Saturday morning at Shrine Mont – mountain retreat center for our church family where we go every June, every Father’s Day weekend. Near thirty years. This being the year boy goes it alone.

I’m up bird early, enjoying a coffee and the random, ungathered sounds of the morning. It’s still so cool for June, and so still I almost have the satisfaction of beating the day to its game. I am wondering if he’ll come bounding down the mountain even at this early hour, as if he woke up suddenly and couldn’t wait to tell someone – rolling out of his hammock and pounding down the rocky trail with steps three times the stride of the ones that took him up it last night. His “I did it!” crowing from the tree tops. Or maybe he’ll wait till the breakfast bell sounds, echoing in outbound circles up to the place on North Mountain where Will camped out last night. Actually it wasn’t the great North Mountain – that would have been a hike of six miles and an elevation gain of almost 1,800 ft. Way too much for a night hike. Thankfully, he did not press me for my “no” so I didn’t have to give it. That T-shirt stamped with some reference to my dead body may have done the trick.

It’s been a restless night, I admit, waking in the middle of it several times to wonder…and yes, to worry. There is no cell service. “No location available,” one of my young adult children’s favorite destinations these days. He wouldn’t even have the phone with him if I hadn’t insisted. For all I know it’s turned off or stuffed in the bottom of his pack. I wonder if perhaps he is still sleeping, cocooned in his sleeping bag slung between trees, the initial thrill and victory of those early camp outs long gone and certainly not to be fussed over by the Fuss Squad. I tell you what. He gives the stern eye to me, Mom, the founder and CEO of that fuss squad. Lately he’s taken to sleeping a night or two in the woods around our house. No warning or plan, really, just finishes helping with the dinner dishes, heads upstairs for a half spell and comes down empty handed – Gonna camp out, Mom, which is uttered just as the back door is slapping shut, me standing mid-dishtowel in the kitchen and squinting out the window past the patio where I see absolutely no “camp.” No tent, no sleeping bag whatsoever. Bill and I just look at each other. What’s he going to do, hack a makeshift lean-to into being from the tulip poplars? Weave a grass mat to sleep on? We don’t ask anymore. He did, after all, cook his own food out there the first week of the pandemic lock-down. Like I’m sayin’, wilderness boy about had it with the Fuss Squad.

I remember the first time he camped out alone. He would have been six or seven. Half-pint container of the real thing: Will (power), full strength and so intentional about his oneness with the wilderness. Took a little pup tent off the shelf in the garage and set about pitching it in the back yard. A few provisions consisting largely of Oreos and spare batteries. Then the night settled in and so did boy, leaving his dad and I to our ridiculous parent two-step in the kitchen, cleaning up and preparing to go to bed ourselves: do we lock the back door or do we not? (NO!) Do we leave a light on, even just a little one (MORE NO!) Do we pace before or after the hand-wringing part of this dance? I remember feeling the separation acutely and worrying – for what reason I know not since it added to his experience in no way whatsoever – about the sorts of things that could befall a boy (alone) (at night) twenty paces off our back patio. A tree could fall! Or one of those big dead limbs on the other side of the yard could somehow fly off its trunk and land on him! A copperhead could happen by. Or a saw-scaled pit viper. In our suburban backyard.

I remember peering out over our balcony (a delightful feature of our 2nd-floor bedroom is not a window but a sliding glass door and small balcony that provides a beautiful half-wall woodscape in all seasons. I’m not sorry this door is on my side of the bed.) I remember peering out it into the night, willing my eyes to peel back the layers of darkness to locate his little green pup-tent. He was not far from the house. Not at all. But he was so small, and so determined. In the moonlight as my eyes gradually adjusted I could barely make out the little tent, no more than a blurred little blob. Soft and breathing in our backyard. Because of my eyesight, and the night, the perspective was gone (You see the layers here, right?). The ground looked like it was moving, and the little glowing shape of the tent looked like there was nothing else around for miles, like a tiny boat adrift on the waves of a vast sea. It was unsettling, to see the reality played out in my own backyard in microcosm: World versus boy.

Then came the pandemic and my little tent camper became a permanent resident of the back 40–er, two. Seven weeks! This time he moved into our woods, much further away and upscaled his digs, an 8-10 man tent, complete with cot, desk, electric heater, Wi-Fi, and a tidy front porch upon which he was very careful each night to remove his shoes. That enterprise was far more endearing than daunting (large overhead branches and grizzlies not withstanding) and made for great conversation. I often wondered what he did with his time, other than “Zoom” school, which was a bit of a bust that first spring. He hadn’t really begun reading yet like he is now, making up for all the lost years in a single summer, voraciously, like he is starving and books are food. Books ARE food, but anyway. I suppose he watched movies on his portable TV/VCR player c. 1989 and lay on his cot picking off wasps one by one with a BB gun. Yes, from inside the tent. Perhaps a perforated roof and the loveliness of starlight pouring in is what taught him to go it truly au plein aire. The wilderness has been calling ever since.

At first, the plan was North Mountain. That’s 6 miles up, 12,000 steps, and an elevation of 3,000+ feet. It’s a three-hour hike straight up and probably not the wisest one to make in darkness. Killer cell connection when you get there, but that’s about it. It’s too far away. Still, there’s a rock fire circle up there from others who have braved the prospect and been rewarded with a spectacular sunrise. So I know he’s been chewing on this idea, but knows that I will say no. And he is right. It’s too far away. Never mind being up there all alone. Boy will have to scale back to plan B. Having arrived hours before anyone else, Will basically had the mountain to himself. And with no one to ask, and no one to worry over him, he went for his hike up to the cross, a smaller summit and therefore shorter hike. With that achieved, it was only a natural half step… Think I’m a gonna camp out there tonight. In retrospect, there wasn’t any room in his pack for discussion or rejection. I take his pronouncement in stride, show nothing. Fuss club, stand down. But my inner voice, which frequently comments on the alarmingly changing landscape of our lives, is going: Item for sale: One helicopter, good condition, gently used. What am I saying??! Thing has been ridden hard and put away wet. But you can have it if you want it. I won’t be needing it.

Thankfully, it’s cold enough I don’t worry about the snakes. I’m sick of seeing the FB posts of copperheads and hearing the buzz about how plentiful they are this season. Of course I worry about the bears, and so should boy, wrapped up like a human burrito in his little orange hammock. But he’s done enough reading and research to know that this also, poses little or no threat. What, then? Coyotes? Bobcats? Great white sharks? Surely there is some wild animal that stalks the darkness and my child? Or is it the darkness itself? The ‘mind of man’ and all that. But I know there is no standing in the way of this plan. Or rather, I am very aware that standing in the way of this plan would prevent the necessary next step to larger and more risky plans. This step is adding considerable distance to the equation, and that’s the necessary piece. He’ll be a good 30-minute hike up the mountain. Not hours or miles away, but it’s for sure out of eyesight, ear shot, and – to his utter delight – cell phone range.

And for some reason, it’s critical he does this alone. Solo. “What’s the noun for ‘solitary’?” He asked me some weeks back. “Like, can you say ‘a’ solitary? Or ‘the’ solitary?” Well, I guess you could. “Solitude,” I answer him. Solitude is a noun. After it gets done being a mother-of-teen-boy’s deepest fear. Then it gets to be a noun again. “‘Alone’ with the bears,” we jokingly say, but he will have none of that.

He lets me hike up with him – a bone, a brief dispensation of the tough outer ethos, and for it, I am grateful. I haven’t got in enough steps by the end of this driving day, anyway, and the evening is luminous – still well-lit and so beautiful. The plan is to hike up and pitch camp before darkness. I will hike back alone. And so we set out – me and my trusty walking stick and water bottle, still dressed in my street wear as the plan evolved seemingly out of thin air and picked up speed. He is in full hiking gear: military, fatigues, combat boots, and a 30-pound pack for the half mile trek to the cross. With this as his handicap, I can match his stride and pace so we hike, mostly silent, taking in the evening and our surroundings. We are evenly paced and easing into peace.

He doesn’t want me there. I am standing on the hem of his emancipation, covering him with questions. BTW did you know the word “mother” and “smother” do not share etymological origins? True fact. I’ll just put it out there. You wouldn’t know it from my chatty kathy ice-breaker “conversation” with him, right as we start up the trail – Momspeak: You bring a jacket? Did you bring something warm to sleep in? You got enough water? Did you bring a weapon of any kind…? Now I realize the idiocy in my interrogation – here is a boy about to confront his own fears, wide and tall as the mountain in front of us, and here is his dumb old mother to heap a few more. His “What the heck?” hangs in the curf between us as I acknowledge his hiking back and try to zip it. An I don’t mean the sleeping bag. My fear, if it must be said, has an elevation reaching far above these trees into the night. Where does it come from? A certainty that all is not right in the world? A desperation for him to be so? And what is it I so viscerally fear – the animals or the night? Some crazy wilderness wild man out there on the mountain to catch a scent of him? Is it the people? Or the boy himself? Are we not on solid footing here? There is a small part of me wondering if he really will stake out for North Mountain in the middle of the night under the guise of this lesser hike. Either way, my musings have heightened his unspoken, under-wraps fear to be sure – and his tone with me is one of disapproval and annoyance. 

I was the first obstacle, more complicated and daunting than the first mile or so straight up the mountain. To surmount it (my planning boy!) he had come to find me in the cottage just before dinner, standing in the doorway as I gather my things and get ready for the bell. He has his boots on, making him taller, lankier, and for sure, louder as he thunks a few steps into my room. The floorboards creak. My heart creaks too, turning with all it is releasing. Standing his ground and posing to me his well thought-out questions, among them some I’ve heard before: Why is this such a big deal to you? What is it you are so afraid of? I haven’t had time to put on that “overmydeadbody” T-shirt, so I am forced to listen, to consider, to hear him out, a fine aperitif if I must admit. Aperifif… Imperatif… It’s just a perspective thing. To some degree, the questions illuminate our separate realities: For me, an older and arguably overprotective mother, he may as well be asking to scale Mount Washington in his pajamas. In a snow blizzard. For Will, he’s merely doing me the courtesy of checking before he crosses the street. When he thunks out again, he has two things: His plan and his mother’s consent. Only one did he really know he needed.

The woods are pure silence, lit from above, with all the intensity of a waning evening, which settles into the canopy and ultimately filters and shivers down on the undergrowth, making a sea of light. Luminous green. It’s the kind of sunset that takes its time, so that the deeper you go into the woods the lighter it gets. Truth be told, I see the appeal. I see why hiking with him was the right decision, rather than sit housebound stoking my fears. Once we get a little way up, I can hear it, too. The invitation. It’s whispered simply and softly on the breeze. No expectation or necessity on your part to accept it. But if you do…well, then. We walk shoulder to shoulder, taking it all in and giving up to the stride of the evening. We don’t make small talk, or not much, after my initial faux pas (literally, false steps). With each true step I am more aware – more aware of the graciousness that let me come along, and the resolve powering him up this mountain. Silently I join my resolve to his: I will.

At the top, the cross stands another 50 feet in the air on a rickety wood scaffold that is clearly showing its age and weathering. In the spirit of the evening, we climb that too. He removes his hulking backpack and sets it at the base so we can mount and take in the gorgeous evening breeze, the view – still not clear, but endless – and the gentle wave of the canopy over which we now survey. It’s the same sea, I think, suddenly struck with the image from that memory from so long ago – the same sea, and he still alone in it, but a bigger boat. Then there’s a bit of shuffling between us: small steps, small talk and single-word answers around the base of the cross, surveying the area for decent trees, ground cover, black mambas, king cobras and the like. (Don’t laugh b/c there really are rattlesnakes this far north west). Then there’s nothing left but the obvious: Bye, mom. Barely a nod or a pause, except to wag his chin upward a bit to signal how I will be leaving now because he is good. “Yup. Yep. I’m good mom.”

I leave him at the cross and hike, alone, back down the mountain, taking care not to turn my old lady ankles on the loose stones and steep descent. A little way down I pause, turn back and look up, trying to peer through the dense undergrowth to find him. He had on a bright red T-shirt. But I’m already too far away, so my assessment of the sitch is limited to guessing – is he unloading his pack? Selecting just the right pair of trees for his hammock? Is he just sitting on the bottom a few steps of the cross structure, contemplating his plan? Is he regretting his decision? Having a second thought and perchance, going to join me sheepishly on the trail down? Is he on the fence at all about this? Because I couldn’t tell (dug in as I was on the side of NO). Darkness is beginning to descend, and the wooded ridgeline is backlit by the setting sun. Along it stands a row of trees like soldiers, or moms, lined up and leaning in. Rock-a bye baby, in the tree top…

What is it that so needs escaping? Is it the trappings of modern life? Is it truly his generation’s technology and screen distractions? Is it the materialism, the hedonism, or any of the ‘isms’ a young person truly on the path to enlightenment will tear into? Is it his age or drive to differentiate? That one must absolutely and unequivocally be different to be OK? Is it, as I have often feared, something more sinister that I believe we all confront at some point: it is not the darkness without that threatens us, but the darkness within. Sometimes I think what separates us is his ability to focus on the moment here and now, rather than indulge my obsession with the still to come. Here I am counting steps everywhere I go, tallying, measuring, taking stock. Bean counting, as they say. This is some of what kicked badge-earning to the curb for him years ago, when he closed the door on boy scouts. Boy wouldn’t know a bean if he fell over it. Well maybe he would, but he’d sooner cook and eat it than count it.

But bean counting and clock-watching go hand in hand, so here I am. If there were ever a clock to be watched and hour to be counted, I’m on it. Which is how I find myself at the breakfast table in the clattery, bustl-y dining hall, Will’s chair conspicuously empty. He did not appear at first light. He did not appear at the wake-up bell, or the five-minute bell. He is still not back, and there’s no way to reach him. Would you like some panic with your pancakes, ma’am? Even the breakfast bell, which officially opens the doors and welcomes in the hungry masses, has come and gone for all but one bear-loving, mountain-climbing, wilderness-savoring, late-sleeping boy. I sip my second cup of coffee in anxious replay, trying to think why I awoke so sharply at two in the morning and again around four? Was he awake then, too? Were those the very hours he was being attacked by timber wolves? And then, just as the pancakes hit the table in steaming stacks, he circles in, slips into his seat, nods briefly with a barely perceptible smile and holds out his hands to receive the platter coming round.

New listing on FB marketplace: For sale: one helicopter. Gently used. Good condition.

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