On the Highway

Time to move on and make tracks across the colorful country to stay ahead of the weather.

October, 2020

Here I am in camp again, I like this one, number 22, beside a tall cedar tree and a nurse log with thick roots of old hemlock wrapped around its trunk like so many octopus legs. I’m fond of nurse logs, trees felled by wind or man, lying on the forest floor. From it sprout ferns and mosses, all sorts of lichens, fungus like miniature horse saddles, and wonders of all, sometimes dozens of hemlock seedlings from tiny ones only inches high to tall ones with roots that straddle and twist over the once heroic living tree. There’s something anthropomorphic about a nurse log: who we might become were we to give of our best gifts, nurturing the next generation. Seeds that sprout, healthy ones. I like to think that when I die I’ll become a nurse log somewhere along the Pacific coast, Kalaloch perhaps, or Queets, deep in the rain forest.

This camp in Concrete, Washington can’t quite measure up to the Olympic peninsula; it will have to do for now. From here, I’ll plot a course for coping with this pandemic. I’ve been camping here three days a week since early May, weather be damned. I’ve hardly written a word, instead read a lot and painted six or seven terrible paintings. Now it’s almost fall, time to make winter plans. Last night it poured, this morning sunshine; now high overhead, clouds and a pale sun. In the night too chilly, last week too warm; getting the bedding right takes some flexibility of blankets.

A big RV camper has arrived into a space just north of me; what a lot of stuff the family is setting out: two folding tables, a green grill on wheels, lawn chairs, a pink playpen, a tricycle, a miniature blue and white tent, a purple bike with training wheels, two dogs tied up between the trees. We used to have a droopy canvas tent, a box for food and kitchen supplies, a Coleman stove; wearing old clothes, we got wet and muddy, sat on rocks, ate beans. I look up from my tea and see one of the dogs has collapsed the play tent and is inside scarfing down cookies. The dog is going to really enjoy this camping trip, I’m not sure about the parents, what a lot of work.

There are several women who come and go here in their campers; one, tall and thin, with a baby about a year old. She was here last week, the week before and again now. The other day, I pulled my vehicle to a space near hers and she moved right away to a spot farther off. I worry about the baby, nowhere to crawl. Does the woman have a home somewhere or does she live full time in her small camper? These are tough times, I suspect more and more will lose their homes.

The other woman who has been here several weeks, fusses with tiny fires of smoky twigs and moves her camper from spot to spot seemingly unsatisfied anywhere. This morning she stopped me on the trail and said, “Did you hear loud music in the night? It was really loud.”

“No, I didn’t hear a thing,” I said.

She had other complaints, “The water faucet drips, and the electricity, it blinks on and off. Have you heard noises? I think someone might be stalking me because I heard a thump in the night. I think it’s kind of scary here,” she said. “Don’t you think so?”

“No,” I tried to be reassuring, “I feel safe and comfortable, the managers here are attentive and kind.”

“I don’t think I’ll be coming back,” she said as she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and returned to her camper.

“It might be just pine cones falling down,” I said, “they do that you know.”

From ghoulies and ghosties and long legged beasties and things that go bump in the night, good Lord, deliver us

We’re not all at ease with the same things. What makes one of us feel safe, frightens another. I like these tall trees, the cedars and Douglas firs, the long beams of sea green light that fill with a blush of pollen, or shift

suddenly as warming insects swarm and just as quickly disappear. Nature on the move, so complex and confusing that this Coronavirus has infected our very thoughts and halted our daily activities.

Some people got new pets or puppies, others sorted old photographs making albums for their kids and grandkids. So many learned to bake bread that flour and yeast were difficult to find. Others took to the road, no point in keeping that RV sitting on blocks, get it out and use it. Could I become a traveling recluse, live self-contained in my camper?

I had my hip replaced early in February and my daughter came out from Annapolis for a week. Friends dropped by with soups and stews. The news about the Coronavirus wasn’t good. Physical therapy closed after three weeks. People masked up were afraid to go to the grocery store. The one in my neighborhood would bring the grocery bags to your car if you called with a list. You couldn’t take your own canvas bags anymore. My 80 year old brother in law had heart trouble, he kept falling, was in and out of the hospital, in re-hab, then back to the hospital. One early morning an urgent call came and then another, he was gone, Covid.

We talked on the phone, sent text messages, emails, got out the sewing machine and made masks, were horrified at the conflicting news, felt frozen in place. Our community was one of the first to receive national attention for a choral group had what we now know was a super-spreader event. Those of us who’d worked in Public Health knew it was only a matter of time. We’d read the data, been trained as first responders, passed out information on disaster preparedness, been given packages of face masks, flashlights, little orange plastic tents and whistles. We’d had drills and helped to train others. We, in the Pacific northwest, live in earthquake country, we’d felt the ground shake. This was a different kind of shaking, it was us, in our own boots. The urge to hug one another grew exponentially with the warnings, not to get even close.

If we turned off the news and sat quietly with our own thoughts; those of us, without kids at home or needing to work remotely, or endlessly on Zoom, had some choices we could make. Those unable to do their work, their businesses closed, the rent due, the mortgage overdue; and those in the health care field, doctors, nurses, funeral workers, for them panic must has risen in the back of their throats, a bile of apprehension and confusion. The messages from on high were anything but clear. We yearned to hold those we love close. “Don’t come and visit, Grandma, just don’t.” Waving through a window just didn’t cut it.

The days seemed long, we caught up on videos and books, worked our gardens both big and small; cleaned closets and straightened up cupboards, made piles for the Goodwill, but it, too, closed. Were we being told the truth? Did anyone really know it then? When Dr. Fauci lowered his head and put his hand over his eyes we knew we were in big trouble. We need to listen to the experts, the science, we aren’t stupid here.

Meanwhile, home from my weeks’ camping, I had to find a place to park my little camper, Snowball. In the summer I parked at the neighborhood school, but by September teachers were returning, so I parked on the street and moved Snowball around every few days. The little village where I live doesn’t allow RVs to park for the long haul.

The days were getting shorter and the rains were on the way, what to do? I’d made my mind up when I bought the camper in the spring of 2019 that I was going to get my money’s worth out of her. Other years, I’d already traveled around a lot, first in a Toyota van and then in a Minnie Winnie, I knew it was possible, to be self-contained and cautious, with plenty of masks and disinfectant handy-wipes. One of the advantages of living in this retirement village, is that it comes with a handyman who takes care of things. I could simply forward the mail, tidy up, lock the door and roll quietly into a new adventure. I’ll be my own nurse log. By mid-October I was ready to go. Over Steven’s Pass in the snow, then Oregon, Idaho, Utah. I didn’t want to think or plan too much. Just keep driving, I said, heading east, we’ll see what seeds will sprout in this most unusual year.

With thanks to Christie Garrison and Shim Hogan for hospitality at Camp Concrete, and to grandson Miles Baker for his magical music.