Growing up, fall was my family's time to go camping. After the craziness of gathering everything from enough socks to last over a week to extra jackets for those cold Upper Peninsula evenings, all us restless children would cram into our 12 passenger van and drive north.
As I grow older, my memories from my younger years camping are lessening. Thankfully a few still remain. One bright afternoon, my cousins, brothers, and I traveled the hiking trails from campsite to campsite, the danger of a spider web hitting our face lurking with every step. Another time, my aunt and I formed the sand leading down to the shoreline into steps to ease the walk, steps that fell apart the second one set foot upon them. Our evenings were spent taking in the scent of pine trees and campfires while filling our bellies with s'more and hot-dogs.
As I grew older, my experience of camping trips changed. I joined the ranks of those required to help clean out the van beforehand, and I found myself not only making sure I had enough clothes to last the week, but packing for my younger sister as well. The drive up was filled with less time sleeping and more time watching the world pass me by, contemplating the deeper parts of a middle school life. In the evenings, I began to take in good conversations along with s'mores. Life was good.
Now, immersed in college and unable to head north, I find myself longing for those crisp fall evenings where I had naught to do but trace my feet in the sand and watch the sun sink below the horizon. As much as my heart breaks for want of this beauty, part of me realizes that the Upper Peninsula is not really what I long for. Not as a final end, anyways. It is simply an imperfect arrow pointing towards something deeper. By the time I hit teenage years, camping was reduced to yet another family event I was required to participate in. In my family of ten, nothing ever goes right and I began to get caught up in this. I became more than a little annoyed at my sister waking me up every night to go to the restroom, and my seven siblings and I never could agree on who got the chocolate pudding cups and who had to settle for vanilla. The lack of flushable toilets became more disgusting while my sleeping bag felt less and less comfortable. My family's camping trips may be filled with wonderful memories, but they are less than perfect.
Still, standing on lake superior and looking at those beautiful sunsets, I found myself in the place where I feel more at home than anywhere else in the world. Yet, at the same time, those are the moments when I am less at home than ever. The beauty of untouched nature calls my heart towards an even more beautiful Place, a mystery, a breathtaking wonder that words could never contain. Longing--this my only road-map to this Place. Psyche says it beautifully in C.S. Lewis' novel "Til We Have Faces:"
"No, no no," she said. "You don't understand. Not that kind of longing. It was when I was happiest that I longed most. It was on happy days when we were up there on the hills, the three of us, with the wind and the sunshine where you couldn't see Glome or the palace. Do you remember? The color and the smell, and looking at the Grey Mountain in the distance? And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing. Somewhere else there must be more of it.
It's fall, and my soul longs to be back at that place so badly. Back to the Upper Peninsula, and beyond to that even greater Place where I've never been.
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