Remembering Simple

It seems that the more I distinguish my true needs from my wants, it is a shock to realize how little is enough.

Kathleen Norris

As my regular readers well know I made the decision to stop backpacking about a year ago, my aching back complaining loudly each time I hoisted my ultra-lite pack. I feared doing more damage to my crumbling spine. Ultra-lite, as it turned out, was not lite enough for this aging woman.

I knew though that I was not done camping and began exploring ways I could achieve that goal and still enjoy those mornings in the sun with a cup of tea by my side and a good book in my hands. The problem is that I have never been a big fan of car camping, not since the days when my family would pack up the trunk of our 1955 Chrysler and pitch the old canvas Army tent. No one would call those camping days simple. Setting up that tent, with its heavy steel poles, was no small task. My father would then go about suspending tarps from nearby trees, hauling and chopping firewood, and my mother would begin to prepare the camp food we all loved, all of it cooked over an open fire. Perhaps I have such fond memories of those tasks because I was not the one doing them.

By the time I graduated from high school my father had replaced the old tent with a boat that cruised the waters of Puget Sound and north to the San Juan Islands and Gulf Islands of British Columbia. It might have been enjoyable, except that I was a rebellious teenager by then and being confined to a boat with two adults who could not possibly understand me, no longer able to go for a hike to escape their menacing presence, was simply not my idea of a good time.

As soon as I was old enough I escaped to the back country with an old Boy Scout pack and a Dacron sleeping bag, no longer encumbered by a heavy tent nor my parents’ demands. My meals were cooked over a small gas stove, and though they lacked the ambience of family meals around the campfire, freshly caught trout sizzling in the cast iron skillet, it was simplicity I was seeking at that point in my life. I did not know it at the time, but I was creating a new version of camping and of myself.

Fast forward many years later and through nearly endless permutations of new and improved equipment: As one example, I went from sleeping on the cold hard ground, to Bubble Wrap, to a foam pad, a Therma-Rest, and finally to a lightweight air mattress. It was simplicity and lightweight I was seeking but also comfort, and eventually I could no longer find it on the ground nor in a tent.

This spring I made a bold change and a bold purchase. I bought a camper van. I named her Pearlie Mae from an old bluegrass song I love. I went on my first camping trip last week, along with my two big dogs, Bruno and Lulu, who accompany me most everywhere I go. Pearlie Mae and I are still figuring some things out. Camping has never before required a two-volume manual nor You Tube videos to figure out what comes next. Meals prepared over a single burner stove are not any fancier than they were in camp prepared over a lightweight stove with a fuel canister.

But it is not fancy I am seeking at this stage in my life. It is simplicity and comfort and moments in the sun. I found all of the above. On my first morning camped on the American River I moved my camp chair into a copse of alder and vine maple. Seated by the river, I was screened from the proximity of nearby campers. I watched a water ouzel dipping into the small pool contained by the rocks. Bruno and Lulu were nearby, Bruno happily wading chest deep into the water. He would toss his shaggy head in joy, creating an arc of light and water that flew behind him and above him. I did not follow him out into the river, but I admit I did toss my head in joy. Joy is still to be found, despite the complexity of this new version of camping. The river still flows. The water ouzels bend their fragile legs into the pools of cold river water. The pages still turn with delight. Yes, Pearlie Mae and I have many adventures ahead.