Well, well. Just returned from an annual camping trip with friends. My quit date was supposed to be yesterday. I ended up quitting Saturday instead, so sometime around 3pm today makes 3 days quit.
Here's what happened:
It was Saturday afternoon and ungodly hot at the campgrounds, which are nestled on the lower third of a big hunk of private property in the coastal range of northern California. We were lounging with a group of friends in the grotto of a terraced organic garden, wiggling our toes among the lily pads, when one of us who had made the hike before offered to guide the group up the mountain to the source of the spring that feeds the garden.
Nevermind the fire danger, I didn't want to drag a nasty cloud of smoke up that hill with me. I had half a pack with me and another full one back at my tent; I tossed the half pack in the trash when we hit the trail.
It was not an easy hike: about 2000 feet up in 100 degree heat, but we found refreshment at faucets along the irrigation line and we paused here and there to introduce ourselves to the locals: groves of Pacific madrone shedding their bark in elegant peelings of orange and green, a tangle of fat blackberries in a swath of flaxen meadowland.
Halfway up we met the old man of the mountain: the lone redwood spared when this land was clearcut some forty years ago. He breathed down at us and we breathed up at him. The wind in his great shaggy branches sounded like whispery laughter. It was good.
We reached the summit as the sun was setting. We found the oasis, the half-hidden pool that sustains all life on the mountain. It was deep, green, a primordial soup. The air around it was heavy. There were fresh animal tracks around the edges. We gave thanks.
And then we turned, and beheld a vista that stretched for at least a hundred miles.
I thought a lot about my smoking addiction on the walk down and later that night under the stars. I'll post more about this in the coming days. For now, though, let me just say
I am so
very
grateful
to be
alive.
Thanks for listening.
4 comments:
Wow, sounds like an awesome camping trip in a gorgeous area. Such a perfect place and way to begin your new life as not a smoker. Very cool!
Ellie.....I am proud of you that you laid em down . Take it from me after 8 days in.....You will have rocky days....I know I do....today was one. But you can do it. WE can do it.
And the perfect setting to lay em down! I am really proud of you keep it up!!!!
My Nonsmokin Buddy!
Wow, how beautifully described. Thank you! And such big congrats on putting it down!
Just today I chose to walk about a mile along some neighborhood after I dropped off my car for repair, and it was the best thing in the world to walk by all these trees, flowers, bushes and smell it all and feel alive.
Your camping experience probably felt 100x more magestic!
So, how's it going? I've been waiting for updates and pretty writing that makes me feel like I'm right there someplace nice.
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