Tag: power

Icebergs, My Fingers, and Other Cold Things

L. Ryan Storms2 Comments

Gather ’round, my internet friends and strangers, and let me tell you a harrowing tale of woodland survival and my recent near-death experience. It didn’t start out harrowing. Oh, no. It started out an adventure full of hope and promise.

I should probably start at the beginning.

A week ago, my husband went fishing with a friend. Unbeknownst to me, said friend brought alcohol, so when husband came home, he was quite the happy boy. I mean, really, REALLY silly. Jokingly, I said, “Have you been drinking?”

“Maaaaaaybe” came the response.

I stared him down. “How many?”

“A feeeeew. Hey. There’s a lot of stress in my life right now.* Sometimes I just need to loosen up, right? Nothing wrong with that.”

*There is a lot of stress. But this is not the way to deal with it.

After I stopped fuming, and after he sobered up, I said, “You know what? You’re right. I need to loosen up, too. I’m going away for a couple of nights.”

So I found a heated cabin in the woods about a half-hour from home, coerced my college roommate into joining me, and booked us for the following week.

Fast-forward to the following week. (That’d be now.)

Monday morning finds me preparing the car, loading the camp gear, the sleeping bags and pillows, and prepping for two days of eating junk food I don’t have to prepare beyond boiling water.

“Is there a fire ring?” the husband asks. “Do you need to get wood?”

I tilt my head and give him a look. “Yes, but why would I need wood? I mean, the cabin is heated. That’s kind of why I looked for a building *with* heat. I’m not putting work into a fire.”

“Oh, okay. Good, good. Did you take the extra batteries for the flashlight?”

“No, it’s two nights. It should be fine. Besides, I have my phone with me if absolutely need to use the flashlight on the phone.”

“Oh, right. Okay. Do you have the address?”

“Yes, dear. I pulled it off the website.”

There’s so much to unpack in this conversation, and almost all of it comes back to bite me in the ass.

I say my goodbyes, set myself up behind the wheel, get some good tunes playing, and follow the GPS…to find I’ve got the complete wrong address. The GPS sent me to Park Avenue in a town a half hour away from the Park Road I was supposed to be on. Okaaaaaay. Reroute. Spend an hour and a half driving instead of a half-hour. Sure. Alright.

Get to the park. Find out the signage in the park is really, REALLY bad. It takes me ten minutes of driving around the park to figure out where the cabins are. It turns out there’s no check-in in December. They just stick the key in the lock for you and leave your paperwork inside.

Anyway, at least, I arrived, right?

So that’s a plus.

Well, yeah. Except that my roommate *also* can’t find the place when she’s on her way an hour later in the dark. So I drop a pin in my location on my phone’s GPS and send it to her.

Without further ado, she arrives with her dog, Charlie, who is also very, very excited (and a little confused, to be honest). We get set up and prepare a camp meal of mountain chili on our gas-powered camp stove, plug in her electric fireplace for ambiance (and extra warmth!), and get to catching up.

Ah. Kid-free. Responsibility-free. So much relaxation.

Until my insides decided to hate on the chili. Okay, yeah. No worries. I’ll just head to the bathhouse. The one drawback of our heated cabin is that there’s no plumbing. But hey, there’s a bathhouse I saw in daylight that’s almost right behind us, so it should be fine, right?

Only, where is that bathhouse? Dear God, it’s dark and windy and rainy and…where is the bathhouse? WHY ISN’T IT LIT?

“Okay, it’s okay,” I tell myself. “Just head to the right, where you saw it. Follow the road.”

Even though my roommate told me to head left. Huh. She must have gone to a different bathhouse during the daylight, but I’ll just go where I know the closest one is.

But.

There is no bathhouse. Or if there is (and I’m not entirely convinced I didn’t just see an apparition of one earlier in the day), it’s certainly nowhere in my sight. In fact, nothing is in sight. It’s dark. And rainy. And so, so windy.

So, it’s time to text my roommate.

Oh. The RVs. Okay, yeah. I definitely saw those earlier. And they were definitely to the *left.*

Good news, friends! I made it to the bathhouse 1. without being murdered (it was sketchy there for a while), 2. without getting hopelessly lost, 3. without a tree limb falling on me (and they WERE falling…)

So, anyway, I’m not even sure I have to go anymore, but whatever, I’m here, so I might as well sit, right?

And then.

This.

This is, in fact, one of my worst childhood nightmares. I’m in the bathroom. On the toilet. In the dark. In a campground, no less. I’m pretty sure it’s only a matter of time before the tree branch breaks the glass and reaches in to strangle me while my pants are around my ankles. Or maybe the dark is when the dreaded toilet-snake comes to bite me. I don’t even live in warm enough areas for reptiles to be in the plumbing, but some childhood fears cannot be dispelled.

But since I’m already in the bathroom, and I’m still not sure how that chili is digesting in there, I figure I might as well stay for a few minutes…which leads to my roommate texting to check up on me after ten minutes pass without a word from me.

Oh, great. There’s an earwig crawling all around the floor. And that’s what I can see. How big is the spider I’m now sure is dangling over my head in the darkness somewhere? <whimper>

Friends. The camp host LIED. The power did NOT come on at 10:30. We sat in a dark cabin and read on our phones by flashlight until we went to bed.

Oh, but the flashlight. I lend my flashlight to roommate so she can go to her car to get *her* flashlight.

Anyway, we freeze through the night. At least the sleeping bags are warm…but my nose turns to ice, and I wake frequently. The bed is super squeaky and both of my shoulders hurt thanks to issues I have with them from time to time.

And at 5 a.m., for the *third* time in one night, I have to walk to the bathhouse in the dark. (I didn’t even have digestive issues. Just had to pee really, really badly… Whatever. Being a middle-aged woman who’s had two kids is fun.)

It’s 34 degrees outside, which is, ironically, the same temperature as *inside.* At least it’s calm and there’s no more wind and rain, right? AND, bonus, a tree never came through the cabin roof like I expected all night long, so yay!

At 7 a.m., just when I’m falling asleep again, the power flickers on and off about a dozen times for a half hour, waking me with promises of warmth. Sweet, sweet, very false, filthy, lying promises. Because the power did NOT come back on when it turned off fully at 8 a.m. again.

By 9 a.m., hunger forces me to crawl from beneath the warmth of my sleeping bag, so I dress in as many layers as is humanly possible, I crank up the camp stove for hot tea, and devour a muffin while I’m waiting.

The tea?

My friends, the tea cooled in less than five minutes. (I drank most of it before that time, but those last few sips were *definitely* iced tea.)

When roommate comes back from her trip to the bathhouse, we learn that the power isn’t coming back until the evening.

There is. no way. we will enjoy staying here. Not in these temps.

So we pack up, and I may or may not be singing The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face” as I load my car. Back home we go, a full day early, and after a frosty, sleepless night. Proving, once again, that moms don’t get breaks. But yes, I will be asking for a refund.

Is it the campground’s fault? No

But did we have an enjoyable experience? Also, no.

After all of this, I’m forced to wonder… If I’d followed husband’s suggestions and gotten firewood, had an extra battery for the flashlight, and double checked my directions, would it have changed the outcome?

A selfie before leaving Cottage #1, aka Elsa’s Summer Cottage.

Oh. And by the way. I wasn’t wrong! There WAS a closer bathhouse. It just wasn’t open. (Someone please tell me WHY they would choose to keep open the bathhouse by the RVs that already have bathrooms and running water, but not the bathhouse that’s near the cabins which do NOT have bathrooms or running water?

Black circle: where we stayed, Blue circle: closest bathhouse, Red circle: open bathhouse

Of Careers and Life Paths (But What Should I Be?)

L. Ryan StormsLeave a comment

When I was in sixth grade, I, like the rest of the students in my class, was sent to the guidance counselor’s office to take a computerized test to help decide what I might want to do with my life—what careers were a match for my personality, my likes and dislikes, my strengths and weaknesses. 

I clearly remember the anticipation of sitting down in front of the computer, of excitedly clicking answers to each question, practically bouncing in my seat as I imagined what magical career choice was my destiny. Then the test was over, and the dot-matrix printer screamed and screeched as it printed my results. Mr. Albright tore the sheets from the printer, looked them over, handed them to me, and sent me back to class. I accepted my results with near-trembling hands and reviewed them as I walked the halls to return to science class. This was it. A list of all the things I could do with my life, a piece of paper that would tell me how I would succeed in the future.

And then I read the words.

Sanitation worker? Sanitation worker? SANITATION WORKER? 

Before I go further, I’ll make a statement for the record. I have utmost respect for the sanitation workers in my life. I am so very grateful that there are people willing to do this job and that they work year-round in all sorts of weather to ensure my trash is removed from my property each week and that we live in clean and sanitary conditions in our little corner of the world. I cannot stress this enough. I am grateful.

But this is not what an eleven-year-old girl with an imagination the size of the Andromeda Galaxy wants to envision for her life. Of all the careers I’d ever imagined, sanitation worker was not one. Teacher? Sure. Every kid probably considers that one at one point or another. Teachers play such an important role in our early years. Doctor, veterinarian, marine biologist, archeologist, author, singer, actor? All of those were futures I dreamed of, careers I longed to follow. But sanitation worker?

I was nearly inconsolable, convinced that perhaps I wasn’t as smart as I previously thought, that my A’s and B’s didn’t really mean anything after all, that my talents were nonexistent, that I wasn’t really going to have a career in science or the arts.

Fast-forward twenty-eight years later and laugh with me. Laugh and laugh and laugh. Because that test was complete and utter bullshit. Rubbish through and through. I’m almost angry that a school administration would dare to crush a child’s dreams in such a manner. Is it worth guiding children toward careers they might enjoy and in which they would likely excel? Of course! But at what cost? A computer is a poor substitute for human interaction, and if I’d sat down and talked with a teacher or guidance counselor at that time instead, I’m willing to bet that sanitation worker would never have been brought up as a possibility. Anyone who knows me knows, while I enjoy routine to an extent, I utterly crave the new, the unfamiliar, maybe even the unattainable. I’m not wired for routine.

Ironic, since I cope with chronic anxiety when faced with change. But life enjoys nothing if not being ironic.

And so far in my life? So far I have been a marine biology graduate, a pharmaceutical microbiologist, a technical writer, an animal welfare administrator, and a marketing director. It seems it took me a while to decide what I should really “be.” (Or maybe I’m just intent on working through ALL of those careers I once hoped for?)

So I’m cautious when my own kids consider their futures. I’m careful to nurture their dreams and encourage them to dive deep into the things they love. No one should settle for doing what someone else says is right for them. I often wonder if I would have made author as a career sooner had I really, truly believed it was a viable option.

Make no mistake. I’m eternally grateful to have had the opportunities I had in my life. How many people can say they’ve worked on a wild Atlantic bottlenose dolphin project in college? How many can say they’ve spent a summer on a boat just feet from entire families of joyful, leaping marine mammals? That they could extend a hand outward and easily touch one? (I didn’t. That’s not legal. But I could have.) I cherish that experience, as I cherish so many others.

I still have that piece of paper—the results from the sixth-grade “aptitude test” to help me determine what I should be. I keep it as a reminder. No one in the world can tell me what I should be, or what I should do with my life, with my time on this earth.

I, alone, have that power.

So what about you? Are you doing what you dreamed you might? Are you helping others to reach the path that will take them where they want to go? Let’s have this conversation because, all too often, I fear we’re pushed into a path we’re never meant to be on—stuck in a circle, forever asking “But what should I be?”

When what we really should be asking is, “What do I want to be?”

So what do you want to be?