How quickly it leaves us...

This past weekend I went camping at Kalalock with some friends.  It's one of my favorite camping spots - with tide pools filled with reluctant creatures, camps sites that have gnarled branches and trees resembling something from "middle earth" and like growth marks on a child's door jam, the sun sets on those trees.  It's laying on the glacier flattened stones that are heated from the sun but you still need a sweatshirt because of the constant winds pushing the waves on the sometimes sandy shore littered with bleached, smooth trees, who spent a long time the ocean.   

It's so incredibly relaxing.  And when I camp, I eat like a queen, cooking fish, corn-on-the-cob, squash, baby red potatoes and even shrimp.  My friend gave me an espresso maker for camping and Americanos are the rule in the morning along with Mexican breakfast burritos (both veggie and with sausage.) We manage to avoid talking about work or derby and instead share funny stories, talk about our past, share some hopes and dreams.  And by the time you've been there for one evening, everything is put into perspective.  You feel rather humbled (hanging out by the Pacific Ocean all day will do that to you.)  You're thrilled to have spent so much time in nature and to be cooking "slow food" with friends and drinking wine.  It's really rather perfect.

And then is starts to slip away.  Even if you ignore the cellphone (though you start to get a signal), the harried traffic (while you have to pee), makes you slightly crazy.  You get home finally - only to have to run another errand.  You're exhausted; you smell like campfire (which was fine when you were in the woods); you have to go to work.  And it's Monday.  And there's a budget committee meeting which sets you into a quiet panic.  You are going to have so much more work to do and you're going to take another pay cut and you don't know what else there is.  You have practice, which was great fun, but then there are decisions to be made and arguments to squelch.  

It starts to slip away.  That peace that you felt - like the high tide rolling out ... and it's only Monday.

*sigh*