Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 5 Comments

The Scent of my Kelty Tent

It’s a wonder I have anything from my past.  Photographs, keepsakes.  I moved around so much in my twenties (and went through numerous purges of personal possessions) there isn’t much in the material that has remained.

There is one solid constant that has served me for nearly twenty years.  It’s seen snow and beaches, sunrises and sunsets.  It’s been with me through thunder and wind storms.  It’s seen me in safe and sound, and petrified to the core.  It was the first stepping stone toward adventure that lead me to this very point in time.  It’s my little Kelty tent for two.  And yesterday, I pulled it down and opened it.

Jeb had a friend over and the two of them wanted to make a ‘hide out’.  “Please, mom, can we set up the tent!”

I bought this tent back in 1994.  I was twenty, about to turn twenty-one, and I had decided that I would spend the summer traveling the West coast, exploring Oregon and Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.  It was critical in my mind that I undertake this journey alone.  I wanted to see if I could face my fears.  Test my theory that with good intent and openness, deep truths and spiritual connection could be attained.

Step one.  The tent.  Before I ever started out, I had to overcome my doubt that I would be adept enough to set up my own tent.  I was afraid I’d find myself in a downpour in a Washington rainforest, unable to remember how to prop up my shelter.  I remember iterating this point clearly to the salesman at the sporting goods shop.  He assured me that the tent we were looking at was very simple to erect.  He did give me a demonstration.  I was still unsure.  All reservations about my pending adventure were directed to the tent.

Knowing I had no control over the circumstances that may occur on my summer trip, I focused my energies on being prepared.  Standing in the living room at my mom’s house, I would practice setting up the tent as quickly as I could, imagining inclement weather, darkness, or other crises.  How fast could I create my shelter?

Of course, the tent was very simple to put up and that summer I got plenty of practice.  It saw a parking lot with 90,000 Grateful Dead fans in Eugene.  A beach-front bluff in coastal Oregon.  That tent and I spent time in thick, mossy forests on Washington’s peninsula – quiet and lush with morning butterflies.  The tent-for-two aspect proved handy when I softened on my strictly solo travel plan and spent a week with the Swiss Traveler I met in Seattle.  For those few days I had a kind and gentle companion with whom to meander up to Orcas Island, wandering forests and sand together before he flew back home.

That summer marked a fork in my life road, and by the Fall it was apparent I had set foot on a path less traveled.  Not a decision made with my mind, but rather a knowingness felt with all of my instincts – a guidance that had been so sharply honed that summer in my travels.

I packed up my tent and continued to quest.  Eventually, I drove all the way to New England from California, camping along the way.  That Kelty tent served as my touchstone in every state.  Later, I’d spend another summer living in my little pop-up.  I camped in the Vermont woods at night while working at a local bagel shop by day.  The Swiss Traveler even returned for two more weeks of wilderness and tent-life living.

Nearly twenty years later, I’m in my front yard on Kauai with my seven-year old son, opening the original bag that houses my little tent.  The bag is brittle and tearing, held together with patches of old duct tape.  Jeb and I unzip the bag and unroll its contents.  The scent of the synthetic material wafts to my nose, so familiar.  All of these years and the smell of my tent has not changed.  With it comes a flood of memories.  All of the places where these four corners have been staked.  Nearly two decades of feelings experienced within these flimsy walls.

Woven in this scent is adventure.  The courage to embark on something new.  The bravery to try.  The willingness to love.  The desire to find some truth.  The need to forge ahead towards something different.  A yearning to have the journey matter.  And one solid thread holds at the core of all the information carried with this whiff of Kelty tent.  Youth.  My own.  And all of it’s precious, earnest seeking.

Now I have my own son.  And we set it up together, easy as one, two, three.  No matter that the bungees have lost their elasticity (I will not indulge in parallels or metaphors at this juncture).  The rain fly will still hold.

By day’s end, a tropical rain has passed and soaked the tent.  Jeb and his friend have wrestled inside it, leaving it twisted and misshapen.  But this reliable old tent is still standing solid.  Now a place of refuge for my offspring.

It stands as a reminder of that spirit of adventure.  That trust.  That haven.  I’m still on the quest.  And all that’s held within the scent of my Kelty tent, still lives inside me.

photo Jessica Dofflemyer - all rights reserved
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Witness

I’m standing at my front door step talking with a visiting friend, when suddenly they appear.

Shapes move through the coconut fronds, revealing two figures walking down the driveway towards us.  It takes an effort to access my front door from the road.  These two strangers have to be determined.  I already know their mission.  I’ve gone through this before.

I’m dedicated to being kind, even though I am annoyed at the invasion.  Coupled with my irritation at what seems like a lack of respect of privacy, is the conditioning I have from growing up in rural land.  Where ‘no trespassing’ signs were posted clearly and those that ignored them did so at their own risk.

The man and woman reach us at the doorstep.  They hand me their church’s invitation.  A fair-complexioned Jesus sits in the illustration surrounded by lime green.

I’m ready with my kind but firm request.

“I appreciate what you’re doing but I don’t want people coming to my house that I don’t know.  I’ve actually left a message at the church with my address requesting that no one come by.”

They are quiet and nodding.  I continue.

“There have been times when two men have suddenly appeared at my doorstep – I don’t know them – and I’m home alone.  It just doesn’t feel comfortable.  I don’t want stranger’s coming by my house.  So can you please tell the church to make a note not to come to this address?”

Their reaction seems slightly surprised.  Which is odd to me as I’m sure they’ve encountered resistance much more severe than mine.  But she pulls a pen out of her purse and then fumbles for paper to write on.  I offer her my lime-colored brochure.

“You can keep that.  You may still want to come to the service.”

I hang on to the paper and think about my growing recycling pile.

After writing down my address she says, “Now when we receive a request not to come by, we will make a note and won’t come to the house for about a year.  And then after that time, we’ll have someone come back to see if you may have changed your mind.”

Hmmm.

“Actually, I would like my request today to be honored indefinitely.  I don’t want anyone to come back in a year.”

There is a bit of awkward shuffling, nodding.  I thank them for understanding and wish them a nice rest of their day.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the story of Christ and the unconditional love and forgiveness associated.  I find that thread absolutely inspiring (why, I could even employ those teachings in this very moment I am describing).  I can also understand when someone is so touched, that they want to share this good feeling with others.

What I don’t understand, and what I really don’t appreciate, is the way in which some people try to share it.  How can a message of  love feel so forceful and filled with disrespect?  (I won’t even go into the history books on this point).

Sometimes we humans disrespect each other out of ignorance and it takes the other person to set us straight on what is needed.  But what puzzles me about these neighborhood walkers is that even when a person says ‘no thank you’, they don’t seem to want to accept that.  There is still a push, which feels disrespectful, and frankly, seems to counter the message they are trying to impart.

Now, if I want to take the high road, which, yes, I aspire to do, then I could see this front-step exchange as a gift.  An opportunity presented (from God perhaps!) to state my feelings and my needs clearly.  Not from a place of anger or fear, but from strength.  Simple, pure and true.

So, as the man and woman wandered back up the driveway, my friend looked over at me.

“You were so nice!  That was amazing.  I can’t believe how clear you were.”

I laughed.  “Yes, well, I was just wanting to be honest.  I’m glad you were here to see it.  I had a witness.”

She smiles wide.  “Yeah, you had three!”

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Inside the Outside

I’ve seen him many times over the years.  The man who lives outside.

I used to see him at remote beach locations where he would wander out from the trees, mostly naked but for a wrap that covered one shoulder and his legs.  There was an era when his clothes were made from coconut fiber that he had sown into a kind of male sari.

If I had to guess an age, I’d say he’s in his twenties, though he seems rather timeless.  A bushy golden beard.  Tanned skin from the sun.  He hardly speaks.  He seems to live on air and spring water.  I’ve seen him clutch a coconut that he found on a wild beachside tree.  One time my friend said that he showed her the wild honeycomb he’d discovered and harvested up on a cliffside.

Long gaps of time will pass between sightings of the man who lives outside.  He stands apart from the hippies hitchhiking on the highway or the campers on food stamps, drinking beers at the beach parks.  He is a loner.  A unique mystery.  He reminds me of an Indian sadhu, though unusual in this tropical setting.

I haven’t seen him in at least a year.

And then yesterday, I was driving home.  The pressure of a work deadline was tightening in my chest as my mind turned at the end of a full day. Strategies spun as to how I would squeeze in two more hours of work before picking up Jeb, making dinner, getting homework done and getting him in the shower before bed time.  Anxiety was building in my body, unnoticed.  African Tulip trees bowed, roadside, as I passed, but I did not see.

But there was no way I could not see him.  He was barefoot – as usual – running on the highway’s edge.  With the one-shouldered wrap of a monk, he had tucked a single piece of Buddhist red cotton across his body.  His jog was spry and buoyant.  He was not running from anything.  He was moving in a free and easy gait.  He was the joy of movement embodied.

Nearly naked, barefoot, bright red, alive.  Free.  Traveling so light, he had nothing.

And there was me.  Passing by at 60 miles per hour, exhaust in my wake.  I was gifted one glimpse of an apparition.  One sighting of a being, here, but not of this world.  As I took in one last look in my rear view mirror, I wondered how he sees this place.  How he lives his days.  What secrets has he been shown?

A blazing, red-running signpost pulled me out of tunnel vision.  Reminded of the unseen magic, ever-present.  There are many ways to live this life.  Many ways to see this world.

He was my messenger at highway speed.  This man who lives outside.