Not hot by most standards – just in the 50s and often with quite a wind bustling the tent fly – enough to hunker down in our bags. It might seem odd to some – two retired people camping out in a tent in their backyard like a couple of kids. Which we are.
Sometimes it is clear, and we can search for satellites and watch the stars come out one by one.
Tonight, it is already late. The moon starts rising at 11 pm, and it is already past that. The sky is lit up with the shining Buck moon, named for when the bucks grow their antlers. Ripples of clouds are scattered across the sky, and they warp and change shapes as they move. Rising higher and in and out behind them is the moon.
“Is it moving or are we spinning away?” I wondered as I doze in and out of sleep in a befuddled state that concluded, yes, both – we are many things at once, always in motion.
Each time I awake to look out, the moon is in a slightly different place. The night has calmed, and there are no other sounds except for my true love’s breathing. The moon is now hiding behind some trees, then emerging again, highlighting the clouds, and then gradually disappearing in an ever-lightening sky – another illusion – because of course, it is still out there.
4:12 am and the first call of a peacock, my nocturnal insomniac friend, rings through what is now technically morning, though still dark. Another replies from the opposite direction. And then a 3rd, closer here. A 4th, closer yet. The dawn is near. It’s not that they are moving in but rather that we are surrounded. They are everywhere with their meowing now. We are inside some sort of exotic time-warp in the middle of the pines and cedars of the PNW.
It is 4:30 am – the smaller birds are now beginning to greet the day; perhaps the peacocks have sounded the morning alarm. I lie here writing these thoughts – not sleeping. It is at least resting, I tell myself, thinking about how lucky I am to “sleep” outside on a not-so-hot summer night.
I would never experience this indoors – the smell of the pines; the sounds of the beginnings of traffic in the distance (we are not so isolated after all); and then there are all those peacocks….
But I need rest. It is my biggest health challenge, and I fail at it miserably.
My pillow is cold. It feels good against my face while my body is snug in the bag. The moon appears to be cradled in clouds. It is gorgeous but I am weary of it being a bright flashlight in my face. It is only 4:39 am.
I hunker down and pull the bag over my head, hiding from the light. I am not ready yet to be fully awake.
Good morning.
Yours truly sleep deprived,
Blythe
Update: Why do we call it the buck moon?
