Peace… (cont.)

And it is… peace… continued.  I sit on the porch for hours that first night.  Just me, way out in the woods.  There is electricity at the camp but I have all of the lights turned off.  There are no lights for miles and miles and miles so even with extra humidity in the air the stars are clear and bright.  The moon is full but only lights half of the sky.  The other half is peppered with a billion stars.  Stars that you can’t see from where you are.

The full  moon casts an eerie blue light on everything so I can sit on the porch and watch the river.  The river is calm, as smooth as glass, and I can see the dark shapes of the trees reflected in it. The cypress stand quiet in the night with long beards of Spanish moss hanging nearly to the water line, not moving at all.   I can hear the night birds… some I can name, others I can’t… and the constant chatter of frogs.  The buzzing of a mosquito reminds me of an old Tabasco commercial, which reminds me of pizza and that I’m hungry.  I wander inside, pickup a can of Vienna sausage and a Dr. Pepper and then return to the porch to eat.

I once watched an old man sit at this camp and eat Vienna Sausages in the same way But he pulled a trick that I’ve never been able to replicate. If you’ve eaten them you know that they come in a small can with one sausage in the center that is surrounded by the rest.  They’re packed in there pretty tight so it can be difficult to get them out.  This man had it figured out.  He skewered the center sausage with his pocket knife, wiggled it a bit, and extracted it.  The rest of the contents just fell towards the center making them easy to get.  I’ve never been able to replicate that trick but I try it nearly every time I eat them.  As usual I make a mess of it but there’s no one around to see me so I dig them out with my fingers and eat.

As I’m eating I hear a quiet splash in the river that I recognize as a Nutria entering the river. Followed shortly by the beaver just down the way warning him away with a very loud THWAPP of his tail on the water.  I think briefly of people that I have known in cities who tell me that they’d be scared to death in a place like this.  I marvel that people are scared of the dark, especially here.  I love it, which is why there are no lights on this night.  I know every animal in these woods and I know them intimately.  I recognize most of the bird calls, the beavers, the fish hitting the water.  I know that the sounds that I hear of something moving through the trees behind the camp is a racoon.  I expect to hear him splashing around in the bayou looking for crawfish to eat in a bit and am not disappointed.  There’s nothing scary here… it’s familiar, quiet, beautiful.

Finally, I stand, and move quietly inside not wanting to disturb the balance of the night.  Earlier I set up a military (surplus!) cot in the cabin to sleep on.  I slide into it and wrap a military sleeping bag that I’ve had for 20 years around me.  It’s close, familiar, warm. 

I sleep like a baby.

….