In a Van Down by the River
Back when we spent our summers in a van in the High Sierra, the season would stretch out in a way that I thought it would never end, and when it did, it always came as a surprise to me.
Leaving wouldn’t feel real to me until the night before, and I would stay up alone sipping from a bottle of bourbon and watching a fire burn itself down until I doused it with bucket after bucket of water.
I’d walk out of camp up the road and down to the meadow.
In my memory, there was always a moon making the late August night nearly as bright as day, but when there were just stars, there was still enough light for me to wind my way down to Long Meadow.
There were no hotels on this road or campgrounds aside from the one for the volunteers, and generally this late in the season, we were the only volunteers left, so the forest was empty of people.
I’d come to the edge of the meadow and just watch it in the dark without thought or reason. I would just stand there for hours watching the long grasses swaying in the wind and listening to the darkness.
There is nothing like standing and looking and not thinking and walking back, I wondered why I hadn’t done that every night of the summer. I knew that I wouldn’t do that when I got back to the city, and I wondered about that too.
Those long evening watches stretched themselves and quieted me. The memory of them still does.
