Here and There

I'm not sure what I'm doing here right now. Here in this city, here on this internet. Not yet. I'm hopped up on roasted peanuts and Bill Bryson, steel-cut oats and maple syrup, wool, wool, and more wool. Today I had to put on clothes that would make sense in a meeting with the head of some department or other and nearly succeeded until I realized I was wearing a wool cloak over cowboy boots on a 75-degree day. And then I found a knot in my hair. And I almost didn't care.

My head is swimming with back there, by the fire, using sticks dug out of the depths of the woods to poke the embers in the darkness, watching the skies above us for shooting stars (of which I saw at least three). Back there in our little lean-to, offering us shelter in the momentary, passing rain. Not here, in this odd maze of cubicles, elevators shuffling people and papers, books and pens, up and down, door open, door close, and what are these strange pebbles with letters on them. The sound of traffic outside, sirens, spectacles.

It's the sounds that you notice the most out there. I made a list in my notebook:

THE WIND, omnipresent and good for the fire
THE CHIPMUNKS storing food for winter under the fireplace
THE CRACKLE OF LOGS
THE OLDIES STATION coming in faintly on the wind-up radio (suddenly you realize how essential CSNY was to this trip)
THE OCCASIONAL RANGER'S TRUCK passing through
THE HAPPY SOUND OF PERCOLATING COFFEE on a bright, chilled morning
THE TENT FLY being unzipped
THE MYSTERIOUS SOUND in the branches to our left (owl? bear? human wielding ax?)
THE TARP OVER THE LOGS flapping in the breeze
THE RAIN as it approaches
THE SNAP OF TWIGS being gathered for kindling
THE CREAK OF TREES MIMICKING DOORWAYS in places where there obviously aren't any
THE SILENCE when the sun comes out

Every one of them, magnified times ten to remind us of how remote we are from our everyday lives. Just us — him and me — and our little cast of camping sounds.

I like to mention to everyone I meet how strange it is to be back. As if I've just spent months in the wilderness, catching my own food, making clothes from bark. But, not really.

"Just got back from camping," I said to the car rental clerk as I handed him the keys to a car spattered in pine sap.

"Camping? Like, in a tent?"

"Yeah." In my monosyllabic post-vacation speech. "So nice."

"Did you catch your own fish for dinner and all that?"

"No, restaurants."

"Restaurants?" I've been caught. "That's cheating."

"But we built our own fire and cooked weenies over it..." Tell him about the frost. "And it got down into the thirties one night."

He raises one brow, unconvinced. "Restaurants, huh." That's not real camping.

But if he could hear those chipmunks, racing with their cheeks full through fallen leaves in the dark, see those stars shooting through the night sky in the clearing in the branches overhead, smell the campfire smoke in my hair...

I dig my heels in. With all my might, I won't let them drag me back here. Not yet.

© Zan McQuade. All rights reserved.