Camp Mornings

Propane and coffee. The sizzle and warm toasty scent of camp potatoes and sausage. Slowly these things seep into my consciousness, the same way that I become aware of my ice cold nose, the dampness of my sleeping bag, my mother a foot away pulling something from the fridge.

When I open my eyes I see the window is fogged over. It’s cold outside and warm inside. Must be really cold outside if my nose is this cold. I hear the propane heater running in the trailer. I can’t wait to put my feet in front of it.

My older brother is probably awake. I lean out of the bunk to see, yep, the bed has been transformed again into a table. My younger is almost definitely not awake. I look down. The back of his blonde head is to me.

I stay here a little while longer. I want to get up but the coziness of a morning like this is not something to waste. My mother’s presence at the tiny stove is a warm blanket in itself. She sets the coffee percolator to boil and soon it will be jumping up into the clear knob at the top. Then it really will be time to get up. As it boils she makes potatoes and sausage. Somehow she also makes a stack of pancakes on that tiny stove, and eggs.

I can’t remember what my mother wore or looked like in those moments. Maybe she just had on one of those silky robes she had. But surely it was too cold for that.

Before anyone else can, I slide out of my bunk and duck into the bathroom. It’s a space barely big enough for tiny little me, I don’t know how my parents fit in there. I change out of my pjs and sit down at the table with my brother.

My feet are warmed. The day has begun.

I wish I could copy-paste those mornings into my life now. Every time I smell the coffee my husband grinds while the gas range heats up a kettle of water, I think about those camping trips. What I miss most is that warm presence of someone else taking care of me and the unknown of being in a new place. We’ve driven all day to be there, when breakfast is over, we’ll go do something. Maybe we hike, visit a historical site, swim, get ice cream in the small town down the road. I can replicate that.

But there’s still my mother at the stove. This warm blanket of love and cozy, gentle wakefulness. Safety. How do I replicate that? Can I? What does it mean that I long for it?

When did I begin waking up with this feeling of heaviness? Maybe my mother woke up with that feeling. On her vacation she still had to make breakfast for everyone.

What do I need to do for myself that would allow me to wake up in the way I did as a child on a camping trip?

I’m too wistful. Too much of a dreamer. Always have been. I think I’m getting closer. I take my breakfast in the sunroom, even though it’s still dark. We make a fire in the fireplace. Sleep with the windows open so that when we wake, our noses are ice cold. I write. I’m trying to change my life. I am changing my life. I only wish it was as gentle as waking up in the camper.

https://rebeccamlh.medium.com/camp-mornings-f281d12aa8ed

Fear & Excess

A little less than two years ago, my husband and I booked a Grand Canyon rafting trip with 22 other people we had just met at the start of his business school program. Until the week or so before the trip and when we had to send deposits, I thought little about it.

But as life converged — our rafting trip, my last week at my current job, a huge order of swimwear, my husband’s graduation, a trip to Europe, him starting a new job, and moving into a new apartment all within 1.5 months — my anxiety decided it could do a better job managing stress than my rational brain. And visions of our rafting trip took on a grimmer picture — hypothermia from the 52 degree water, drowning, someone hitting their head on a rock after falling off the raft, our plane or helicopter crashing, constipation, not having gluten free food options, not fitting in with the group, sunburn, heat exhaustion, dehydration — you get the picture.

Well, none of that happened, of course. What did happen is that my stress-weakened immune system allowed a cold to settle in, I forgot both pairs of sunglasses at home, and I got a little bit of sun rash (a relatively normal thing for me). But something else happened too, a strange dichotomy of excess and deprivation.

On Friday we flew to Las Vegas where we met up with 22 other friends/acquaintances for two nights. Vegas is Vegas and there was pool time, loud music, hordes of people, excessive drinking for some, edibles for others, gambling, and lots of bright, blinking lights.

Keep reading here:

https://rebeccamlh.medium.com/fear-and-excess-3fa8d47e73

On Flying Home

Lake Michigan is a solid blue phenomenon below us. An ocean — but not — fading seamlessly into the blue-white sky. I’m overcome. By longing, sadness, nostalgia. Homesick.

Is this what happens when you reach a certain age? You long for your mother’s house, the place of your birth, the grass and the wind in the trees of your youth? I wanted nothing more than to leave, to go so far away that the pain went away, too. It doesn’t. I went far, the pain only changes. I’m okay with that, now, I suppose.

But I wasn’t expecting nostalgia to render me so desperate. I ache for the glimmering green-blue lakes, my disgust for the cloudy, brown, dammed lakes of the southeast rising. How can I love a place and think about leaving it? How can I dream about returning to a place I hated?

The big lake fades. I think about my motherless home, where I’m the mother, the caretaker, the nurturer. And I have no children, just my pets, my husband, my things. I do a shit job. I want to be taken care of, to be mothered and nurtured.

Taking care of myself for so long has made me hard, calloused, and yet somehow, far more permeable. I no longer want to throw it off.

I am not very good at making or keeping friends. I assume for two reasons: 1) My nature is peculiarly solitary and independent. I resist and I make little effort, but I also don’t think about it much. 2) I do not think I received the sort of nurturing that fostered a receptivity towards close connections with people.

Before (before when?) I wished to just go far, and stay away, stay alone. But now, alongside it is this other thing. A drawing back, towards home, towards community, a sentiment I practically choke on. It’s uncomfortable to even write it.

My grandpa passed away recently; my last remaining grandparent. I can’t help but wonder if I had known him — any of them — as an adult, would I have a better sense of how to build community, foster familial connection? Would I have learned to build happiness like what I saw in those old photos? Something that comes only from being surrounded by family and friends that feel like family. Would I get it? Or would I still long for, and make, distance?

I’m crossing the country back into my life, ending my brief return to childhood. So many things about it I look forward to. But that lingering, niggling call to something else that I’ve been fighting all year? I dread it, I’m exhausted by it. I know I simply ought to face it, sit with it, observe it. I have. I ought to pull at the threads of curiosity, keep doing the hard things, at work, at home, and in my marriage. But when, where, how is the give?

What if? is a powerful temptress, too eager to drag you down the path of discontentment. She’s also a gentle leader. I’m having a hard time determining if she’s a friend or foe this time around. We’re so easily conned into desire these days, I don’t know what’s real.

Lake Michigan and Okauchee, Oconomowoc, Beaver, and Pine Lakes are long gone. I don’t know when or under what circumstances I’ll see them again. My parents talk of moving. My heart aches. My animals wait for my return.

My mind wanders. What if? And, what then?

https://rebeccamlh.medium.com/on-flying-home-1a0412468407