The three of them looked sisterly waddling over, one with a limp, another with a greenish bill, as i was puttering around outside my tent. They came within feet, without hesitation. i immediately remembered the old triscuits that had absorbed so much damp from the air that they were inedible. How i hadn’t found a compost situation for them yet, had just been carrying them around in the car, vaguely in search of somewhere they could rot in peace. They weren’t moldy, just stale and rubbery with moisture. Perfect for ducks.

i fed the mallard ladies slowly, making sure each got her bites. i had plenty of crackers to break up for them, and so i watched them wander off and return again throughout the day. At one point when i thought them long gone, i threw a few crumbs out of the car. They showed up within seconds. If i walked around after i fed them they would follow me for a while. Have you ever had ducks wonder what you’re up to as you squat to pee on a lakeshore? i laughed out loud and made fun of them for being voyeurs. They asked for more snacks.

The three birds were just behind my car, i inside it. All of us were nestled onto our own bottoms, dealing with the wind and sputters of rain in different ways, when a sound i couldn’t hear sent them suddenly flying away. They didn’t go far, landing in the water almost immediately. We were all having the same kind of day, my favorite kind of day: wandering, snacking, visiting, sitting, reacting. Once i went out to meet them as they floated along by, throwing cracker bits directly into the water near each of them in turn.

The two able-bodied birds would pick on the one with the limp, but if they waddled away she would follow eventually. When i realized she would take her time in pursuit, i made sure to save her a crumb or two for when the others were distracted. They came and went with my welcome; i walked to and from them with unexpected ease. All three of them were comfortable within a foot of me. They let me watch them stretch and preen. i admired their shiny blue and teal wing bands, their chunky brown patterning, bright white bottoms, winged eye make up. One of them took an audible shit in front of me, and none were startled by my immediate and raucous laugh.

It occurred to me that the presence of the dog of which i’ve been dreaming would likely preclude a day such as this. These three birds were circulating the campground though, and i was the only one without a canine companion. i wondered if they were able to nap at the other sites. i wonder if they ate out of anyone else’s hands.

Just one of them was this brave. Perhaps a couple hours into our day together, she lowered her head and flattened her neck out to reach for a piece of cracker pinched in my outstretched hand. From then on she was happy to do it again at my suggestion. i watched her comfort increase as the day went on, and caught her waddling right up to my feet more than once, begging. One of her sisters considered taking similarly offered snacks, and kept considering. The limping one was neither of these, which struck me as wise on her part.

These birds live here. This is their lives. Animals are meant to lean and loaf, as Whitman insisted for himself. As i insist now. This is the only career in which i am interested: catering snacks for other animals when they come to my doorstep to remind me not to worry about a thing.

When your bed situation is less than level, your body, however tired, will wake you about it in the middle of the night. Like when a baby cries, you may not know immediately why you cannot continue your slumber. You may try to sleep again after having some water, or a pee, maybe both. Sleep will not return however. The baby continues to cry until you realize you’re tossing and turning on an incline. This realization actually feels more like a decline.

i have experienced more than a few sunrises this way. You may wonder why, as i sleep in my car, i couldn’t, simply, move it? One hundred per cent of the time i am already on the most even ground known to me. There’s the option of driving until i find somewhere new, of course, but this situation has its own special fatigue. It’s all i can do, while half asleep, to remind myself that the new day will soon be accompanied by a new night: another chance to rest.

This morning i was contemplating just these things under a sky of deep, dreary grey as it was fading to white. The lake beyond my windows moved as if with a tidal current, swift and choppy. Fog obscured the opposite shore, the wind blowing clouds around with seemingly earnest aimlessness. i thought perhaps the shoreline could provide me with a flat stone to level a rear wheel, and focused on this as a solution as i dragged my consciousness into a new day.

It was after nine when the neighbors started their truck. i couldn’t see it, but i heard that rumble with an immediate optimism followed by the crushing wisdom of experience. The likelihood of anyone packing out on a Friday morning was close to none. As if in confirmation of this thought, the truck engine cut off. A small part of me hoped they’d been moving it to hitch their trailer, but as i brushed my teeth i focused on what i might require of my leveling rock. Rocks, probably. i considered the new spade my pops had got me, which i could use to adjust the ground if i needed to. From my spot just inland, i couldn’t see much by way of flat, big stones on the shore. Perhaps i would construct a small leveling block of rocks and dirt. i could mark the spot with the spade before i moved the car, assuring the balance would be right, or at least closer than it was last night. The truck engine turned over again. i poked my head out to watch my neighbors depart, trailer and all.

i took over that space without a second of hesitation, and within three minutes of this fortunate vacancy, my bed was level again. i set to making breakfast at my new site with a deep and grand contentment. Tonight, i knew, i would sleep well.

(a journal from under the waning gibbous harvest moon)

The full moon peaked on my birthday but i was sick then, so i stayed indoors. Two days later i am glad to be well, posted up safely for the evening, maybe two. It has been a strange day.

Despite knowing what i had in store today, i went to bed very late last night in favor of cute TV time with Mama. i realized it had been worth it when my alarm went off at 6:40 and i was feeling good. Skeptical about the hour, i called the garage at 7 to confirm my appointment before driving the whole eight minutes, through the fifteen mph local school situation, to make it. Fifteen minutes later i was traveling right back home. Did you know you have a get your car inspected and registered annually? i was a couple months late, but i’m all set now.

For some reason it was about nine am when my bestie started texting me about alternate dimensions and neutrinos, which are definitely very related in a way that is mindblowing and also somehow upsetting. Just before trying to wrap my mind around that shit, i figured something else out and changed some plans. Particle physics was a cute distraction, what with its strange and charm. i now planned to leave around noon or one pm to visit a place i’d never been. By the time i had made a little eggy breakfast for Viv and myself, and packed as best i could, this window was closing. My drive was set to be between three and five hours depending on campsites. (More on that later.) i have recently, i suspect in the midst of letting the realization that nothing matters sink in, forgotten how to rush. i have been slower paced and mostly late with some consistency in this life, but now i am unable to panic or worry about it. Noticing the time i certainly paced up, but i wasn’t about to make haste.

After finally packing the car i purposefully, as if i was done, locked the door to the house behind me before i left. The car engine was running when i realized i forgot things. So i went back to the house, unlocked the door, got things, pulled the locked door shut behind me again. i did that twice. On the third closing of the locked door i finally pulled out of the driveway. About two hours of indie songs from 2012 into the ride my laughter at my inability to pack after all these many years was abruptly halted by the sudden realization that i must have left something important behind. i glanced around and was proven right immediately and painfully: my pillow and Edmund were conspicuously absent. i reasoned that i had extra blankets and clothes and even a pillow case. Although psychologically strange, these losses didn’t pose much of a problem for only two nights away. The tricky one came later.

Forty miles or more since i’d had any cell service, i pulled over at a gorgeous pond rest stop for a smoke and discovered that i did not have rolling papers. Oh no. This would not do. Missing the best parts of snuggling already (yeah, you read that right, try me), could i give up my bedtime ritual? Without my phone’s help i wouldn’t be able to find a shop, and i hadn’t seen anything promising in a long while. Brace yourself for my pride in an underwhelming feat because i am delighted to have really come far in my abilities to reason and reconcile situations as i travel. My maps app was analog, so i looked for bigger roads and intersections. The nearest hope i found was the confluence of four state routes. There would be cell service, or a place to buy papers, maybe both. i drove six miles out of the way from my destination, one way, before i found a Dollar General and pulled over. i still didn’t have service but maybe they sold papers? i parked the car and looked up to see that across the street against an old timey log-fitted building was posted a chartreuse and black sign reading “Smoke Shop”. i laughed out loud. A dollar ninety and a super awkward but cute conversation with the salesperson later, i rolled me a spliff and drove the six miles, which included construction so it was about twelve minutes one way, back to my route.

Twenty minutes after reconnecting, i missed a turn. i had another spot marked further ahead, but doubling back might still be faster. Both options were a gamble. i get my free campsite information from free apps which rely on free-user good will in the sharing of information. Anyone can post a camp spot as long as it passes basic qualifications. Some that don’t qualify get posted. You learn that all aspects of each entry are worth a critical eye and some weighing. Of course this gets easier with use. My main concern about either of these sites was the location and time of year. It’s the beginning of fall in northern, nowhere Maine, and life is beautiful. The weather is warm and mild, the wind is soothing, and the skies stay brilliant. The summer green trees sport a rosy kind of blush that looks exactly two days of autumn old. It’s also Thursday night, a night when free campsites are few. Each of my two contenders was said to be located, respectively, down a long but manageable dirt road, tended by the state, and right on the exquisite water of Moosehead Lake. Either would be a long drive, but the one behind me was just that much closer. All other things seeming equal, i turned around.

Trust, trust. i put my faith in my gut and watched the sun sink toward the horizon as i made the missed turn and drove three miles up and down a rocky dirt road that kept me below twenty mph toward what i hoped was my campsite. i was busy re-memorizing my return through the maze of logging roads when i finally passed a sign with rules, then pulled up to a tiny turn-around with a boat launch at twelve o’clock. The single lane circle was closely surrounded by five fire pits, each with parking and a picnic table, each of which as i drove around i saw in turn, with increasing urgency, was full. All until the last one. Its vacancy was understandable, but i loved it immediately.

The picnic table at this site sits at a jaunty angle and almost in the brush, and there is somehow not much space for any kind of rig or tent. It has scant–if any?–flat ground, and i had to maneuver expertly close to the fire pit in order to get the car nearly level. i have been planning to make a couple small leveling blocks for Sorcha for a while; this lit the fire for making that a priority. The sun was preparing its final act, dazzling over the ridiculous and stunning Moosehead Lake, when i finally rested as evenly as possible and settled in to watch the sky. i feel comfortable enough, though my neighbors are nearly unbearably close. Despite not wanting to hear, i’ve vaguely enjoyed some of their conversations. There’s also an impressively whiny puppy around. i like smelling the camp fires. It’s nine pm and all is quiet but for the occasional murmuring conversation of a couple sleepy humans.

The stars are brilliant. i must attend to them.

the wind skims the water in shifting patterns, lines forming to twirl across the surface, sometimes silken, never static. reverberating in swirls that fade then reappear spiraling nearby. here close to shore the surface never breaks. how does this lilt look from the depths? a shadow play of silhouettes not quite complete, gliding through light not quite direct. seen from above the ripples dance in the gusts of air, suddenly threatening to splash before sinking into calm again. a chill. sunlight sparkles across the surface, bouncing off the supposed smoothness irregularly in minuscule rainbows. sun and wind interplay like an old fable, water highlights every effort they make. adds salt.

if you look away for an instant you’ll miss something. up above are scattered points of light so dense that at any second they could coalesce into a sunlit sky. the air is fresher without clouds. cold. the twinkling seems in earnest. some of the infernos have already ended by the time they’ve met your eyes. it is an honor to witness from the ground. a moon just waxing shares the deep, dark firmament. a sly silver sliver adorning the myriad sparkle. keep your eyes open for sweet bright streaks in space. by the time you’ve lost yourself in the depths you’ve forgotten what you’d wish for. you lean in to the wondrous night.

This day is heavy with the burden of water. It drips from the canopy, sliding down leaves and tree trunks into soft, welcoming lichen. Up ahead in the unkempt fecundity is a silhouette that can only be you, alone in the forest, like me. Laying thick between us the grey and green atmosphere obscures not only your image, but my will to call to it. Despite myself, I watch closely to see what the outline of you will do among the trees. As if in direct response to my earnestness, a lazy current of air that could not be called a breeze carries ever-denser haze into my line of sight. The green dims, succumbing to grey. I chide myself for bothering to adjust my eyes when I could easily look away. Instead, you fade as I squint, then disappear, wandering away behind the broad trunk of a tall pine as if into the end of your own film. I wonder if you meant to do that, dramatic. I continue watching for any sign of your direction until I am finally left without a choice. I have no idea where you’ve gone. I realize this gladly.

Mosquitoes love the damp. I offer them death by my hand, one last caress. I don’t count my kills but I do take some pride. Nature tends toward balance; creators and destroyers. Here are pollinators out in equal number, confusedly approaching my brightly colored undershirt in the grey. The yellow fabric peaks from dark sleeves, and at the collar, so that I have to lean down to find pink petals, meek and cowering under the all-wet green, then coax the bright butterflies off of me toward the nectar. Everything here is stimulated by the rain. I know you do not feel that way, but I don’t know what to do about that. Unless you need help moving to your next life, I suppose. Or a flower.

That you are currently up ahead of me ensconced in drama is more a marvelous, bad joke than anything. I wonder if you’d laugh with me about it. Did I ever tell you about the time I bought that pack of ladyfingers for you, but also one for myself? You enjoyed them as ever, all in one go. I even helped you eat yours, and watched you share it, all while I had my own, secreted away. You never wanted to take a dessert slowly, or even quietly. I guess that’s a thing I’ve enjoyed: you can really stoke a whole lot of happy excitement into one moment. And you’re good at sharing.

That was the beginning of my dessert stash, which I have since kept whether you were nearby or not. Even today there’s chocolates in my pocket. I realize that a little sugar boost might help you cope with the grey, so it turns out there is something I can do. The gulf between us is wider than ever though, filled with fog and spiderwebs and slippery moss over deteriorating logs. I don’t know how to find you without calling out abruptly into this silence so heavy it feels deep, as if there are suddenly hundreds of miles between us, or layers that would shatter catastrophically in the wake of my shout. I stretch my fingers through the wet air to tickle a fern before looking up again to where I saw your silhouette. The lush variety of greens surrounding that clearing is wholly visible, leaves and fronds shining wet, not at all disturbed by signs of humanity. Squinting again, I wonder whether, in this weather, you were. I have no idea where you’ve gone, and gladly.