The Way We Was

Mild food poisoning.

That's what I came home from our camping trip with, it turns out. I thought I was dying, I thought I had a kidney stone, but no, it was a simple case of mild food poisoning.

Food poisoning is considered a mild case, BTW, when it doesn't kill you. It only FEELS like it's gonna kill you, but a day or two later - Surprise! - you're still alive, ready to suffer through some more of this thing they call "life".

As I rise from my sickbed and survey what awaits me in "life" today, I see every room in the house stuffed with sandy remnants of our camping trip. Hubby was WONDERFUL. He got the car unpacked, got the cooler contents into the fridge, and got me tylenol, cranberry juice, pillows and the heating pad. All before heading off for work.

Day 1 at home: I lay on the couch and alternately slept and groaned. Teetered off into town for physiotherapy, where the therapist, a cutie-pie several decades younger than me, told me off for not having gone to see the doctor. I did manage to quietly point out to her that when one suffers from fibromyalgia, as do I, that one does not run to see the doctor at every new pain, because we basically are in pain every day. The doctors just look at you like you're nuts and say come back in a week if it's still bad.

Day2 at home. I'm in less pain, on the couch with coffee and heating pad, screwing up my moral courage to the point where I can empty and deal with the contents of one bag. Then it's off to two medical appointments this afternoon.

I'm using this quiet time to reflect on this past week's camping experience.

I see sunny skies and huge campfires. People who all like each other singing and joking around the campfire. Teasing each other. Floating on the lake for hours. Getting stung by two wasps while picking up firewood. Eating a whole container of Ben 'n' Jerry's ice cream. Drinking - and I don't mean water! Trying to play Taboo! with a pal who insisted on playing for both teams, helping his opponents and throwing his teammates off the scent with his sarcastic comments while we were trying to guess the words. Beautiful Daughter, after being teased by Handsome Boyfriend about not wanting to walk through muck, pointing to herself and saying "Hello - Girl!?" Helping Beautiful Daughter prepare for an audition by reading the script out loud to her in many different accents: Southern States, Paki, J.A.P.....

Watching the two Teenage Girls paddle the canoe off into the lake. Seeing a crane fly into the lily pads. Teensy downy-headed ducklings, whiffling softly to their mother. Sleeping ducks, with heads turned backwards and tucked deep into their feathers. Loons. Lilies opening to the sun. Lilies closing at dusk. A catfish swimming around my feet. The flip-flop fiasco: Friend M attempting to walk to our site from hers, getting both flip-flops sucked off her feet by the deep sand, and only one popping up. The search for the missing flip-flop that must have buried it forever. Her husband wading into the water after she asked him to help her find it, saying "Darling, show me this lake...."

The thunderstorm, one boom rolling over top of another with no break, sometimes five or six rolling over each other, a constant roaring for an hour before the rain came...

Watching Beautiful Daughter and Handsome Boyfriend take stones and axes to the ground around the tents, trying to dig a canal so they wouldn't float away overnight...

Handsome Boyfriend spending three hours chopping wood and kindling for his big bonfire, setting it up carefully. The rain coming just before he was ready to strike the match. All of us running out to cover it with tinfoil and hold a big umbrella over it so all his hard work wouldn't be wasted. His surprise that we all cared. Him jumping over the fire - twice - and the flames were at least four feet high.

Watching Hubby paddle quietly away by himself in the canoe at dusk - something he's waited four years to do.

Getting stuck covered in soap in the shower because I'd been camping for so many years there that I didn't read the sign telling me it now gave water only in increments of 50¢, instead of single quarters. The cleaning staff lady giving up on my wailing and going to get me a second quarter so I could rinse off. Me, frustrated at the situation and myself, cussing under my breath and complaining "and they WONDER why I hate coming to shower here!"

The bullfrog that lived under the roots of a tree on our lot. The little "rubber-band" frogs out in the lilies - they really do sound like the twang of a rubber band, proof positive, I used to say, that god has a sense of humor.

The Dog, swimming to get a stick. Swimming to get a frisbee. Swimming to get a water bottle. Swimming, looking slightly lost, just for the sake of swimming. Looking lost, because it had never occurred to her that she could swim without having to retrieve something! Rolling in the sand after a good shake, lying and baking herself in the sun, as tired and happy as a dog could be. Ready to go to bed at eight pm, frustrated with all of us sitting for hours around the fire. Following me to the bathroom, right into my stall, because no one had noticed she was off her leash. Jumping for joy when she saw Stepdaughter and Daughter and Friends. Jumping for joy, for no particular reason. Sleeping for two full days after coming home. "Dead dog," is our description.

But alas, my trip was also full of pain. This campground never dries out, and fibromyalgia really gets going in a nice, damp environment. New pain in the lower back, so bad I couldn't straighten up, couldn't lift myself, much less a finger, to help with anything.

Being filled with despair at the total chaos in our campsite, wishing I had come with the Friends instead of myself, since THEY were neat and organized!

Nobody wanted to believe me, but my camping days are over. I simply can't bend down any more, to pick things up, to set up the fire or stoke it, to enter or leave the tent. I may not be that old, but I'm that broken. My knees, my back, my legs - they're living on social security at this point.

It are a fact: I've done my tenting time. I need to move on now, to renting a cottage or something where I don't have to bend double to go through a door. Something where being disorganized doesn't spell disaster. Something that comes with air conditioning, a firm mattress, and a washer and dryer.

I will cherish in memory all my days the fun of this, my last, camping trip. That was the way we was.