Perfect timing?
We were nearly ninety days into shelter in place. I had finished the academic year, doing distance learning, or more aptly named, crisis learning. Our-collective-hair-is-on-fire-and-weve-still-got-a-school-year-to-finish learning.
I had reached the end of what had already been the most difficult school year yet, pre-pandemic. And a pandemic summer awaited me. I had about a week of “freedom” before I was slated to start very intensive therapy. Because when you’re an anxious person and a pandemic hits, well, sh*t gets real and sometimes you just gotta get help.
So the bases are loaded, the stage is set: one exhausted teacher in the middle of a pandemic, with a summer of therapy (which actually turned out to be a GIFT) and zero travel ahead (contrary to most summers). A few days to fit a mini vacay in, outdoor-adventure-fates willing. My mom floated the idea of going camping an hour or so north, where campsites had just re-opened, and a river bank could be awaiting with rays of sunshine. It was a change of scenery and somewhere I’d never been before, so the answer was an emphatic yes, even if it came out somewhat droopily. June me was kind of droopy.
Let’s Get It Started
So we pack our car the night before, and the very next morning, we find that our car has been broken into, windows smashed. Luckily we didn’t have a sweep-out of our car AND we were able to get the windows fixed alarmingly quickly, but talk about someeee kinda beginning, am I right? So we Romy-and-Michelle “take two” rev the engines and hit the open road, ready for some riverside basking. And picnicking. You know, all the riverside things.
We pull up to the campgrounds, and it is CHEEK-BY-JOWL packed, I’m telling you. Like, enough to just want to jump in a bucket of hand sanitizer. I should mention that this is at a point during the pandemic when the contagion levels were still relatively high.
Skeptical but not dismayed, we look at each other and decide that since this juncture wasn’t exactly as-planned, a perfectly acceptable plan B would be to go eat our picnic lunch either by the river, or at the Main park in town. So we take a little roundabout drive of town, and everything.is.closed. Especially the main park. I don’t know how something can be especially closed, but it was. Because COVID. Okay. Plan C. To the river! We try to find this elusive river bank, and find the equivalent of something about as charming as a deserted quarry. Reallly dusty rocks. No river access. At this point it almost felt like the camping fates were having a little fun with us. But there was always a way to find a plan D, E, F, G, etc.
What’s Next?
We kept going from juncture to juncture, station to station, and experienced the unfolding of a truly unconventional but memorable camping trip. We ate lunch back at the campsite, and nearly had our sodas blow away. We went to a beach about 30 minutes north, finally got our riverside “bask,” in the company of some grade-A-rowdy river floaters, and got a delicious Burger+milkshake+fries from the town’s burger stop.
We had almost reached the final decision of the day: to head back home, or to spend the night at our campsite with the gorgeous view of the pavement road? We made the unanimous decision that we were to stay, because by golly it was a change of scenery, and a break from routine and Groundhogs Day as we knew it. We poured wine into camping cups, read our books by flashlight, and dozed off to the sound of dozens of fellow camping groups. We woke up, had bacon around a campfire from a cast iron skillet, and headed home after probably the wonkiest camping trip either of us had ever been on. But you know what? It totally worked, and created the fondest of memories.
If you had told either one of us about how each “plan” was going to get more-or-less lightweight foiled, we would have either cringed or maybe stayed home. But our ultimate, default gameplan? Just take things 20 minutes at a time, and at each fork in the road, making the decision that made the most sense and brought the most joy or amusement right then and there, in that present moment.
I am, by nature, a planner. Anyone who knows me, has met me, or has read my writing can sure as heck detect that. However, if this pandemic, if these “unprecedented times,” have taught me anything, it’s that the only constant is change, and that the only guarantee is uncertainty. I mean sure, knew that intellectually, but talk about getting SCHOOLED in it. Had you told me in March that in August we’d still be sitting six feet apart and wearing masks, I’d be like nononononnononoo. But, between March and now, we’ve all gone moment to moment, enduring uncertainty, and managed to find true joy within each subsequent period of unknowing.
Campground Inspiration
This camping trip, and its total characterization by 20-minute-by-20-minute decision-making and “we’ll see”-ing, inspired me to take on a little bit more of that during this whole stretch of uncertainty. It’s not easy, but it is the surest way to stay grounded, stay optimistic, and stay in the present. Do I wish I had a crystal ball? You can answer that one. But I mean, sometimes not, too, right? Because the not knowing sometimes yields the most worthwhile, “well IIIIII’ll be damned” surprises. This camping trip? it was nothing short of precious.
I get questions all the time: are you still contemplating a career change? Are you feeling better from last year? Are you going to try to date in the pandemic? Do you still want to write a book or keep giving workshops? Do you think they’re doing distance learning all year? What if they make teachers come into schools in person? I have values-driven answers to many of those questions, of course, but do I know when or how or if they’re going to happen? Not a chance.
So do I wish I had a crystal ball? I suppose the jury’s still out. But that’s neither here nor there. Because the fact of the matter is, there is no way to know the future, as squeamish as that makes us feel. All we can truly do is put our best foot forward, take everything into consideration as it comes, welcome the not knowing, and make decisions each metaphorical 20 minutes by 20 minutes. That way, before you get to “what happens,” you get to eat bacon from a cast iron skillet first.
