Howdy,

About camping, What if?—or, If only … 

Continued from yesterday: Part 7 (Post B) …

That’s the fear of wild animals: the thinking about them. That’s the fear of camping: the thinking. Domesticated minds straying into the wild. It takes a couple of days of settling into a hike and its wilderness locations to begin to slow the mind and not be so jumpy at wilderness-y sounds. That nature. So stick-snappy. That camper. So jittery.

Sometimes there’s a reason to jit (which, apparently, is “a style of dance music popular in Zimbabwe,” but that’s not what I mean—although, see, and dare I say, Behold, I do indeed put in the research for these magnificent and crafted pieces even when it would appear (at times, one might think) that I’m just simply writing away, so when tempted to stray into thinking that, please do me the favor of remembering that you’ve learned, here, that jit is a style of dance music popular in Zimbabwe—with jit, I mean the jitter part of jittery, as I supposed you guessed many words ago: but before learning a thing about Zimbabwe’s popular dance and music culture, so if you when big on Jeopardy or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or some game show like that please remember to toss a thank you my way, or, we could just call it even for your wading through all this with me, as you do have my sincerest appreciation: we’ll just call it even—whether you cash in with winnings or not. NOTE: this does not constitute a game show guarantee of any sort, and the striving and still-aspiring author is not to be held responsible for anyone’s saying jit when he or she should have uttered jitter while jittery under the duress of being on television, in competition, about to look dumb for all to see, and/or jubilant at the prospects of winning).

Let’s just start that over: sometimes there’s a reason to jit. There are wild animals out there, in the woods, of the forest, deep in the wilderness country, in a galaxy far, far away from any place to pop in Star Wars. Just this memorial weekend, we laid eyes on a mountain lion. It was neat, but we were more than likely a little glad to have seen the highway bounding mountain lion on the way home rather than sighting it during the drive up to camp.

We know they’re out there, the wild animals. They’re in the great outdoors, and that’s a place we want our boys to grow up reasonably comfortable, enjoying the outside and the inside of the forest and on the water and in the water, being and living active and adventurous. To go with reading and writing about it. Living wild. And loving it—even if it’s after a few days of settling in and shaking out the jitters to get down to the dancing with … wolves?

Did I hear wolves? Was that a wolf? Are there wolves out there?

Oh, happy camper—zipped up tight in a tent.

Totally relaxed.

Like you would expect for a happy camper.

 

Billy

Reading. Writing. Living.

Word Count: 145,775 / On Pace: 154,000 / Year’s Goal: 200,000


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