Yesterday
after work I stopped at my father’s house.
No one happened to be there and I had a folder of old writings that I
wanted to go through. I decided to stay
a bit and made a little fire in the old Cast Iron ‘fire-pit’ my brother John
and I had found abandoned in the woods when we were barely teenagers.
I found
something I had written from my very first ‘camping’ trip with the boys a while after I became single again. I was talking to my Woodland
Spirit friend Michelle one day at work and she told me of a long standing love
affair she had with Stokes State Forest.
There were cabins you could rent…I listened….that October I rented a
cabin on the lake. After all went to bed
the first night I opened my notebook and this is what I had written…
…So my insomnia
kicked in around 11pm. I was hoping to
sleep – Ha! When do I ever sleep
anymore? I also made the mistake of
trying pepperoni pizza in an unfamiliar place.
Oh the grease – I can hear my gallbladder crying! You were supposed to ‘Keep it Simple Stupid’
on this trip!
Before the
boys and I embarked, I bought some ‘things’ for this trip. Being a single mom, I wanted the boys to have
a safe but total guy experience – hence this foray into the economical world of
Survival Man! 3 days+2nights=$90 in
October for an Autumnal Adventure they will remember!
Taking a cue
from Michelle, I hoped to invest in a bit of gear each year. We took stock and had a kind of crappy
sleeping bag so we headed to the store and got 2 decent 20degree sleeping bags
for the boys, A Hatchet, Rain Ponchos & some organic nibbles.
So there we are in
the store and my oldest looks at me...
‘What’s the tote for mom?” (Not
the Gray $4 tote you buy for bulky sweaters.
I was holding the next size up, the $8 one.) It was maybe 3.5ft by 1.5? I looked at the floor and avoided his
question. “What’s it for mom?” O the unrelenting tenacity of children! “It’s for the
gear’ I replied. “yea yea ma we don’t
have THAT much gear!’
“Well the
cabin doesn’t have a tub.”…They are so accepting of my insanity.
We pulled up
to the cabin with the crunch of drive stone.
It sat quiet. It was, in my estimation, the best spot with a huge Autumn
Lake in all its glory stretched out behind it.
The trees and brush that surrounded it seemed to hug it. I hoped it would be hugging us as well. I pushed away thoughts of 70’s slasher horror
flicks and hoped for the best.
They used the
Hatchet immediately (I prayed for a trip without stitches) for kindling and
soon we had a fire among a circle of stone.
They loved the Marshmallows. I
thought they were pretty much YUCK. I
never did like them.
So @ 1AM when insomnia again came to call, I positioned the blue tote-tub in the open corner of a small powder room which sat at the end of the structure. I filled the tub with tap water boiled in pasta pots on the small stove. I imagined the water was springing up through the ground right from the huge lake that lay outside the window of the cabin. I got into a routine with the water; fill, heat, empty.
When the tote was ½ filled I took a pot of
cold water and poured it in to temper the boil.
I cut and squeezed a lemon over the steaming water and sprinkled in sea
salt. I had a lantern with two settings…I
used low. I found a few wayward votive
candles and lit them. I stacked fluffy
towels…and proceeded to have one of the best baths ever! It was citrusy and steamy and the tote had
some give so it relaxed with me. I’m not
even 5’ tall, so I was able to recline comfortably and rest my head on a folded
towel. I had a bottle of cold water to
drink with a slice of cucumber.
I was in
some sort of Rustic Nirvana that Thoreau, in his wildest imagination, could’ve
only dreamed of! The boys were snoring in
a rhythmic cadence and I sat in that ‘tub’ for well over an hour. I let thoughts dance in and out of my mind…I
would watch them…and let them go. With
the small bathroom door opened I had a 15’ straight path to the gray lake stone
fireplace and the blazing orangey ember fire in the little stove. Never had I worked so hard for a bath. Never had I enjoyed one quite the same
since. I learned something very
important – luxury is something that you carry inside you and with you and can be had for $8
and a bit of imagination!
It’s almost
3 now and many call this the witching hour.
Time ticks on. And it does prove
true that it is darkest before the dawn.
I feel a strange contented loneliness. I remember feeling like
this a few times before, somewhat nocturnally vigilant…almost having to stay up
waiting for the first light’s safety in order to rest…I step out of the bath
and towel off. I’m so warm there isn’t
even a chill to me. I put one more good
sized log on the fire and that should carry us til we all wake up – ready for
breakfast. Pretty good for a first night…
Good Energy to you and an earned bath!
