I am re-reading one of my favorite, Eiger Dreams. The book compiles a series of essays of his from the 80s. Its an older book with the first edition in 1990 and then later editions/prints in the late 90s. Not impossible to find but it hinges on those esoteric feeling books that cruise the used book stores.
Within Eiger Dreams is a short essay called "On Being Tentbound" which appeared originally in Outside in 1982. No whimsy in the title (like with my blog post titles) as it is an essay on what it means to be stuck in a clammy nylon sock during blizzards. Or dust storms. Or mosquito storms. The extent of my camping is car camping out of back of my hatchback in Findlay State Forest or Allegheny National Forest but even then much of it is spent just killing time. My closest experience on being tentbound is camping in southern Ohio in a wonky state park that was an overgrown city park where I watched ticks clamber over the shell. However, even there I could simply drive away to a quick turn onto the interstate and all the murmuring comforts of the road.
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However, the essay now has new meaning under the stay at home order.
Even the shittiest apartment crammed between a bar and a fire station has to be better than a tent. And I will check my own privilege in that my family is beyond lucky to still have income and health insurance and supplies. None of this is existential dread (Yet) but the aforementioned whimsy. Or attempts at it.
"Being tentbound isn't wholly an ordeal. The first few hours can pass in a dreamy euphoria while you lie peacefully in your sleeping bag..."
We have all been forced to stay home and chill. Perfect, let me catch up on sleep. Or, no, let me sleep in since I don't need to check in any specific time. I will just lounge around.
Except I am no longer 22 and living by city hall in Trumansburg, NY on the mattress I pilfered from the deep storage of my college.
5:45am is when I wake up. Thats the hour beaten into me by anxiety and having to watch for the call to close school because of a blizzard. My daughter then wakes at 6:02pm, the dull ka-chunk of her bedroom door unlatching. Then my son at 6:15am and until 8:30pm it is a coordinate attempt at being wholesome sometimes educational knife fight to keep us all going.
"There can, however, be too much of a good thing." Krakauer then writes about how even too much sleep is a bad thing. Even if you could sleep for 16 hours what about the other 4 trapped in a tent? I would not know as sleep eludes me during these times of high anxiety.
"By all accounts it is impossible for an extended two-person expedition to come off without inflicting permanent psychic scan on the participants if the weather turns grim."
I adore my children but I will be honest that how I express my love in in providing for them. I know. I am a horrible father, but the platitudes of speeding all this extra time with your kids roll off me. I am writing this with my daughter climbing on my head, she a miniature Krakauer ascending K2. Here come the daddy issues. "Doctor....My dad wouldn't come wipe me after I screamed Im done for 30 minutes. Is that why I am broken? Fucking Corona Virus"
My wife and I are in a cadence of work and fretting worn by being together for 15 years and everything being polarized. If not set idle by routine then we are either cloyingly sending each other funny emoji strings or realizing we can't get divorced because we can't afford it.
"Countless board games can be devised with a pen, a sleeping pad, and camp flotsam and jetsam."
This some hardcore prison style shit right there.
"Yo, I made wine in my cell's toilet!"
"Well, fuck you, I re-made Clue using bits of soap wrappers."
"Damn, I don't want to mess with you."
I want to see that. Recreate Mouse Trap with some paracord and a tea strainer. This is where a D&D guide would be helpful albeit that also means being tent bound with more than one person. Maybe one of those big army emergency tents you see them fan fold up in disasters?
I wold recreate Magic cards from memory. Build incredible decks unconstrained by budget and sleeves. Or make new games. In the 9th grade my friends and I invented the CGWW dice game. CGWW meaning "Cool Guys Who Wrestle." We would draw our fighters on the front of 3" x 5" index cards and then phony stats. This guy is straight from the ninth circle of hell! This guy knows ancient Chinese secrets! This guy hits people with guitars. The back of the index card then had 20 moves each corresponding to a number on a twenty sided die roll. Hit a 1, you hit your guy with an arm bar and did one damage. Hit a 20 and you did your finishing move for a staggering 10 damage. Once you had your opponent at 0 health you could try to pin by rolling a higher number then your opponent.
No strategy but lots of rolling and sketching and arguing. Perfect for being tent bound.
The article would be interesting to update. What does the smart phone do on being tent bound? Are you far enough away from any bars or can you stream? One can always save shows to the devices hard drive but then you are forced to pick something to watch for the temporary eternity. The article even mentions this with books saying with all this time you will want to crack into Proust but what you really need, numbed by the tent and screech of wind on nylon, is "...the the only literature capable of sustaining interest is the simple-minded, shallow stuff, heavy on the action: science-fiction, pornography, thrillers."
Then I think of my desert island books and movies. Now they are quarantine books and movies. What could you watch endlessly? Read again and again as you wait for miasma to clear. One of mine would be Eiger Dreams for sure if not just for tentbound but the narrative of something bigger, over the horizon, waiting to be seen.
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