There’s a reason we don’t say, Father Nature, eh? Look at this majestic vag. Some dude (I’m sure) named it The Open Door. Ha! You wish, buddy. Fourth and fifth of July, Kirk and I had the honor of waking up to this gorgeous slab of mountain looming over our peaceful camping spot in Western Wyoming in a campground called Granite Creek. Home of grizzly bears, moose, and mule deer, this wilderness was, for me, the best part of a country that’s being torn up by its humans.
In contrast, the night before we’d bunked in a Trumpified RV park, where we were startled into the wee hours by pickup truck loads of explosives, that for some reason equate to, uh, FREEDOM!
The only sounds we heard the following two nights at Granite Creek were the creek itself (we had somehow lucked out and snagged the best site there, situated on a cliff above the roaring water), a sweet baby from the site next to us, birdsong, and a gentle breeze whispering through the pines that protected us from the intense summer sun. No bottle rockets. No mortars. No 24/7 generators.
Being off grid for 48 hours was a mixed blessing though. On the plus, there was no way to doom scroll, and no wasted hours navigating the latest shootings and climate disasters. On the neg, it’s hard for us to be disconnected from our kids and grandkids. Especially since so many of them are in the midst of battling ye olde Covid, contracted during our otherwise fantastic family gathering a couple of weeks ago. (We did reconnect on the 5th, en route to our next camping spot, and our family is over the hump for the most part, thank goodness, and Kirk and I somehow escaped the virus this time.)
Despite being mostly away from home since the first of June, I’ve managed to keep up with my WIP via #1000wordsofsummer (thank you, thank you, Jami Attenberg), and even though I’m guided by an outline, I’ve found myself steering off-script these past few days. The events of the past few weeks (hello GOP and rogue SC) have infiltrated my psyche in a way that finds me leaning toward a feminist correlative. A cautionary tale wherein my characters have gone a bit rogue themselves. Looking up at the Grand Vagina while tapping away on my laptop and comparing the Trump RV night with the ensuing deep wilderness experience, a theme emerged: subvert the patriarchy and its continued threat to women.
This morning, a couple days after the Grand Vag camping, we drove through Yellowstone in the predawn light to glimpse Old Faithful and the other bubbling geysers ahead of the massive crowds. In one of the astonishing pools, there sat someone’s red, white and blue hat, likely cast off during the Celebration of Independence. Guess someone thought they’d celebrate FREEDOM by chucking their clothing into the boiling mudpot. Proof, that there’s always an asshole.
Since we were there so damn early, we were pretty much the only ones on the boardwalk for the first mile or so. We gasped along with Old Faithful at the wonder of life in the Upper Geyser Basin. At how thermophile algae and bacteria thrive in temperatures as high as 167 degrees Fahrenheit, creating spectacular ribbons of color. (Is it any wonder why humans can’t seem to get rid of Covid?) We were pretty damn pleased with ourselves as we crossed over the Firehole River, bouncing along, making great time (we had to return to our trailer, 90 minutes south, to make the 11:00 am checkout time), when we came across this motherfucker.
Lucky for us, he was much more interested in grazing than chasing us off his land and we snuck by him (we found out from a ranger that he’s one of three elderly bison in the area who’ve retired from rutting and hanging with the herd, and our sighting of him was not as cool as we’d hoped).
Anyway, to get back to the patriarchy, and the manuscript of which I’m squeezing out 1,000 words at a time. The premise is: there’s been a cosmic fuck-up that needs reversing, and my MC is one of the few selected to go back in time and recalibrate—only, it turns out there’s a discrepancy about what exactly needs fixing. There’s a ladies’ council who believe, in earnest, that Mattie (my MC), needs to protect her older sister from the clutches of a villain, but the Higher Powers (the dudes), have a far more nefarious plan for our heroine.
Friends, it’s getting ugly.
So, we are at the midpoint of our camping adventure, and I’m determined to keep up the 1000 words-a-day quota, and, hopefully, I can sneak off to steal WiFi from the general store of this middling campground in which we find ourselves this evening.
Meanwhile, carry on all you writing chums. See you on the other side.