The Art of Darkness
Posted on August 24, 2009 - Filed Under Uncategorized
Saturday night my girl was on a camping trip with her Girl Scout Extreme group in the Rocky Mountain National Park. At 11:10 pm the phone rang, and that is never good, we all know. It is either bad news, the wrong number, or a inattentive friend out of your time zone. The caller was Kathy, one of her Scout leaders, who told me Sydney was sick and I would have to come and get her. I grabbed some gear and headed out.
Driving to Rocky Mountain National Park at midnight looks just like the postcard they sell there.
Darkness is at its height here, it just can’t get any darker. I drove the winding road, hoping not to see any critters leaping across the road in front of my little car. Have to say it was not my favorite event. When I got to the entrance of the park, it was deserted, so I slipped past the booth into the park. The only thing I could see what what my headlights actually hit: huge trees silhouetted lining the road. No moon, nothing. Turns out I went in the wrong entrance and had to make the loop all the way around the park on this tiny, pitch black, cliff-hanging road to find my girl.
30 miles of darkness later, I turned into the campground and found her curled up on a chair next to the fire. We loaded her in the car with all her gear, and I headed back out. It was so hard to find my bearings, even though I know these roads, and these sites. I kept thinking of my pioneer ancestors, who made their way through this same darkness into the unknown. Shouldn’t I have inherited some of their moxy? Instead, I felt nervous. There have been so few times in my life that vulnerability has been so salient, and this was one of those times. My girl was so sick, I was running out of gas in the middle of nowhere, and I did not recognize anything around me. Once again, out of the campground driveway, I had taken a wrong turn.
Clearly I made it out, and got her finally settled in at home by 3 a.m. Motherhood. That is what it is.
Thinking about darkness, I surfed around and found this, a map of the word darkness, on Visual Thesaurus.
Coincidentally I am working on a class that my friend Bev Taylor named “Into the Art of Darkness”. Here are some samples.
That was my weekend. Oh, and the couch potato marathon on Sunday.
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Oh it makes me tired and nervous just to think about it! Glad you made it home safe!
I was surprised how many weeks had passed since I last looked at your blog. I enjoyed my visit!
Oh, I’m so sorry Sydney was sick!!! I hope you are recovering from the adventure…
I’m honored that you picked my name for your class! I’m only bummed that I can’t take the class with you. Oh, and the things we do as mothers that test our limits!