—Systemic change begins with personal change—
In Michelle's words from her About page:
After 15 years off the grid in rural Colorado, my family and I now live in White Salmon, Washington, on the north side of the Columbia River Gorge. A lapsed biologist, I specialize in stories about conservation and global change, but I’ve covered subjects ranging from theater to wrestling to my preschooler’s conviction that Bilbo Baggins is a girl. My book Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction, a critical history of the modern conservation movement, was published by W.W. Norton in March 2021 and was named one of the best books of 2021 by the Chicago Tribune, Smithsonian, Booklist, and other publications.
I’m a project editor at The Atlantic, where I edit features for the Planet section and a series called Life Up Close, and I’m a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. My writing has also appeared in publications including National Geographic and the New York Times Magazine, and I’m proud to be a longtime contributing editor of High Country News, a scrappy institution that produces some of the finest journalism in the American West. I’m the co-editor of The Science Writers’ Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Pitch, Publish and Prosper in the Digital Age, published by Da Capo Press, and the author of The Science Writers’ Essay Handbook: How to Craft Compelling True Stories in Any Medium.
My reporting has won several national honors, including two AAAS/Kavli Science Journalism Awards, the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism, and inclusion in four Best American anthologies. My reporting trips take me throughout the western United States and beyond, and my research has been supported by the Alicia Patterson Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and the Food and Environment Reporting Network.
I’m aided in many tangible and intangible ways by my husband Jackson Perrin, a teacher, tinkerer, and director of Gorge MakerSpace. The now-teenage Mx. Baggins keeps everything in perspective. (And if you’re wondering about my last name, it rhymes with "my house.")
We started talking about Michelle's commitment to avoid scrolling on vacation. She did. It sounds like it was both no big deal and something worth building on. We had intended to keep the recording to under thirty minutes for scheduling reasons, but the conversation kept staying too interesting to stop. We talked about addiction, how big a difference small differences can make, the difference between Portland and Vancouver in culture, how to change culture, living off the grid, and what stays with you when transitioning back.
Where was Michelle Nijhuis all my life? She lived off the electric grid for fifteen years and I was about two months in, so we shared stories of the experiences. She did it much longer and her fiance had to assemble everything from scratch. I'm only two months in and can use off-the-shelf parts, but I'm in Manhattan, so can't set up a permanent system. Some similarities: connecting with nature, learning to respect power, living with less resulting in living more. Michelle shares her challenges of connecting with the human world when disconnected to a power grid, but I don't think you'll hear regret. I have to correct myself: I said kilowatt-hour when I meant watt-hour. My battery isn't 1,000 times bigger than I said. It's hard to put into words the benefits of living without electrical power at the touch of a button. I recommend turning off your power every now and then. I wish I had earlier.