I can think of a million reasons why setting up a six-man tent in the side yard late on a Sunday afternoon is a bad idea. It’s too complicated. It’s just more stuff to haul out, and he hasn’t finished or put away the “bike repair” project littering the garage. I don’t care if we’re in quarantine, it’s a school night. I want him to get a solid start on Monday learn-at-home. Rested. Focused. Not distracted by a backache from sleeping on cold packed ground a hundred yards from that modern convenience, the house. More reasons: The sky is blue. Actually the sky is not blue. It is growing darker by the minute, cooking up a predicted storm. So there, this is a terrible idea. It’s supposed to rain and storm all week, Will. You could put your eye out. Son? He is ignoring me, bent over the instructions, the long tent poles like an armload of whiskers. Where does this one go? I say, squatting down to help.

Henry David Thoreau: “It’s not what you look at that matters. It’s what you see.” Truly, I did not see this coming. Several hours later I see his head passing back and forth in front of the window, going from the garage, to shed, to tent. Over and over he passes, settin’ up camp in his woodland “apartment.” Bill and I helped moved the tent into the woods out back, in a little clearing that was, well, tent-sized. Over top of the whole area Bill lashed a 20′ tarp to keep out rain and deflect any falling branches. A reverse safety net. I sleep easier looking out from our bedroom balcony and seeing the hopeful little homestead with its poles, stakes and tethers, lashed down like an air balloon straining to be away. Like a very small boat adrift in a wide dark sea.

In 1854 Henry David Thoreau built a small house, by hand, in the woods of Concord, Massachusetts at the edge of a pond. A teacher neighbor loans us the book when she hears of Will’s wilderness experiment: Walden. Writes the well-celebrated naturalist: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” No danger of that here. We have the essentials, all right: By the end of the day Will has “fronted” quite a bit.

I will give you the fifty-cent tour he is perfecting on YouTube: Enter by invitation only, once Will has removed the laminated steel padlock (joining tent zippers) and you have removed your shoes. European custom. There is no footwear allowed inside. What?! I’ve tried that for 20 years in my “tent,” son, and nobody paid a whit of attention. Most people mulch their gardens. This time of year I mulch the front hall and stairs. Dog and boy help me mightily. But I digress. It’s just delightful seeing how boy sets up his house after years of destroying mine.

On our left, we have a long plank desk supported by two stepladders, fully rigged with a power strip at each end–one for his sound system and the other for the heater we haul out there with strict instruction not to leave it on unattended or while sleeping. In one corner he has made nice nooks for a water cooler, a wastebasket, several beach towels rolled and stashed “in case” it rains. Under the desk, a milk crate holds his school binders, in daily use and more organized than I have ever seen them. Like, Where is my son and what have you done to him? organized. The south wall of this little study hut is lined by a large dump-bound bookcase. It has quickly become an indispensable piece of furniture and “fronts” all kinds of “essential facts of life”–books, clean clothes, socks and underwear neatly laid on lined shelves, two sticks of deodorant, a shelf of kitchen gear, BBs, a power drill, and a “drybox” (Lunchmate cooler) containing bluetooth speakers and a fire starter. He stands back, surveying his work. “Yeah,” says boy, “I think I’m going to be real happy here.”

Apparently, this will be a permanent residence, so the “settin’ up” period takes all day. The stuff he chooses is amusing to me. I notice some of the knick-knacks from his room have followed him: framed picture of his pets that Sophie made and several statues of Captain America. A little metal desktop sax player. A Captain America Jack-in-the-box?! Beyond that, make-do mode is in overdrive: two stepstools and a board for the perfect desk, milk crates for a bookcase, a large blue throw rug re-directed from a Goodwill pile. The Burk Emporium fairly weeps with joy as it produces some of its finest treasures: a TV/VCR unit (and the VHS tapes to go with). A six-foot long wooden garage shelving unit Bill had in his first house (30 years ago) with the legs rotted off that expired on Craigs’ List “free.” (Weeping smiley-faced emoji here). Will is very happy with the bedside table I find for him: the vehicle console out of our old van with handy compartment and cupholders. To complete the décor he asks for one of the Easter lilies we used for Sophie’s (non) Prom. I kid you not. He was helping decorate and actually used the word heavenly. Now the flora stands by the bedside table, scenting the entire tent. Boy is here to stay.

Like any homeowner, Will keeps busy with improvements and repairs. The roof leaks. A porch flap is sagging. A window zipper needs waxing for it to glide more smoothly. I think it must have been the little “port” and the picture of a plug on the outside of the 6′ x 9′ Ozark Trail “Vacation Cottage” (that’s what it says on the package) that gave Will the idea, but like any millennial teen worth his salt, the hours that go into electronics improvements are “essential.” Thoreau would definitely have to turn a blind eye to the layout here: a Kindle fire hooked up to a portable keyboard (school work), an old iPod docking station and two computer speakers compatible with his Nano (music), and his state-of-the-art audio visual configuration: part yard sale, part genius, involving a lot of wire to connect the TV/VCR, a DVD player, and fully operational Wii console with half a dozen new games. Neighbor cleaned out next door and trucked over a huge bin. (Um, thanks??)

Everybody knows the contest between parent and child on his way to manhood is about just this: the essential. And other definitions, like what does it mean, to “suck the marrow out of life”? I say school work. He says, I wonder if I can rig this Wii station to a 1997 VCR/TV unit. I say good night’s sleep. He says, maybe there’s a way I can run the heat and the sound system without blowing out the fuse box of a midsize home. I say brushed teeth, clean underwear and a solid 60 minutes of reading each day. He says think I’ll cut down on showers (He did really say that, planning for a hot, dirty week at camp last summer). Let’s face it, Henry, essential is relative. Said by Thoreau himself: Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

For three weeks prior to playing mountain man, Will was digging a hole. A very big hole in the back woods, slightly beyond the tent at the base of a large tree. I would estimate it at 8 to 10′ wide by almost 6′ deep. He dug for four, sometimes five hours a day. His head had disappeared below ground level so when I looked out the kitchen window all I could see was the shovelfuls of dirt flying up out of the ground. Why? I’m telling you, “why” is not a term we use around here. Not a relevant question. In the land of boy. Do you know how this tent thing happened, anyway? Ask Will. He was on his way for a particular shovel (for the hole) and there it was. So he got it out to set it up because he wanted to know how to set it up. It was there, Sir Edmund, so he climbed it. Yeah, he admits sheepishly, surveying the inside of his stuff palace: I was just gonna set up my two-man and just, like, sleep out in it in a sleeping bag. I don’t actually know how all this happened. I do, boy. The pursuit of the essential.

Thoreau: “It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessities of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them….For the improvements of the ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man’s existence…”

On the first morning of this “frontier life” I get a phone call at 7:30 from Will. From his flip phone. From the tent. I’ve been watching the goings on for near an hour, the “gross necessities” of begetting one’s breakfast. His foodstuffs are 25 feet in the air, hoisted into the trees each night in a “bear bag” (in this case a large blue Coleman cooler) because of the bears (??!). Large, non-native carnivores are not his first setback to a meal this morning, but rain is. I am amazed 40 misty minutes later to see the flames and smoke issuing from our firepit. He asks me how long to boil an egg. In my mind, of course, burners and stove dials. He did not ask me how to start a fire in the rain, but apparently the culinary hurdles were more daunting than the logistical ones. He is a boy scout after all. And a man’s pride is bigger than his stomach. He takes the variables all in stride–predators, weather, pesky housebound muggles. Sure ‘nough, an hour and ten minutes later breakfast is served: hard boiled eggs and Ooodles of Noodles. He calls me crowing with pride. “Mom! The eggs came out perfect! I can fit two just perfect and they boiled up just great. By accident I dropped the noodles, though, but I picked them up. There’s only a little leaves and dirt but that’s okay!” You’re exactly right, my boy. That is okay. Well done, son. And may you always think to call home with your perfections and your fails.

“For a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone,” says Thoreau, describing whole days of simplicity and calm. I think he must have been speaking the language of adolescent boy when he penned this: “Our life is frittered away by detail.” And so it goes. Teeth brushing is simply not an “essential.” And Oodles of Wood Dirt and two perfect eggs makes a manly breakfast, indeed. By the third and fourth morning he’s learned to maintain a fire in the rain, how to keep his wood dry, and that a propane flame thrower is a handy addition to any kitchen. Let’s face it, Generation Z. True sustenance was always something Alexa couldn’t supply. By the end of the week he asks for a cast iron skillet and cooks us some sooty looking pancakes that taste like campfire and I-did-it. Have you ever eaten I-did-it? It is like ambrosia to a mother’s heart. Feast of kings to a developing boy. He proudly marches them across the lawn into the house (shoes on) and ceremoniously lays them on the kitchen counter. The cakes are gray and paper-thin. “Well,” says boy, “That’s the best of ’em.”

Lately he’s decided he doesn’t need to cook a hot breakfast every morning, realizing that an hour or more at a single egg or even boiling water is probably not the most time efficient way into the day. Did I mention he is gathering his own wood before starting the fire to boil the water to cook his egg? Since the next logical step would be to erect a forge to sharpen the saw that cuts the wood to start the fire to cook the breakfast….(all for the tent that Will built), I have to say I can relate, what with my grocery expeditions of late. Three times in the past seven weeks–gloves, mask, zombie-like parade down the aisles six feet apart, all that. It is in these times I fantasize about going out to milk a cow in the backyard or poke a chicken for an egg. Having the raw materials on hand rather than suffer the hardships of procuring their product. And to some extent we’re all on this line of thinking. We’re on Google and Pinterest learning to make our own masks, sanitizer, wipes. Don’t tell me you haven’t stood at the fridge surveying its randomly thinning contents and thought How do I make cheese? There’s no yeast to be had in the tri-state area, as apparently we’re all at home baking bread. Or digging holes, depending on your idea of “essential.” If 13-year-old boys were the primary shoppers in this pandemic we would not be out of yeast, or sanitizer or even toilet paper. Instead the shelves would be woefully bare of lighter fluid and sour patch kids. Sometimes in the morning he comes creeping in to the “midst of our outward civilization” to use the bathroom and stoops to a bowl of cereal from the cupboard. Just open box and pour. There’s no shame in that son, I say.

Midway through the week I find I’m really missing wilderness boy. The dog has relocated as well, finds he likes a sunny spot halfway between the house and the woods and there reclines, sphynx-like, squinting into the afternoon sun. I know he is guarding boy. One night late Gus comes in soaking, as if from a bath and we realize. It is pouring. Has been for hours. Dog is laying out there guarding the tent. Ellie gets up from the lunch table with her dishes and a comment: Sure is quiet around here without Will. She’s right, it is. For all intents and purposes, he has moved out. He comes in at chore time, to take a shower, eat dinner with his family. Sometimes he watches a movie or plays a game, but mostly the pull back to his one-man abode is too strong. What does he do out there? Well, for the first two and a half hours of the day (after Breakfast Prep 101, which really ought to come with academic credit) he does his school work, as agreed. Then he listens to audiobooks, pulls a giant tub of Legos from under the cot and makes busy with that, tidies his apartment, watches movies on a screen the size of a large index card. He told me he sweeps three times a day. But the rest of the time I’ll bet he sits in his chair or lays on the cot listening to the sound of the woods. The birds, the breezes, what a day sounds like without someone else’s claim to it. Let me tell you, it sings. And Will has always been good at music appreciation.

Henry David Thoreau aside, this pandemic and our quarantine sure has cast a truing light on our ability to use time. Or our relationship with it. For Ellie, the lists by her bed and post-it notes suggest that her use of time is little changed from what college girl does with it: alternately procrastinate and engage it, put it to good use or kick herself for not. The dance of the undergrad. Sophie, I can’t tell. There’s more denial going on up there. Out of despair. Marshalling the energy to exercise or indulge in a craft or hobby or even come to dinner seems to be as daunting as doing her Calculus. We don’t see her until dinner either, and she is not living in a tent in the back woods. Lately some of the sadness, the film over our days, seems to be wearing away to what’s left of her. And this is a grand thing indeed: stronger than steel and sweeter than honey, here she is. My Sophie girl. Girl from a way long time ago. Yes, it is punctuated by the weekly disasters–the prom date comes and goes, another outspoken scientist pronounces summer predictions, her graduation gown arrives in the mail, but each week these appear to have less of an effect on our girl. Still, the self-control is turned up high. She does not let down, does not let go, for fear, I think, she will come apart. For this reason, perhaps, a highly creative sort takes fewer diversions.

For Will, it is completely the opposite. Diversion is life. Time used to come calling and find him out. Now it prefers him, I think, to the rest of us. Time is no fool for seeking out fun. The day has 15 hours in it and each one is for a different thing that doesn’t need to happen and sometimes probably shouldn’t. “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” writes the celebrated master….“But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.” No one would call an 8th grade boy “wise,” and I wouldn’t say it’s the brainiest move to be shooting wasps with a BB gun from the inside of a nylon room, but it makes for an extraordinary study break. And there is a patient wisdom at growth out there, seeded when the first tent stake went into the ground. Hours retying knots on tarps, 90 minutes start to breakfast daily, two or more hours at school work all by himself in the rain in the woods? Long afternoons of solitude and silence? Will has completely lost his angry teen edge and, to some event, his Really, Mom? death glares. Now he rings me up me to say he’s taken out two wasps.

“I did not need to go outdoors to take the air for it came in to me…It was not so much within-doors as behind a door where I sat, even in the rainiest of weather. The Harivansa have a saying ‘an abode without birds is like meat without seasoning’….I found myself suddenly neighbor to the birds, not by having imprisoned one but by having caged myself near them.”

Will says it’s the birds that wake him each morning and the last thing he hears before he goes to sleep. Somewhere up high in one of the trees, we have an owl. An uncanny noise, really. One night, on taking my leave I notice the knife under his bed and the BB gun by the door; I remember him showing me on the tent tour how he wired the other door shut and I realize… He’s the one who’s watched too many scary movies and has such an overactive imagination…He’s the one who wants to know who’s upstairs and/or when we are coming up to bed, who has to have his closet open by day and closed by night and the door to his room the exact opposite. Just thinking on his routine makes me reach back a thousand years to my own night fears and realize: this boy is afraid of the dark. And here he is, sleeping out night after night in the middle of the woods. By choice! Asking us to turn out all the exterior lights (okay, so that three-bulb 600 watt spot was a little much). We are parents. Used to be we went around locking doors and closing up for the night. Now we check and double check that the back door is unlocked. If the Boogie Man does show up, I’ll bring him in and give him a snack just to keep him away from that tent.

Tomorrow marks a week in Walden woods at the Burk house. Will doesn’t seem any worse for the wear. I’ve caught him working many times, ostensibly bringing him snack, or a lunch, or just pestering, poking, tending–the way a mom does. The reason, probably, he now lives under separate roof. Each time I find him, books and papers spread out on his plank desk in the pouring rain or sometimes, Thoreau-style, just sitting in his chair, listening to the sounds of the morning wood coming alive. It’s peaceful there. I think of him often, making a life alone in the woods. He is gone for most of it, holed up in his little tent. Throughout the morning he calls or texts me from an old flip phone. Seven-dollar-a-month phone contract coming to good use now. He calls to tell me that he is working, or that he is not working, but plans to. This morning it was a 10-minute exchange explaining his progress, as if the fake video camera hanging in the trees is actually recording him and his parents are actually conducting surveillance. (I tell you what, helicopter parents, be careful. You can scar your kids for life!) Here is the gist of the call: I took a break but didn’t mean to. “The front porch flap was leaking again, so I went out to fix it, and then I realized the big tarp is resting on it and like, wicking the water, so I had to climb up and fix that, and then I realized it’s the wrong knot so I had to untie it and….” Yes, Will. I know that. Homeowners know that. It’s always something…. Not only that, all things are connected. Just look, son, we are connected where no data charges apply. 

On the second night I walked out to the woodland cottage with two mugs of cocoa and a game tucked under my arm. Dog was sprawled in the cot sound asleep and the little cave was so cozy, softly lit and warm. He gave me the camp chair and took the floor, and we just sat there sipping cocoa and listening to the rain patter on the leaves overhead. I sat thinking what a peaceful, cheerful little haven he has created in the midst of many storms. Adolescence. Family Life. Modern life. And now this. Quarantine. Covid, the one nobody can ignore though the others have been raging longer. “I had three chairs in my house,” wrote Thoreau, who probably entertained more visitors than a dog and his folks: “one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.” I survey the neatly kept cottage, drink in its warmth and stillness. Will has one chair but plenty of seating. Wake up, Gus, this here’s a three-chair evening.