Camping Revisited

More from the story that is my life. Boring, yeah? No, actually, this is about the camping trips my family went on every summer. This is the last bit of nostalgia before this segment turns in to darker territories.

The fires. Ash-colored logs. Fluorescent flames, flickering to shades of blue and red. Ants foolish enough to crawl upon our firewood, before it was pitched in to the dwindling inferno. Its innards hissed and popped on charred sticks brandished wildly in the air, leaving behind smoke, and it's trail momentarily burned on my retina. Flashlight-sabers creating small pillars of light. "Luke, I am your father." The smell of burning rubber. Smoldering tennis shoes pressed against the white-hot fire grate.

"Daniel James, get your feet down! You're going to wreck another pair of perfectly good shoes!"

A green acorn bursting from the shoot like a phoenix propelled from the ashes. Golden-brown marshmallows. Hot dogs on wire sticks. Metal lawn chairs. Embers flying through the air like a thousand fireflies bid to the heavens by an unheard voice.

These seemingly mundane elements combined in to something simple, yet transcendent in its beauty. Each moment was magnified by the company around me. My mom's squinty laugh. My dad's hot chocolate in the morning. My brother and I playing catch. Habitually, punching our baseball gloves to loosen the leather before the ball met its target. Each person magnified these moments, until each crystallized as a memory. A fleeting glimpse of youth. The warmth of love. This was camping.