I haven't been posting, for awhile; and I love posting on this blog, so what's up? There's a good reason. Sometimes we have to take all the beautiful stop-and-deeply-appreciate things we feel in solo camping and bring them into daily life.
I was all ready to have a long weekend's camp over Labor Day weekend... and man, I not only had been looking forward to it, since making the reservations in the spring ~ I really needed it, you know? Work had been nuts, my birthday camping trip got cut short from four days to basically a day and a half in July (luckily I'm not bitter about it, which is great, lol) and I was craving trees, and my woobey blanket nest in my tent, cool nights, warm days, coffee by the campfire, some reading and dozing in the hammock, and some Mt. St. Helens exploring. Maybe a little fishing thrown in. Just Being.
Then I got the call.
My mom, who amazingly (well, amazingly for everyone else; standard operating procedure, for her) at 85 was planning a big multi-day anticipated 4-wheel-drive solo deer hunt this fall, amid some late season fishing and the stairs she's building into the bank on her 80-acre desert property and making recipe binders and family history binders and bringing her 105-year-old-friend out from her nursing home on their monthly drives for "Ruebens & Rootbeers" ~ my mom, after a week of feeling vaguely ill, had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. The prognosis was weeks to 1-2 months, tops.
So I loaned out my camping gear and the vittles I had ready and gave my reservation to a friend and her parents (a blessing for them, as they hadn't all got to camp together in years - some things work out as they are meant to, though we do not see it at the time) and got in my car, and I drove two days, and I am here now. With my mom, and my sis.
My parents were the people that instilled in me my love of camping, and fishing, and backroads, and wind in the trees, stretching my legs on a trail, the quiet of nightfall, the beauty of dawn in nature. I lost my dad to lung cancer at an early age, and so my mom has been my inspiration in these in all my grown-up years. When I camp, I am infused with my mom, my history. She is a daily touchstone in my life.
So friends, I am here with her, until she is gone from us. Then, I will eventually definitely post here again, because I have SO much good stuff to tell you. And I will camp, and share my heart-in-a-campsite with you, in my continued fervent hope that you, too, may discover a piece of your heart resides in a campsite where you spend time with just-you.
And my mom's spirit will come with me as I journey. As it has my whole life long.
"There are only two seasons: Hunting & Fishing." ~ Nancy Cook Karner Lewis
Marvelous, creative! Thank you for sharing this part of your life - just getting started, so I need to find a hiding place and time to focus to catch up. It will be a challenge for someone who tends to eat all the pie in one sitting!