Chapter 3: Campsite

The aroma fo brewing coffee wafted through the open tent flap, stimulating John’s awakening for the beautiful day. The residue of a curious dream played upon his thoughts, something about trees and people and machines all dancing together so as to freshen the air. Strange, even for a dream.

As Marsha broke eggs alongside the sausage links into the blackened cast iron skillet on the campfire grate alongside the perking coffee, she realized more wood would be needed for the campfire cooking. As she watched the poured-in eggs slowly congeal and become more solid in the pan, she thought how similar to the relationship she was having with John. At first, it had been adventuring sport, diversion from the workweek struggles. And now their relationship had cooked, like the frying eggs, into a firmer shaped presence. He certainly was low-maintenance, all she had to do was be there for him; surely he was addicted to her. She found that her practical ways now had an added quality , that of new imaginative insights. What was it about this man, so different from the others? Things that had been impossible to her well educated engineering understanding, now sometimes seemed perhaps achievable, even worth attempting, since John had come into her life. She even was considering taking the promotion at her Dad’s protodype shop, to be Lead Engineer in the R&D group; before, it was “no way” as far as she was concerned, she would stay in the Manufacturing Engineering position where one would not be asked to create things that college did not teach, therefore had no basis for creation. Her Dad had such high hopes for her in the Prototype Shop, yet before she was with John these wonderful nights, she considered the R&D people quite crazy, the things asked to make possible. Strangely now she considered such requests an invitation to imaginatively guided adventures finding out what really can be done.

John floated out of the tent along the path taken by the scent of coffee and breakfast cooking in the fresh coastal air. A few wordless sips of coffee and he went to get more wood for the fire, unasked. They functioned as a team here, without words. Their physical reality seemed laced into a beautiful dream overlaid upon it.

Looking over at the tall Redwood tree under which they camped, it too seemed laced with something curiously interesting, what was it? He peered at the tree more intently: it looked a lot like all the other trees. Cup of hot coffee in hand, he sat down with his back to the tree, had a sip of coffee, and imagined what it would be like to be such a tree, and the tree in turn were him, fair exchange. He was one with the vast forest, even when it covered far across the great land eons ago. Ah, vast Family supreme. The ebb and flow of time’s events across the tree land, like the surf and the ocean tide. The machines that lived on petroleum suddenly had sprung up alongside the scrappy knowledge-gathering two-legged animal beings, machines that lived off of the energy that had been locked up in the process of pulling enoght carbon out of the atmosphere eons ago, that oxygen life might spring forth upon the land. Now too much carbon, CO2, was being poured by the metal machines into the air, the planet was slowly heating and drying up, uncomfortable to the Redwood forest beings. John realized he was one of those two legged animals. Balance needed restoring, and he could help do it.

Breakfast was almost ready, so he disengaged himself from the forest tree, sipped some coffee, and dived into the plate of tasty sausage and eggs which she handed him. Marsha seemed such a wondrous creature so fine, dreams living physical reality for him now.