their school bus-colored feet lifting out of the water as I drove around the bend leading to my house. Tide must be moving out. They’re waiting for the fish.

I opened my wide patio glass door every morning while I made my coffee, listening to the symphony of seagulls, cardinals, blue jays, mourning doves, sparrows, wrens, and all of their friends. There are more birds than usual. Spring must be getting closer. I started to learn which sound was coming from which type of bird.

I became the person on a walk with friends who would say, “Oh, you hear that? There’s a laughing gull, and that’s an oriole.” I watch as the mute swans start construction on their nest in the pond near our house at the end of each winter. They take twigs out of the old beach grass to build their nest in their favorite spot beneath the pond’s stone archway bridge.

And when I did, I knew that they knew something I didn’t. Winter would be over soon. Spring was near, even if I didn’t feel it. Soon, their fuzzy gray swan babies would arrive, and the entire town would gather to see them.

On the coldest days in late February and early March this year, when I was most seriously thinking about moving somewhere that doesn’t have such rough New England-like winters, I spotted robins throughout my backyard grass.

Even if I don’t feel like it yet, things are changing. Spring is coming. The robins are here, I thought, as I watched them searching for worms. Robins on the ground, by the way, are one of the earliest signs that spring is coming, in case you need hope next winter.

When I see osprey circling above our house with their V-shaped wings, I know to look for a bald eagle. Bald eagles are inherently lazy hunters. They steal food from other birds who are good hunters, like osprey. I would have never known that had I not started paying attention.

Paying attention hasn’t just helped me cure my winter blues or notice a bunch of birds. Sure, those swans and the robins give me some much needed hope when my vitamin D is hitting an all-time low, but it feels a lot deeper than that. I feel connected and rooted in my community for the first time in my entire life.

I never envisioned myself as someone wearing a utility vest, wading her way through the tall grass with binoculars dangling around her neck, ready to be grabbed at any moment in case an oystercatcher appears at any moment. Okay, well, I’ve never actually done that, and I don’t own one of those vests yet, but I did accidentally become sort of obsessed with the birds on Long Island, where I live.

It took moving to Eastern Long Island, getting attacked by a bird in Patagonia, and accidentally becoming a birder for me to start to move my focus offline. But it’s not really about the birds. It’s about paying attention.

With that, I hope you liked this essay. Come over to Substack and subscribe to my free Substack, Sam Vander Wielen, using the link below.

Thanks so much for listening to today’s essay. I hope that you liked it. I would love to hear from you over on Substack, so make sure you come and subscribe to my Substack below, and go and comment on the essay that you just heard me read. I’d love to see you there. With that, I’ll talk to you next week.

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