Written in the Woods

I am not the world’s best camper, and yet we are camping.

Helen loves everything about it, so here we are. There is no actual pain involved for me, just a use of a bit of time. It’s easy enough to do this for her.

It isn’t my thing. There is so very much nothing going on, broken by spurts of chores.

Consider the camping activities for a minute. All of them are available at home, and yet we don’t do them when we’re there. The things that we do choose to do back home are better.

Yesterday I watched my 13-year-old nephew playing with a chunk of firewood. He tipped it over, then flipped it again, then kicked it, and flipped it some more, then ground it into the earth. He did this for about 15 minutes. Somehow, I think he’d find something more mentally stimulating back in civilization. Watching him wasn’t that entertaining either, but I had nothing better to do. I suppose I could have grabbed my own log but wasn’t so inclined.

I have a whole woodpile back home anyhow. It doesn’t get played with much.

Most of what we do in camping isn’t for me. If it was, I’d do it at home.

I suspect that for many people it is a way to enjoy simpler things than in their everyday life. I get that, but there is no appeal for me. I adore my everyday life. It’s swell.

Then, of course, there are the less pleasant aspects of being so deeply outdoors. The mosquitos this year are pretty thick. None of us seem to enjoy them. Some years there are clouds of wasps. They’re even more exciting than the mosquitos.

We were visited by a cute little squirrel, which was pleasant. He stayed for maybe a minute, and didn’t balance out the bugs. As we sit about we are forever trying to identify which flying pests are mosquitos, and which are harmless.

Before we went to the campsite we were in Victoria. It is much more civilized, but even so, during our one day there, I saw about a half-dozen deer, and a rabbit, and no creepy bugs. Somehow there is more wildlife in the city than there is in the woods, so that must not be the draw.

At the campsite, we aren’t really even roughing it, as they have washroom buildings with showers.

These have lovely concrete walls and floors, and cold running water, and we get to share them with a good number of quite disgusting slobs. They contain a type of toilet paper that is only slightly less substantial than fog.

I think part of the appeal is that people like to pretend that they are living in the wilds as our ancestors did. My time in the infantry had me getting enough real roughing it to last at least several lifetimes, and I was only a part time soldier in peace time.

For me, the only reason to ever camp is that Helen adores it, and we get to go with a bunch of family members who are amongst the best people I’ve ever known. Nothing to complain about on that front.

Anyhow, the “suffering,” I put up with on these little expeditions is tiny and trivial. Helen never, ever complains about my Jiu-Jitsu focused times; which include a few out-of-town seminars, and at least a couple of weeks in Los Angeles every year.

Camping is no big sacrifice. It barely even counts as a small one.