April 3, 2010

Camping: A Departing Thought

Over our years of camping, I've discovered something essential about the experience. The perceived stress of "roughing it" melts away along with our expectations of convenience, which we've grown accustomed to, to the point of desensitization.  The self-maintenance of life carries with it a loud static that we're eventually deafened to, like the sound of a train or plane to people who have long lived beside a train track or airport.  We forget what silence sounds like.

When the static and the sounds and the expectations are suddenly stripped away (or dropped), the natural, default silence of the earth falls and settles around us.  The world slows to the lazy trickle of a stream.  We're able to let down our eyelids, open our ears and our lungs, and observe and feel our environment breathe around us -- slow, natural, peaceful breaths.  Instead of commanding our surroundings in the name of progress and productivity, we become passengers -- or better, companions to the natural flow of time.

For a while, I am allowed to feel quite small and nurtured instead of feeling like I'm constantly trudging for or toward something.  Under such a profound protection, what is it to sweat a little? to get some dirt under my fingernails? to wear the same t-shirt another day?  A person might not consider herself when beholding the stars in God's hands.

So I'm off to embrace a closed-mouth world for a while, leaving the noise behind.

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Itinerary: 
  • Saturday -- cousin's birthday party
  • Sunday -- Easter, camping
  • Monday - Thursday -- camping
  • Thursday/Friday -- depart

Weather:  "Mostly sunny," but a couple mentions of t-storms here and there throughout the week. Then the overnight temperature is supposed to drop into the low 50s and upper 40s. Despite advice otherwise, I'm packing the thermals.

Knitting:  Purchased a large skein of 100% virgin wool and two small skeins of soft, fuzzy bamboo yarn.  Goal is to complete one baby soaker and perhaps begin a light summer shrug for me (really cool customizable shrug pattern generator here).

Camping Wish List:
  • find some really great petrified wood
  • catch a fish
  • keep my daily camping journal
  • renew peace
  • take a midday nap in the sunshine
  • weave something from plant fibers
  • press a lovely plant
  • write a forest poem

2 comments:

  1. That change is always good .........leaving the noise behind.

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  2. Thanks for the comment, Haddock. :) Yes, it was nice leaving the noise behind. Until -- that is -- a huge, roaring storm blew in the from the west. All good things must come to an end I guess. :)

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