What Would a 17-Year-Old Do?

6:00 a.m.

It's August, perfect weather. Zero chance of rain. Time to put up the tent and sleep outside.

-I like my bed. I'll just open the bedroom windows. That's almost like sleeping outside.

The meadow was just mown, it's perfect.

-Nah. Then I have to put a mat in it, and sleeping bag, and pillow, and there are chiggers in the meadow. . .

Why'd you move here 15 years ago?

-Because I loved the cabin and the land and the woods on sight. I actually slept in the woods, in that cave-like area behind the waterfall; I built fires there; the woodpile is still there.

Don't like those things anymore?

-I love them more than life itself.

Remember when you were 17? You had passion and recklessness, a commitment to art, loved and believed, and dreamed of one day living in what you could call your woods, with a stream, cabin and everything: stargazing, animals, morning mists. . .

-Okay. The tent's up. The pillow and blanket are in it. Having rinsed my chigger-attracting legs with a 5 percent bleach solution and pulled athletic socks halfway to my knees, I bid you good night.

-And a good morning.

Sleeping with Nature

I spent last night in the tent, because I can, and the weather's been gorgeous and clear, stars are vivid, and this meadow is my own yard--I'll always remember nights in the tent. Set it up while the sun set and loaded it with sleeping pad, sleeping bag, extra blanket, and pillow, all ready to crawl into about 10 p.m. The tent's roof looks invisible but is transparent so all night the bowl of heaven and the almost-full moon shine down on me. I woke once and saw Orion rising in the east. In another hour I saw Venus, the morning star. The coming  lunar eclipse is Sunday, at maximum at 9:47 p.m., Midwestern time, in the sign of Aries: the Harvest Moon. An auspicious time to sleep as close as possible to it all.

Remind me these are dewy nights so I'll hook the rain fly on my tent and won't have condensation dripping on and -- surprise -- soaking my pillow before I even get in there, and waking me in the morning when the tent is in fact brightened by sunlight more so than anything around it.

September Morn, Part 2

Hearing the sizzle of cicadas and call of the owl, I gazed up through the tent's ceiling screen, my heart beating fast, at the ample sky in the black arms of the tall oak and hickory trees, and at the stars, individual little suns pocking the dark like diamonds, and I thought: It's all so beautiful. What a marvelous Creation. And (it hit me) I am part of it all. I am part of it all! We are all part of it! I felt utterly certain, and marveled.

There is no want! There are no limits! I thought. That's what it's all telling me! Why fear? Why hang back? Why not aim high? Go ahead. Why hate and cower? It only takes you farther from your true source and origins. We are one with the infinite. If only we all knew that, and had the patience of trees, which are rooted to one spot, standing there as witnesses until we "get it."

I was so thrilled I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to. I wanted to feel ecstatically certain forever. But eventually I slept, and the moonrise with its crown of light dawned -- a moon dawn! -- woke me about 2:30 a.m., and then I slept again until the sun's dawn.

A Fresh Tent

This is a Kelty "Grand Mesa" two-person tent, and I also bought the footprint. Tonight I sleep in it for the first time and anticipate through the screens the wonders of the night sky and creatures sniffing about, and, in this hot weather, an incredibly beautiful, steamy full hour of dawn, all orange and marbled with fog. Think I'll spend the weekend in it.

This is also the first time I set up the tent myself; the very first was in midsummer with my friend Marsha demonstrating the amazingly simple clip-on strategy used on tents now in place of the "sleeve" strategy of my old green-and-mustard dome tent that made erecting it rather like a session of tae kwon do.

I didn't sleep outside at any time last year, and regretted it. Time on earth -- directly on the earth and beneath the night sky -- is important; you live each night only once. There's a foam pad in there and my 40-degree sleeping bag and little pillow and a light soft blanket that in the chilly pre-dawn hours I will love feeling against my neck and chin. See you in the morning.

Twenty Years and Tattered

Finally this afternoon the business of a too-busy summer was said and done, and for the first time this calendar year I had time and energy to set up my tent, because in summer I like spending a few nights a week sleeping in it, enjoying the cool earth and looking up through the netting at the fireflies and stars, and waking in the dawn amid mists and freshness. Having folded my tent carefully last fall, I unrolled it-- a six-sided, two-person dome tent--took the poles and stakes from the carry bag, and as I worked the tent poles through the sleeves for maybe the 200th time, remembering adventures in the Ozarks, in an Iowa county park, on a stony island in Wisconsin, and so on--heard: rip--rip. Shredding gave way to more shredding. The netting that formed the dome was kaput.

My first thought was to buy new netting of just the right kind, cut it hexagonally and machine-sew it myself across the tent top: good as new. But, impossible. The tent is 20 years old.  It cost precisely $20 at Grandpa Pidgeon's, a chain store defunct in 1999. The twin zippers haven't worked for seven or eight years. One of the poles is a replacement, and six inches too short. It is time for a new tent.

Was it really time? I asked myself. And answered: Yes; what perfect, perfect timing! Tomorrow, day after Labor Day, tents will be on sale everywhere and you will find the next love of your camping life.

Camping in the Yard

If you have a porch or a few square feet of property please try the adventure of summertime sleeping outdoors. Steamy days become cool nights here, 10 to 15 degrees cooler than in the city, sometimes with a delicious trace of ice in the air, and among my chief summer delights is sleeping about three times a week in my old green and yellow two-person tent and a nylon bag and blankets. New this year: mats all across the tent floor for comfort no matter how I roll.

I pitch my tent where the grass is mown and short, which discourages ticks. About 10:30 p.m., settling in with my pillow I watch stars through the ceiling netting; or through the door netting watch the knee-deep tide of early-summer fireflies. Every year on the very first night out there's always an incident, such as a nighttime creature sniffing around the tent. This year my presence in the meadow annoyed a deer who snorted for 30 minutes in a threatening manner, edging closer with every snort. I downloaded onto my Droid the loud and unpleasant "Police Siren" app with flashing lights, and thus established my rights without a confrontation. I've discovered that sleeping on the chilly ground eases and breaks the cycle of tormenting night sweats and hot flashes. The photo is a view through the tent ceiling early one perfect June morning.

I often wake at sunrise to a world filled with humidity embodied as mist and dew, so much it soaks the tent walls; or I oversleep and the sun heats and heats the tent until I'm driven back to the house inspired maybe to make a dreamlike breakfast of berry scones and coffee. Early one morning, creeping out of the tent into an almost psychic orange mist, I saw a buck so majestic I understood why the classics say a god disguised himself as a stag.