“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.”
― Joan Didion

                                                                                            

You can miss a place as much as a loved one. That longing can take on an ache deep in your heart just the same. I never thought I’d feel that way about any place but home. I am not a good traveler. I get homesick. I love my home. We’ve put so much into it. I love where I’m comfortable. I feel best with familiar things surround me.

I certainly never thought I’d come to miss the area where my husband loved to camp in the
Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Tolerate maybe, never love.

Maybe, because after my first child was born I started seeing danger where I’d never seen it before, or because I lost my father so young and came to realize early on that life was so very fragile, so temporary.

Or maybe, because I get lost at the turn of a corner. Oh, I know exactly where I am. It’s just I don’t know where that is. For me, I go up a trail and when I come back down, it looks completely different. It might just as well be a different country. Actually, I have to face it. I’m lost. And I’m alright with that.

My husband has been taking me to the same place for camping for almost all our vacations. For me, it is always a different place. I’m a cheap traveler because I will never feel as if I’ve seen that, done that. I’m ok with that. I’m ok because I always find something new, something wonderful, or exciting, no matter whether the place is new or not. And always poems find me.

Oh, there was a time I hated going. I did. It was wilderness and frightening, especially being in charge of three little boys four years apart. Camping just seemed to me like I was doing what I did every day only in tougher circumstances. Growing up I had never been on what could be called a real vacation. Our family never went anywhere for more than two days and usually that was to my grandparents in Salt Lake City.

I was determined my boys would love the outdoors like their father. I was determined because I knew it was good for them and important to appreciate the outdoors, the environment. Yeah, I’m one of those. A tree hugger. I’m not radical. I just love animals, love wild and want my kids and theirs to know and love it, too. Even so, when I was stressed, tired and anxious about the terrain, the animals sighted, the ‘green’, the scenery spoke to me. I started looking for ways and things I could love about the place. And I started writing about those things. Poems, and stories, and novels. There was so much to inspire me.

Over the years, I learned to love it. Last year when the doctor told me I couldn’t go to high altitudes, it broke my heart. The campground is over 8000 ft. The trails and favorite spots we like to trek over 10,000 ft. Blood pressure goes up at high altitude, sometimes 20-30 points.

But I got the go-ahead last month. We only had four days. I had to be back for labs. Not enough, but I was going to just feel blessed. It was so good to be gone. Away from phones, internet, computers, caregiving.

It was good to be back, to hear the wind in the quakies, smell the pine, watch the hawks wheel the sky, see stars, breath wild, listen for poems.