country mouse city mouse

 

Let's back track a bit and I'll share some vacation tid-bits.

We go both ways. We swing in both jungles. Smoky fires and bare feet or semi-sleek urban adventures.

First, camping in Big Sur.

A river swimming hole with crawdads, rope swings, and rocks for leaping off of. Steps from the tent.

A basketball court, with balls and team provided, for the boys, and a rack of hoola hoops for gyrating under the red woods.

A soft serve ice cream shack for the kids after dinner and swimming and playing, then they wander a circuitous route back to our camp site, coyly passing the family with all the blonde surfer girls.

When mother forgets tent poles, it means a new tent. This monstrosity was on sale and we love it. It's bigger than our bedroom at home with full stargazing potential. 

Food tastes better. Beer tastes better. Fire is warmer. We sleep better. The skunks are closer.
Matt loses it in certain situations. I am the calm one. It's midnight and Max has left an empty Dorito bag on the picnic table. Matt kicks me. He hisses.
"There's a god %$#@ skunk out there."
"Right." I say
 The best tack is to acknowledge this and go back to sleep, because we're talking skunk here, but Matt wants action. I can feel it. And I know that he will freak on this critter.
(Freaking on the rattlesnake in Malibu was fine, but not on a skunk in Big Sur.) 

I feel for the flashlight, pick my way around sleeping children, unzip two linear miles of zipper, and voila. The beam of light rests on a gorgeous, fluffy, black and white tail.
It looks like Della brushed it before she went to bed.
There he is, fully engulfed in a Lays bag...stink shooter winking at me, on the ready.
I want that bag.
I get it.
In a pacifist maneuver that Gandhi himself could not have orchestrated, I removed the skunk from our campsite.  No one was awoken or killed or sprayed.
Matt would have made headline news.

 Lewis says some beaches are for swimming and some are for exploring and he's not sure which is better. This was an exploring beach and he was in heaven. 

You might be thinking that camping is too much work, not enough relaxing. Not so. It's about an hour of work, a very gratifying, pioneer/caveman burst of 'let's build a shelter from mighty mother nature'.  It's fort building for grown-ups, and it thrills me as much as it did as a child. 

Your twenty year old sleeping bags take on rock star status as the night turns brisk. A hot dog and a marshmallow can build community. Kids have radar for smores. Dirt is good, and a star-lit walk to a communal bathroom makes a 3 token shower decadent.

 

Camping brings forth deep gratitude. 

For the night, for the world, for family.

I can't explain it. It just does. 

But this country mouse loves the city, too.
Hello San Francisco.

  There were no skunks in the city. Extreme parking hassles, but no skunks. 

We walked and ate, rode street cars and ate, lit candles and ate, bought sequins and fur and ate.

On the edge of Chinatown, we climbed some stairs that were nearly hidden from view and found ourselves, blessedly, in a bright room full of Chinese families eating whole chickens, odd eels, seaweed and sauces so fragrant that I vow to return again and again. Enough that we become one of them. That the exotic can become our normal. That one day Lewis can take a date and say hello in Chinese and order the house specialty rather than sweet and sour moo shu poo poo.

Because a city can set us free that way.
It makes me grateful.
For our country, our vast differences, 
for curry and spice, and family to share it all with.