I took some time off

and then I went camping

As a kid I was an avid reader, in no small part due to being an only child. I recall long weekends of lying on my bed, switching arms as each one turned numb from holding a paperback over my face. I used to hide under the covers with a flashlight to keep reading long after bedtime, too. Then, I’d endure long droughts where I simply couldn’t pick up a book. This cycle persisted into adulthood, alternating frenzied stretches of book consumption with absolutely nothing.

Over six weeks have elapsed since the last release of EastKeep and I’ve missed it. This has felt a little like one of those dry book periods, as though I simply needed to step away in order to remember the pleasure of composition, of typing out, revising, and polishing thoughts and experiences.

But then Friday night I decided on a whim to take myself camping. Though the afternoon had been warm and felt like the first inviting weekend of summer, I was confident that I’d find a site among the several campgrounds up Rock Creek 20ish miles east of Missoula. I threw books, blankets and cooking equipment into my car and took off.

My bed for the night. Next time, my camping pad goes in there too.

I drove through three campgrounds and selected site 10 in the Dalles, found a place to park level, and hauled some dinner items to the picnic table. Then I set up my bed. If you’ve read many of these newsletters you might know that I am afraid of the dark. I avoid tent-camping and even cabining can scare me. But I decided I could sleep in my car and feel safe enough, so I made a pallet in there.

After snacks and several chapters of The Great Gatsby,¹ I decided to try for sleep. I rolled down the windows about halfway. I needed more cushioning and another blanket, but it was comfortable enough, and importantly, felt safe. I wore a beanie the folks at Browning gave me in May when it was threatening to snow.

Around 4:30 I woke to birds.

My favorite woodland bird, the one that sends its song up to the treetops, is a Swainson’s thrush. They sang me to sleep and sang me awake, and I could not have loved that more. The audio clip above is entirely too short and quiet but you could turn your volume all the way up and keep listening over and over, and you’d have an idea of it, the climbing and echoing notes set to the backdrop of Rock Creek.

In the morning I fought the urge to jet home, instead firing up my little backpacker’s stove to make at least one cup of coffee. As the dawning sun crested the east ridge and lit the mountainside opposite, I tossed my cookware into the hatch of the car and crunched down the gravel road, back to home. Rolling back into the Northside, I resolved to write about this moment of homecoming to the wilderness and hopefully ignite another stretch of composition.

Swainson's Thrush (from 2021)

In the pines
Bubbling gold and silver
Looping the canopy
Trills chase among the trunks
Spin upward
Joyful orbit of light
A final 
Tiny
Silver
Note.

1. Which I’m reading because someone in my townhouse complex and I decided to exchange books, and I’d never read Fitzgerald before. He got The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich from me.