Living Juicy

“The air here is deli­cious. Later on I heard the noise of cro­quet balls, and looked out again, and it was Charles Wilcox prac­tis­ing; they are keen on all games.” E. M. Forster: Howard’s End: Chap­ter 1

The air was deli­cious and fra­grant with pine and camp­fire. All around us peo­ple were gath­ered round indi­vid­ual camps, chil­dren ran and folks smiled. Camp­ing at Sil­ver Lake, near Mar­ble Falls Wash­ing­ton was a won­der­ful experience. 

We had only intended to stay one night, since we had an engage­ment for another party on Sat­ur­day. But after weigh­ing the options, we went to the party and turned around and came back right after­wards. We wanted to be in the woods. 

I played my first game of bocce ball at the bar­be­cue and then once we got back to camp another game struck up among our lit­tle group of campers. As we tromped through the mild woods behind our camp­site I found myself think­ing about E.M. Forester. 

“Some com­pli­cated game had been play­ing up and down the hill­side all the after­noon. What it was and exactly how the play­ers had sided, Lucy was slow to dis­cover.”
- Chap­ter 7, A Room With a View – by E.M. Forster

Here we were a group of young adults, toss­ing balls on the lawn and laugh­ing. Small con­ver­sa­tion sprung up between indi­vid­u­als but we all walked together and felt the excite­ment of each toss as a group. 

Finally, once we exhausted our aim­ing skills we built up the fire and gath­ered round for gen­eral mer­ry­mak­ing. I noted in the morn­ing that not all the beer was drunk–which made me feel quite adult–despite it not being my beer and hav­ing only an empty wine bot­tle to show for myself. In good com­pany, we were all around well-behaved with plenty of laugh­ter and scan­dalous sto­ries to share. 

So, we ended our lovely week­end with soot cov­ered clothes, and spots of marsh­mal­low stick­ing here and there. And as one Camp Club­ber put it, “It feels like it’s been a week since I was at work, ” and that I think sums of the suc­cess of our adven­tures in camp­ing for the weekend.