Hellish Behavior

I hate camping. Now this isn’t a melodramatic play where I actually love camping and want people to say “Oh you just need to camp with us because we have so much fun!” No, I really hate camping. Now, I haven’t ever camped in an RV, primarily because most fans of camping say that it isn’t in fact camping then, but I imagine that I would agree with most of those hardcore fans of camping. There are a number of reasons that I hate camping, the first one of course being that I am somewhat still afraid of the dark. In the thirteen year old recesses of my mind, hidden behind the forty-four year old sensibilities, I do not actually believe that anyone who might be camping with me, will be able to protect me from the bogeyman in the middle of the night, nor will he, she or they be able to keep me from getting mauled by bears who are attracted to my body wash. Which brings us to my second reason for disliking camping. I do not like being without my daily beauty products. Oh it isn’t that I don’t think that I am just as lovely without said beauty products. They are however, a bit of a crutch for me, a contributing factor in how much I enjoy the day. Whether it is lipstick, perfume or lotion, my products play a part in my reaction to others, even if it is a placebo effect. Then of course, there is the fact that I am in nature. I am not a mountain man in nature, nor am I a trained survivalist in nature. I am a born and raised Los Angeles native, a city girl who thinks that nature is the potted plant that she has managed to keep alive for three years. I always think, when I go camping that is, that something is going to happen, some escaped lunatic, some starved bear, some alien predator is going to come after me, I won’t be able to get the zipper down in my tent and won’t be able to run for the woods and find some way to create a subterfuge while waiting for help from the CIA. No, I am that girl at the beginning of the movie who not only can’t get the zipper to her tent down so that she can escape, she is killed by a falling bee’s nest hanging over her tent, which she didn’t bother noticing before she set up her tent in the first place. Yes, I am that girl. It would be gruesome enough to just be hysterical.
I am exaggerating of course, I am really not that much of a city girl, and I tend to do most of my mystical work either near or in streams and rivers, so at least when water is included, I am game, but I really do despise camping. Which is why I don’t understand why so many of my dreams are set in campgrounds. It doesn’t matter if they’re established campgrounds, with fire pits and swing sets, or whether they are simply places in the woods which my subconscious dream brain decides to set up shop for the duration. Most of the campgrounds are ones that I have never been to, ones that don’t strike familiarity when I wake up, but while I am sleeping, are the most familiar places that I’ve ever been. Usually there are people there who are dead to me, whether dead as in “rest in peace” or dead as in “I hope I never even think of them again” they show up in my dreams like long lost friends, laughing and smiling and eating and playing. In my dreams, they haven’t pissed me off, or at least I don’t care that they’ve pissed me off. My mother’s not dead, but sitting next to my grandmother, who also has not passed on, who sits next to my daughter’s dad, who I haven’t seen in ten years. They mingle with friends and family, acquaintances and clients, ex-lovers and ex-coworkers all walk, play, dance and laugh while moving around the campgrounds of my dreams while the necessary archetypes and images show themselves to me in strange ways.
For some reason, my least favorite setting is the most common setting in my dreams. Because I believe that dreams hold both mystical and psychological messages, images and words, I imagine that the fact that such a high number of my dreams are set in campgrounds, it could be in order for me to stay on edge in my dreams, or it could be that I might some day enjoy camping. Then again, it could just be that it’s an easy locale for my subconscious to set up. Unfortunately there is never anyone there who would be able to keep me safe from the alien predators…or bears.