Find Yourself This Fire Season
We leave the tarp off because we think it will be too hot and I want a view of the stars sparkling through the pine tips. Though the night sky is darker and deeper than the one we left behind, the only visible star is Polaris, a tack bit into the black, brushed brass by the Mendocino Complex Fire, which the park ranger tells us has gotten loose again, swallowing a whole subdivision with its hunger for heat. The full moon overtakes any hint of other galaxies or solar systems far far away, throwing an ivory cross against the tent window; Its light beams grip the frame edges like it’s trying to hold its place, like another turn around the world Could be a turn for the worst.
The crickets are ringing — not buzzing, but ringing. A register below that the yelp of coyotes from some bank of dirt just outside the BLM boundary.I think of the Betty Boop cartoon where Betty leaves the city for some peace and quiet only to find herself in the shrill woods, the sound of loneliness chirping at her pillow. But I am not Betty Boop. I crave solitude and am comforted by white noise: humming refrigerators, the thrum of an HVAC, babbling water, wind in the trees. The reassurance that everything is still functioning, I do not need to fix it, it doesn’t need me, I can be alone with my thoughts, my breath. It the sound of solitude is not empty, the world does not empty, turn off, when I shut down — it knows just what to do. It goes on, let’s me pull out. But we’re not alone.
The timbre is broken — or rather bulldozed — by the inane cackle of our camp neighbors , a gaggle of weekenders that no doubt spent their entire trip at the tent-site doing the same thing they do every other day back in their Bay Area colonies: get drunk on California wine and talk shit about the people they follow on Instagram. (I know because, back home, I’m one of them). I guess Nevada County is the new Nashville. Their lot has all the trimming of a bachellorette party. Babe is convinced by the amount of empty bottles of Bogle and off-the-shoulder looks that the group got lost on their way to the casinos.
I don’t care that it’s only 10pm and I might be putting a curse on someones nuptials. I stomp over there in my sock jammed flip-flops and tell them to shut-the-fuck-up, look around, everyone’s got their lights out, we’re on primitive time. I want to fall asleep to the hum of vermin wings, the yap of the wild, not the same shrieking clan of sapiens that I already subscribe to every night of the week back home at the corner of Hipster and High AF. They abide quickly and temper their volume. I return to our tent and toss over into a heavy sleep.
Un-zippered awake. I ask Babe if he’s making coffee but he tells me just went out to take a leak, go back to sleep, the sun’s barely up. I flip around for a bit from side to stomach trying to find the way back to my underworld, but it’s too late. The cool misty air has found its way to my lungs, spritzing each breath to consciousness, each becoming independently alive, ambulatory, like they’ll walk off and leave me behind if I don’t keep up. Laying on my back, from upside down, the mesh screen of the tent window dials down the color on the pine needles, the bark. The landscape wears a nostalgic veil, a staged memory of what rustic looks like from a mute imagination, a place someone gave up on and then tried to conjure, resurrect, for inner-warmth.
I roll onto my belly and look at the screen itself; the dried guts of a mosquito I squashed on a previous retreat remain, a small brown splat. I tune into the different bird sounds: trills, horks, taps, mocks. The bark begins to copper, the air now shimmering with particle dust; a halo forms around the treeline. Is it time, yet? Moon, move on; the sun’s pulling up.
