campfire tales

{polaroid by tim}

{locust lake campground, pa}

I love coming home from camping and going through things ~ Polaroids, pressed leaves, leftover fruit; re-weaving that simple life back into the slightly more complex one at the house. Laundry, washing the camping dishes, sorting the books, shaking out the sand and the dirt from our clothes. We always have lists started, "Next time we'll bring...next time we won't need...next time it would be fun if..." Lists, plans and anticipation.

We built a campfire, waded in the lake, fished, walked, looked, and read. We ate simple meals, with our fingers (hunks of bread dipped in olive oil, draped with prosciutto and mozzarella.) I wrote, a lot. I listened to the sound of the trees and of the water, of other voices far off in the night, at other nearby campfires.

I thought of A Stranger in Borneo, how the author slept in the rainforest: no one around for a thousand square miles of pitch black. How life was before electricity, when the day centered around the sunrise and sunset, candlelight.

We woke, wide awake, without an alarm, at 6:45, and went fishing.