Dispatches From a Pandemic: Between Breaths

Ahhh, Camp. I come Upta Camp, to the lakeside cabin in the North Woods of Maine every summer for a week with my not-quite family: step-brother and his wife, their two daughters and my step mother. This year, Covid kept them home. This summer, it was just me.

My serious commitment to writing started here, five summers ago, after everyone left and I was alone at the lake for two days. The new notebook at Bob’s Feed Store, grandma’s 20-year-old ballpoint pen, me sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen on the wicker stool that spins around, the stools my step-aunt does NOT want you sitting on in a wet bathing suit. It was here that I discovered the freedom of Morning Pages, journaling at dawn before the monkey mind takes over. It’s still a daily practice in my writing routine.

But this weekend I’ve promised myself a vacation of doing little or nothing and I haven’t written in three days. Quiet. Solitude. Eat, kayak, read, repeat. The stillness of life reflected in the glass of the lake, rippling with nothingness. No one at camp but me and the haunting call of a loon in search of its mate.

This weekend I spend between breaths. No date set for the return to my island, or on the distant horizon, the eventual return to Arizona. I give the lake my worries and sorrow. And with each stroke of the kayak paddle, the lake replenishes my hope.

Fritos, chocolate sugared donuts, Helluva Good onion dip, Cheetos…I’m here to enjoy, not feel. I take the peace the lake dispenses, its smooth bliss washing over me when I glide through the murky depths.

It’s an alternate universe here in the North Woods. Locals believe the virus (“The Cova” as it is called here) cannot touch this spot or is a hoax or both, each conversation starting with: “It will be gone after the election…”

Every house within a 5-mile radius of the Rod & Gun Club sporting a KEEP AMERICA GREAT: TRUMP 2020 sign in their dooryard. Every house is a rusted out mobile home with metal awnings. I guess everyone has their own definition of “GREAT.”

Even so, there’s a mad rush of out-of-staters buying up every square inch of lake property, every camp that’s been for sale for the past decade, even the dilapidated, boat-access-only, unwinterized camps. In March, an old friend who plows for the town nearly ran his snow plow into a flatlander blocking the Shore Road with his Mercedes. “How do I get into my camp?” the man asked.

“I’d suggest a shovel and a big breakfast,” my friend told him. Then, an aside: “I weren’t about to plow his ass out.”

Eventually I left the lake, bound for my island home two hours south and parental obligations. Ahead of me on the Dodge Ram, a bumper sticker: KEEP HONKING, I’M RELOADING. The only reloading I’m doing is this summer involves Fritos and onion dip.