is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

darkness and light.

One time when I was sleeping in a tent in the High Sierras (at White Wolf, in Yosemite), I woke up in the middle of the night thinking "great, I have to pee." Meaning, yes, I will have to get out of my sleeping bag, into some shoes, and then walk to the public restroom in the middle of the night by myself in bear territory. I laid there for awhile pondering this (which was, after all, a nightly thing, my bladder never having quite kept pace with the reasonable demand of adult life, that one be able to sleep through the night without peeing) and than I finally opened my eyes. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. And they didn't. Everything was pitch black. No shapes appeared. I looked around. Nothing. I waited. Nothing. Utter blackness. I waved my hand in front of my face. Nothing. I began to have the sick fearful feeling that I had somehow woken up blind. I panicked, rubbed my eyes, said WTF. Then I remembered it was a new-moon (aka no-moon) night and I was not near any artificial sources of light. So I got out of bed, found my shoes, and stumbled out into the night with a flashlight.

You haven't really seen stars until you've been somewhere like that. And if you haven't, you should really make a concerted effort to do so. Might I even suggest that you do it in late August/early September, during meteor shower season, when you'll see shooting stars everywhere. It delivers you to a world where it would be stupid not to believe in enchantment.

Just forget the modern story of progress that says a disenchanted world is inherited by those who can no longer believe in any form of enchantment. Time works in multiple directions all at once, all the time, and there is nothing exclusively primitive about the experience of wonder at one's own smallness. It is good also to find ways to remind oneself of that--Yosemite and its surroundings will do that. But so will many other things.

The next night I woke up in the middle of the night to strange noises. Clang clang clang puff puff puff grunt growl gnaw claw clang. A bear was trying to get into our bear box. (A bear box is a big steel contraption designed to keep bears out. You have to keep anything a bear would want in there: food, utensils, toiletries, anything contained in plastic or aluminum or tin, anything that might smell like food or a food container to a bear. Because a bear will destroy your car to get at that stuff. And a bear will come right into your tent to get that stuff. Bears do not believe in your right to property.) So, yes, huge bear about three feet away from the tent, heavy breathing and angrily trying to get into the bear box, for like an hour and a half. That night I did not get up to go pee.

The next night a bear broke into the storage cabin for the White Wolf cantina, stole an industrial-sized vat of sour cream, and then sat down in front of a young family's tent and ate the whole thing, using her paw as a spoon. They watched in horror. We (it was Heidi and Caroleen and I) made stoner jokes.

Bears are gorgeous creatures. This bear, that year, was a cinnamon color, an adult female with, rumor had it, two cubs. Usually the bears mind their own business. If people use the bear boxes, the bears stay wild, they never develop a taste for human food, and everyone coexists. But once some dumbass leaves food out for a bear, all bets are off. The first step the forest service takes is what all the campers and hikers are taught to do: clang on pots and scream and yell and make a lot of noise. Most bears will run away. Some bears will of course figure out that there's really not much a person can do against a bear. Then the forest service will tranquilize and capture that bear and drive it 100 miles away to a new site, farther from trails and campsites. If the bear comes back, the forest service kills the bear, because it has become too dangerous. All because some dumbass forgot to put his avocados in the bear box.

Don't let any of this dissuade you from your mission to see the stars in the High Sierras. You will see such beauty up there (day and night) that you won't mind spending a night, now and then, stuck in your tent or cabin with a full bladder.

12:16 a.m. - February 25, 2011

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next

the latest

older than the latest

random entry

get your own

write to me