Stealing Campfires
Tonight I wandered up the vast length of one of my favorite camping beaches, clutching s’mores supplies, looking for a campfire to steal.
I’m off the grid for a few days. I would be gone longer but I’ve got a meeting I’ve been trying to get on the books for a while in a few days. I may zip into town for it then disappear again.
No one knows where I am. I could disappear here. In a campfire dispute.
There was a period late last summer when I felt trapped in many directions. For good reason. I started going camping by myself every weekend, and that started the process of waking me up. I had been gradually dying for a long time.
More than a few people aimed flashlights or headlamps in my direction as I passed tonight. They sensed I was up to no good. But when light revealed my costume — the woman-suit that disguises me as non-threatening, helpful, well-meaning, that allows me to operate in this world unseen — they swung their lights round and went back to tending their own fires.
Mistake. I am an operator.
I was looking for a campfire to steal.
On one of my excursions last fall, I pulled into an RV park by a beach late at night. I parked and walked out onto the beach past people surrounding fires. They asked me if I needed help. Yes, but I said no. I just kept walking up that starlit beach for a very long stretch of time.
Why were you looking for a campfire to steal?
I wanted to make s’mores. I’m very good at building my own campfire but it was already dark, I didn’t have any wood, and the beach was lined with fire —
I was thinking that would make a great thriller opening: if the operator pulled up into the RV’s at night, walked out into the ocean and disappeared.
Why wouldn’t you just approach someone and ask to share their campfire? There’s an irony inherent to —
Shut up. I didn’t want to have to explain everything to randos on a beach just because they had the wherewithal to build a fire. I just wanted to find an underwatched fire — roast my s’mores in silence — and get out. Surgical strike.
What do you mean “explain everything”?
I spent the month of January of this year traveling by myself in Colombia. Frequently, people asked me “why are you alone?” And I felt relieved that not speaking Spanish let me off the hook from having to explain the process I had just been through — all the systems in place that were supposed to protect me that absolutely did nothing to protect me — how it’s actually possible to get PTSD on the job when your job is writer and in fact your own studio executive can diagnose you with it — how after all that, you will talk repeatedly to sweet and well-meaning male friends who continually try to argue with you that the things you experience have nothing to do with gender (they don’t see or experience these things so whatever you’re describing must be a one-off, I guess?) despite copious evidence across every industry that women are expected to do more and better work for less pay for reasons that no one consciously acknowledges or owns because it’s ugly and makes them feel bad to think about.
Why can’t you just let it go? Isn’t this just the nature of the business? Why do you make everything about women?
Yeah you’re right. I probably am exaggerating the outsized effects Hollywood has on women. I’m gonna go back to spending the Fourth of July alone wandering a dark beach stealing campfires now.
