Camping, No Thanks
August 4, 2008
Camping. Three things instantly come to mind: dirt, heat, and outhouses. Forget the serenity of nature or the tranquility of escaping a multi-tasked, modern life. I lost the poetic beauty of camping at the age of thirteen in a rental RV somewhere between the Corn Palace, Mt. Rushmore, and Devil’s Tower.
Apparently not everyone shares my aversion to staying in the Great Outdoors, though. I hear that people actually go camping for fun, and the out-of-state VISTA summer associates do not seem to mind staying at the Boy Scout Camp.
The key must be that in both instance, whether spending the family vacation in a tent or accepting a job with rustic accommodations, you chose to be there, to live off the land, to commune with nature, for some reason I will never understand.
Camping in a tent in the front yard of your flooded house cannot be anywhere near the same experience.
Unfortunately, it is a ubiquitous experience in Cedar Rapids this summer. Drive around at night, I was told this morning, and you will see quite a few people camping in their front yards. If not in tents, then in trailers, campers, and RVs parked in their driveways.
What saddens me so is not the fact that people are camping (I could deal with that if forced), but the inexpressible longing for home conveyed in the idea of camping on the lawn outside your own front door. Ask any homesick college student and they will tell you that homesickness is not a desire for a certain physical place inasmuch as it is for the security, the familiarity, the possession the house provides. To be so close to what was once your home and yet forced to live outside it seems like it would be a terrible thing.
Of course I would think that, I who was once so attached to the barf stains on my bedroom floor that I forbid my mom to ever get new carpet. The point was not that they were barf stains, but that they were my barf stains. They meant something to me, they told me a story, a story about me and that one time I drank too much chocolate milk.
To compare getting new carpet and losing your home would be an insult to those who have lost so much. The truth is I do not know, nor do I want to know, what it is like to pitch a tent in your own front yard. It sounds terrible, and I do not mean camping.
Katie,
You have a unique way of looking at things. I’ve appreciated reading your blog this summer.
As a flood survivor (not victim mind you for I am more than a conquer in Christ!) I appreciate your candor and sense of humor. I’ve seen those campers and tents in my neighborhood and to be honest I wish I was able to do the same. I wish I wasn’t staying miles away in a small apartment. I long for the long grass and bugs that are invading my own backyard. In fact just last week my birthday wish was to “just wake up in my home” and have a “normal” day. Needless to say the wish didn’t come true. But the longing for home (not stuff or things) but home where the memories were made and enjoyed was and is still there. Its one of the things that all people dealing with this kind of loss have to face and it can be difficult. But I would encourage those rebuilding or moving on to make some new memories. Take the time to laugh and enjoy life. Enjoy and cherish those around you and make big plans for when you are back home…I know I am. By next year my birthday wish will have changed; I’ll be wishing to wake up on a sandy beach or in the beautiful country side. But for this year I just long for home.