Origin Story
On camping, tent sex, and new beginnings.
In my life I’ve been camping exactly twice: once during a short stint in the Girl Scouts about 15 miles from home (which I considered walking back in the middle of the night, as my peers slept peacefully) and again 30 years later, just last week. The only exception is a handful of nights speckled throughout my adult life that I spent in my car, typically on a pilgrimage or another, and once when it was too hot in my Hollywood apartment to sleep. I drove up to Mulholland, thinking it would be romantic to sleep between the two faces of LA, an idea that was quickly ruined by an uppity police officer shining his extra terrestrial flashlight in my face just after I’d shut my eyes.
Until recently, I had no desire to proper camp. Having friends who regularly spend swathes of time off the grid and come back with beautiful photos and a fresh batch of inside jokes, plus my newfound rebellion of comfort zones opened me up to the idea. One of my best friends, Callie, said she had a small window of time off work and wanted to take me camping, fulfilling a vow (threat?) she made to me ages ago. It’s been a long time since she and I have had time to just be together one on one, and our relationship is built around a mutual desire for adventure and freedom, so this was a big fuck yes from me.
She made the three hour drive from LA to my hometown where I currently reside on a Sunday, and we spent the evening with my dad, scarfing pizza and planning our trip. He’s 83 and grew up exploring central California’s “high country,” so he had lots of opinions. The place Callie had set her sights on was closed due to fires, and so my father suggested we go to his favorite place in the world, Lake Edison.
Nestled in the Sierra mountains, Lake Edison is right where California’s sacral chakra would be. In the human body, the sacral chakra sits in the abdomen, a few inches beneath the belly button, and is thought to be the place where creation originates. It’s fitting then that I’d realize, while looking out on one of the most stunning sunsets I’ve witnessed in recent history, that this is the place where I was conceived.
The story goes that, after much convincing, my dad finally brought my mom to Lake Edison, just once… one inadvertently fateful night in 1984. I can understand her hesitancy based on the fact that my dad was aghast that we wanted to have the car nearby in case of an emergency and for general comfort. He is of the generation that believes the list of camping supplies are, in order of importance: a knife, a sleeping bag, and a skillet. But… it is an undeniably sexy place, and so whatever reservations she had about the experience evidently were not all-encompassing.
So there I was, in my place of origin, dealing with the image of my parents having tent sex, with one of my best friends in the whole world. It was a coming home of sorts, in more ways than one. Being with Callie, just the two of us, talking about life and where we’ve been and where we are headed was something I didn’t know I needed.
Much like moving back to my hometown a year and a half ago after being away for twenty years, which is longer than I lived here the first time around. I left a whole life in LA without a plan, but coming home was instinctive. I needed to be back in the place where I started in order to start over. Like most people who forsake their small town for the Big City, the thought of moving home always seemed like absolute failure. And in a way I was admitting defeat, but admitting it freed me in a way that denial could never, no matter how hard I wanted it to.
My biggest hopes and wildest dreams were born with me into this body at the Kaweah Delta hospital in Visalia, CA- the place that, 32 years later, my mother would speak her last words. As she lay in what turned out to be her deathbed, she remarked that the room looked exactly like the one she was in when she gave birth to me. It was a place made for transitions.
I moved back into my childhood bedroom in the house built by my parents out in the country, and then eventually rented a small place in town on the same road as the first home I ever knew. When I’d come back to visit throughout the years I lived far (but not too far) away, I would relish the feeling of sleeping in my bed, alone… a moment for my soul to re-attach to my body, as it belonged only to me. It was the only time I felt I could truly go inward, the room was my sanctuary. Just mine, forever and ever. When I wasn’t here, it sat empty, waiting for my return like the Giving Tree.
When I got home from the camping trip, exhausted and filled with satisfaction, covered in bug bites from one single minute spent in the most glorious meadow anyone has ever seen (worth it), I pulled a tarot card. The Fool. The first card in the deck, represented by the number 0- the number of limitless potential and new beginnings. It’s the start of the hero’s journey.
As I write, I am sitting in my childhood bedroom where the bookshelves are filled with my diaries and journals, and the drawers are filled with first attempts at screenwriting and butterfly clips and hand-written poems about oblivious boys. They are all the foundation for building something new- reminders of who I’ve been and hints of who I am to become.
There is, however, no indication that I would become a camping queen. And yet…
Today brings a full moon in Capricorn that’s all about new beginnings and stepping into a new, more aligned, future. Here’s a good write-up if you’re into that sort of thing.
The outdoors (for me anyway) are a place of enormous healing. Just the vastness of it and yet the fact that we can be there and appreciate it. I’m really happy for you that you got out there!