Field Notes on Queer Wilderness

Every spring I return to the same bend in the river outside Asheville. The water is cold enough to sting, the pines are loud with pollen, and a circle of men I adore pitch tents in the clearing that once held the town dump. These weekends are the research trips for Gay Men's Field Guide. We gather without agenda, log books open, comparing the ways our lives have stretched since the winter.

I take notes on what shifts. Who is experimenting with a new morning ritual? Who finally asked their barber for the haircut they have wanted since 2007? Whose phone has been in airplane mode since Thursday? The answers map a terrain where queer joy is not contingent on Wi-Fi or VIP wristbands. It is in the shared thermos of coffee, the overlapping playlists, the willingness to sing Dolly Parton harmonies badly.

The rules we brought and the ones we leave behind

Urban gay culture trained many of us to believe scarcity was the backdrop to every interaction. There are only so many eligible men, only so many safe neighborhoods, only so many allies who will defend us when the conversation turns. In the woods I watch that scarcity script loosen. Someone will always share sunscreen. Someone will always know how to tie the tarp just so. Someone will stir a pot of lentils until every bowl is filled.

These field notes are a record of the replacement rules we write together:

1. Lead with curiosity. Ask the awkward question about how someone truly feels. Trust them to answer without judgment.
2. Practice redundancy in care. Bring extra snacks, extra blankets, extra time. Queer kinship thrives when comfort is communal.
3. Remember the invisible workers. The campsite hosts. The parents who first taught us to pack a bag. The exes who convinced us therapy was worth the money.

Why it matters to document the mundane

The Guide exists because even the most mundane rituals carry meaning. I keep the long-form format precisely so nothing is reduced to a caption. When we say, "meet me in the clearing," we are also saying, "let's build a life where tenderness is logistical." We coordinate travel, budget for gas, and pack first aid kits because our softness deserves infrastructure.

Maybe you have your own version of the clearing: a book club, a pick-up volleyball night, a Sunday soup circle. Let this be your permission slip to treat those gatherings as ethnography. Take photos. Write down the jokes that got the table hollering. Capture the quiet ways your people make room for one another. Those artifacts become a map when the world goes sideways.

And if you are still searching for your clearing, keep reading. I'll keep leaving breadcrumbs in these notes until you arrive.