Why I Hated Camping at Nighttime

While a friend online has been relating her journey, almost daily, through surgery and chemo for ovarian and uterine cancer, bringing us all to tears, laughter, great joy and awe at her courage, I have had a very difficult time trying to put get up the energy to put two words together about my own challenges this year. I admire her fortitude and recognize that there is a time for everything...as I cannot sleep and the Muse has sort of struck, again and finally, here I am. It's been awhile and will take a while to catch things up, so I'll give an abridged edition for now and get to the reason for the title of this entry.

As for the treatment of depression, I have been off of zoloft for some time now. The only thing I take, at all, is xanax at night, but even that is becoming less frequent. I continue with biofeedback which has been really helpful, remembering those good, slow and steady deep breaths which kick in the right sympathetic system enabling me to sleep a wee bit longer and deeper than in previous times. I also continue to see the therapist who is very insightful and a delight to work with...he has helped me a lot when it comes to our kids. Our son, who is an alcoholic, had a breakdown and had to come live in our backyard in a small travel trailer which is full of storage items. Our daughter, the Grandson's mom, had forbidden him to be around his uncle, so it's been interesting, however, the Son In Law, whom I had pegged a bit wrongly, came through and sorted that out a bit, so the twain may now meet without any of us suffering her wrath. There are various other things going on with our son, but this catches you up, at least, sort of, right?:-)

So, why did I hate camping at night when I was a kid? Or, for that matter, now, if I were to try it? I always froze! I have always had a difficult time generating my own heat, probably because of a leaky heart valve, now repaired, but still has to work a bit hard at times. I was the youngest and my family loved to go camping. I did, too, but come nighttime, I dreaded climbing into pyjamas, taking off my shoes, and climbing into a thin sleeping bag with every little sharp pebble a mountain could produce poking me in the back, legs, shoulders, and arms. I don't know why I never said anything, but I do not remember ever having done so. In speaking with one of my sisters, recently, she couldn't remember my having ever said anything, either. She did wonder why I was always given the thinnest, least expensive sleeping bag to use and I thought it was because I was the youngest. Mom and Dad didn't even have sleeping bags until we were all almost raised. All I remember them having was a biggish bedroll and their own tent which my dad designed and mom sewed. It was ingenious. Shaped much like a tepee with a big loop at the top and a floor attached, the entire thing made from canvas. One had only to put a rope through the loop, climb a tree and secure the one end of the rope and repeat the process on an opposite tree. Then attached tent pegs to the loops sewn in round the bottom and voilà! One easy tent, theoretically. I don't remember it being that simple, but I think mom and dad were rather proud of it; the regular tent they'd had never pitched right and never stayed up, especially in the wind and rain. I have no idea how in the world my mom sewed unless by hand. It was too large, I think for her regular and only Elna sewing machine. Dad was brilliant when it came to designing and drawing out plans in his welding business, so he just transferred those skills to the tent design.

Dad hated pitching a tent. In the high Colorado Rockies there's a lot of rock under the dirt and, in those days, one didn't just give a tent a snap and have it pop up. It was made of canvas with wooden or aluminum poles and tent pegs and never fit together quite right on the first try. Someone would have to stand inside with the centre support pole stuffed up in the middle and try to lift the whole thing up whilst those on the outside scurried round to set the side poles which ran parallel to the ground, then connected with slanted vertical poles which one then secured in the ground with tent stakes through ropes with loops. Along each side and the back and front there were also loops attached directly to the tent which had to be staked. I forgot to say, none of this occurred until a trench had been dug all the way round where the tent would be pitched. This was to catch rain water to keep it from getting the inside of the tent, meaning us and all of our gear, wet. It always rains in the Rockies in the summer, you can count on it, every afternoon. Then the sun usually would come out, the little birds would renew their singing, the blue jays and camp robbers would scold us for food, the dog would go dig up an old pancake he'd buried, and we kids would resume our playing in the crick (that's "creek" to most folks)and mom would start thinking what to cook up for supper. Sometimes, though, the rain didn't go away. It would fall from giant cloud buckets stuck on the tips of the mountains, rivulets of cold water running wherever they found channels and invariably some would find a small breech or two in our trench, our moat of piled dirt, overrun it and commence an icy rinsing of anything in their paths: us, the poor dog, our clothes, sleeping bags, books, etc. Those nights we'd repair to the car and Dad's truck with the welding rig on the back. That was the one great thing about it...Dad could always start a fire no matter how wet the wood might get using his welding torch, however it was a sorry son-of-a-b who didn't remember to put dry wood away in the trunk of the car, under the truck or otherwise dry spot just for such emergencies. Being native Coloradans and longtime campers, mom and dad never forgot to keep some wood dry. I suppose it was partly, too, that they neither one did well without their morning coffee.

I loved the rain...the afternoon rain was usually gentle which grew into a a crescendo of raucous downpour tapering off to slight sprinkles, just enough to settle the dust and leave a delightful fresh scent. If it kept up for awhile, it was perfect reading-in-the-tent weather, especially if one was into Poe, Christie, and M.R.James stories. It often included mood-setting lightning and thunder which fuelled the imagination even more.

I still loved the rain at night,too, but NOT in the tent. If I thought I was cold before, it was nothing compared to being cold AND wet. Still, I don't remember saying anything. I remember thin socks, cold feet, cold nose poking out of my jacket which had a hood. I remember thinking the dog must be cold, too, and gave him my older jacket which no longer fit me. In Best Kid's Dog fashion, he put up with his front legs being stuffed in the arms and the hood being propped up over his ears, sitting in front of the campfire. He must've been roasting, but a picture of him shows a valiant smile just for his kids.

In the daytime, braving the early morning chill to run out to the campfire which mom or dad had already started going for the day, I have a memory which lingers even today, of their hot coffee scenting the air. I loved camping. After a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon, the day held adventures, surprises, and untold peace and beauty which I craved and loved. My sisters and I would launch sailboats made of bark, twigs and paper sails in the crick, wading in our bare feet until the crisp mountain water became too cold, following our adventurous vessels, watching them take off, swirl in a maelstrom eddy just like the Argonauts, then catch the Express channel, rapidly bobbing beyond our reach. We would sit on the edge, then, and dig our toes into the squishy, soothing warmed-by-sunlight sand, the water so clear, the sunshine so bright, the pebbles in the water shown like a queen's gems and they were, to me, the most precious because they were Nature's gems.

Somewhere on one of those camping trips, when I was fairly young, probably about 5 or 6, I asked my dad as we walked along in the forest, why people thought they had to go in a church to talk to God; why didn't they just come outside to the forest. He told me he didn't know, but the forest and its critters were a good enough place as anywhere he knew and I have never disagreed with his assessment.

After a lunch of sandwiches and chips, my brother and sisters might go for a hike, taking the dog with them. If we were running low on ice for the ice box or other supplies, we might all pile in the car and drive to the nearest town.

Staying in camp, in the warm afternoon, with the noon sun still fairly high in the sky, the tent would get too warm, so I'd find a cool granite boulder to sit upon with a good book. Sometimes we would all go for hikes, but I couldn't keep up very well, being so much younger, so I tried to stay in camp as often as possible. If I were lucky, I'd have a bag of salted sunflower seeds and maybe a bottle of coca cola along with a new Classics Illustrated Comic to while away an hour or two. My clothes would be dry, the sleeping bags hanging out in the sun and there'd be no rain. I'd find a special flower for my mom, remembering it was against the law to pick a columbine, the state flower, but bring her others for a paper cup vase of water on the picnic table. The days were great and even the evening as we'd gather around the campfire first for supper, then later for hot cocoa and toasted bread. We would sing, dad played his banjo or fiddle and it was a very idyllic time until time for bed. When I had to leave that fire warmth, crawl into a now cold sleeping bag, toss and turn dodging more poking pebbles which seemed to have sprung up during the day, when the sun suddenly fell behind the mountains and night came on, I was reminded why I hated camping at night...I became another chilled-child-in a nylon-with-little-flannel sleeping bag, either too afraid to speak out or not aware of it being an option. My family were not mean beyond some teasing about being the "baby" now and then. Perhaps it was that, but I do know the thought of telling anyone I hated that sleeping bag and always froze just never crossed my mind. Wonder if the therapist will make something of that in our play on family dynamics!*smile* Thanks for reading!