Photo Credit: Brian Landis
My cabin fever hit critical mass early last week. I told Brian I really needed to unplug, get out of town, and hear the wind through the trees for a couple of days. After recovering from his shock, he agreed wholeheartedly. Brian loves to camp. I do and I don’t. I do love laying in the tent, looking up at the sky through the screen and listening to the birds. I don’t love stinging insects that make me injure myself in my frantic attempts to run away from them. I’ve always had this intensely frustrating fear and it’s always screwed up my favorite outdoor activities, but the need to get out of my head outweighed the buzzing terror.
Why the need to get out? I’ve been having a hard time dealing with everything lately. My brain likes to compare this spring with last spring, which leads to sucky trains of thought. It also likes to throw out random certitudes, like “Our kid totally would have been an artist,” or “We so would have bought all this Junior Ranger gear for Bunzilla,” which stab me right in the heart and piss me off all over again. I still harbor a lot of rage at The Muterus (mutant uterus) for its wretched, base betrayal. I thought the anger would be better by now.
It isn’t, and that also pisses me off.
Adding to the cosmic pile-on, the proposal business has been deadsville since Christmas. I’m staring down the barrel of a huge tax bill without the revenue to replenish the treasury thanks to said Muterus and the dead proposal economy. Stress. I has it.
Normally camping would add to this stress stew in my head because of the aforementioned buzzing terrorists, but I knew this trip would be different. The weather was slated to be cool and a bit rainy (spoiler: it was more than a bit). Perfect no-bug camping weather. We also figured no one else would be inclined to camp in those conditions (spoiler: they were). We planned to hike, bird watch, eat camp food, and enjoy the quiet. We did, rain and all, and it was glorious: our best camping trip since Yellowstone.
Now we’re home, our camping gear is squared away, and my jerk-birds are fed. I was able to go to sleep last night feeling better than I have in months because sitting out there with the wind and the birds recharges me. I think I’ll do it more often.