All that brought me here

I am gloriously, delightedly, shamelessly proud of myself.

I am sitting on a splintery bench by a fire I made after laying the tarp, pitching the tent, securing the rainfly, inflating the mattress, and making the tent my home with sleeping quilt, blow-up pillow, and small table with flashlight, lantern, and Barbara Kingsolver.

I am thinking: I did it. I know how to do this. This meaning tent-camping solo. This meaning taking care of myself. I know what brings me joy. It is sitting by a river at dusk, warmed by a fire of logs cut from my property, victims of the two-years ago ice storm, drinking tea made from JetBoiled spring water. I sit here thinking about privilege and luck and hard work and stubbornness and all that brought me to this moment.

Then, later: Because I have been told I should be drinking 80 oz of water a day, and so I do, and so I did, I awaken during the night, emerge from mummy bag draped with sleeping quilt, reach for the flashlight, sit on the air mattress to exchange sleep-warmed socks for tent-cold flip flops, and stumble into the woods to pee, squatting close but not too close to the tent. Thrice. As in three times, from night to dawn. This is almost enough to make one question the benefits of hydration. Or tent camping. Or the lyrical thoughts of the previous day.

But.

The next morning, I make a fire, brew a cup of coffee, and look at the river through a line of fir, pine and oak. Miraculously, the 2023 Archie Creek wildfire that burned 130,000 acres of the Umpqua National Forest spared this little campsite while torching the forests above it and across the river. There was magic here before. Now there is even more magic.

As I consider this, as if on cue, a flock of wild geese flies by, skimming the surface of the river, honking as they head east, over and over announcing [my] place/ in the family of things.*

It is easy to forget about squatting in the woods.

*“Wild Geese,” Mary Oliver