Uncertainty Principle

June 17

I just can’t stay away. So here’s some more journal for your reading pleasure.

Me and my girlfriend Meg went camping this weekend, in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. This seemed to us a good compromise between our desire to really camp and our knowledge that we’re wussy non-campers. We just got back this afternoon, after two days and two glorious nights in Cosby Campground, sleeping in a tiny A-frame tent, cooking over an open flame, getting bitten by bugs, and so on. Overall, I enjoyed the trip. We saw some truly beautiful stuff, including a rock-and-river-and-treescape that puts anything I’ve come across in Boone (and environs) to shame. We splashed merrily in the shallows, rock-hopped, took pictures, and all that. Yesterday we did a 5-mile hike to Henwallow Falls and back. We learned many things on that hike, first and foremost that we don’t like hiking. Walking in the woods, sure, meandering here and there, yes, but there’s some difficult-to-pinpoint division between that and hiking. We’re both out of shape, that was part of it, but we both kept commenting that this uphill-trudging for uphill-trudging’s sake didn’t do anything for us. Sure, Henwallow Falls was our destination, but we knew it’d be a trickle down some rocks, not really a destination at all, just a convenient place to turn back. We went the whole way and back, and saw some cool stuff, as I said, but decided we don’t like hiking. Neither of us had done hiking or camping before, and this trip was to see if we liked it, if we were missing out on a potential great joy in our lives.

Nope.

Back at camp, we seriously contemplated going in search of a hotel with a hot tub and a pool and room service, but economy and laziness won out, so we stayed.

We admire outdoorsy people. They seem so capable and fit and enthusiastic. We want to be such people-- or rather, we want to want to be such people. But, alas, it’s not to be.

Bugs loved our tent. Bugs loved to get between the rainfly and the tent and buzz buzz buzz all night. That might not’ve been so bad, but we weren’t far from a park-service road and dumpsters and stuff, so there were also motors going by and mechanical rumblings and clashings, ruining the illusion of being in the idyllic wilderness and such.

The way the light came through the trees overhead... that was something, though. And my love for running water and rocks (and lots of it) did not go unfulfilled. I think our mistake was in camping-- we’re daytrippers. It’s not something I wanted to learn about myself, that I hate being dirty and that nature’s wonders pale for me so quickly and that I want ice cream and coffee shop and books more than trees and rocks and creeks... but that’s just the way it is. I like going to the woods when I get to go home afterward. I woke up Sunday morning, looked up at the roof of our A-frame tent, and said "We’re living in a doghouse." That sums it up, in an oblique way.

We’re glad we took the trip. Very educational, and already my memory is editing out the unpleasantness and leaving the loveliness intact... but we won’t camp again, not in a tent, and we won’t trudge uphill for the sake of trudging uphill...

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I had a good book to read on the trip, Orson Scott Card’s Enchantment, a book full of fairytales and folklore and contemporary life, my favorite combination. I’m about two-thirds of the way through, and it may be my favorite book ever by Scott. We’ll have to wait and see... but he has a deft touch, and I’ve never picked up one of his books without being immediately engaged by the characters, the story, and the writing... I also bought Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, and I’m looking forward to reading that next-- the book’s reputation precedes it...

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Oh, yeah, uncertainty. For the past dozen days or so I’ve been hanging fire, waiting for word: Was my best friend Scott "S-Ray" Seagroves going to fly east from Santa Cruz and make the road-trip west with me, or not? We took a car trip together a few years back, rambling all over the south for ten days, and that experience is one of the most precious in my life. We go way back, folks, me and Scott have the kind of friendship where we can talk in half-sentences or not talk at all and everything comes through loud and clear anyway... he’s family, among the most important people in my life, someone I know I can always count on. I’d really, really wanted him to make this drive with me, but it looked like he might not be able to. He’s working on a research project (in astrophysics, no less) in grad school, he’s got work that has to be done, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to finish in time to fly here and go with me.

Today I got the word: He can’t go.

That’s a bummer, but not as big a bummer as it could be. I don’t have to drive out there on my own. My girlfriend Meg has offered to go with me, and I’ve taken her up on it. It won’t be the same as a trip with Scott, but me and him can always road-trip later on-- I’m going to be living with the guy for a year at least. With Meg the time-constraints aren’t so severe-- she has to be back in NC by the 16th of August (I think), so we can leave around the first and take a couple of weeks getting out to Santa Cruz. We’ll meander down to N’Orleans, and see the Grand Canyon, and go to Vegas... it should be a blast. And if I have to leave Meg, and move three thousand miles away from her, at least we get to go out with a serious bang.

So my disappointment is tempered with pleasure. Everything’s cool.

Only nine more days of work. Then a huge blowout party with my housemates and friends (including some out-of-towners I see far too seldom). Then I get in my car with Meg... and drive into another big part of my life.

These are exciting times, my friends. I’ll keep you posted.