I could probably relate the most with Eddy Harris. I'm a city girl, born and bred. My parent's idea of ruffing it or camping out involves a Holiday Inn, not the mountains. And to be honest, nature scares me. I'm so accustomed to "civilization" that the idea of isolation in nature scares the hell out of me. When Tallmadge brings up what might happen if you lost your map or something happened to it the mere thought gave me chills. I've been camping and have no problem leaving behind my hairdryer and such...that isn't the probelm really. When I say I'm scared of nature I don't really mean the loss of all the little conveniences. It's more the security of all those little conveniences being there just in case if you know what I mean. Not having them isn't too bad in actuality, it's the loss of the mental feeling of security that being surrounded by them gives that is more frightening. .. . I enjoyed Abbey's metaphors of nature. Similar to Harris, I also describe nature as I would people instead of using a different vocabulary. I don't know if that is good or bad...but that's how I see nature. I imagine natural things as having a personality and quirks like people do. Like the tree we had to draw and then describe with words. Many people just wrote that the tree leaned to one side. I saw it as a person leaning over with that exaggerated "I don't want to get caught listening, but I really want to hear" pose eavesdropping on a conversation. I do similar things with pretty much all nature descriptions. I guess I like the descriptions to have personality and that's the best way I know how to give it to them.
I have been "camping" at one time or another, of course. It was in an area where there were still shower stalls and bathrooms, you just had to walk about a half hour to get to them. I enjoyed it when I went, it was this place in Virginia outside of Lynchburg called Crab Tree Falls. Absolutely beautiful to look at. I didn't mind camping there, but then I had a large group of people surrounding me. I could never go off by myself on a camping trip. I think that the overwhelming sense of absolute isolation you feel when you're alone in the wilderness would overwhelm me. I would like to think that I wouldn't panic...I'm not normally the type that panics about much of anything, but that would probably be enough for me to start being the type. I would have to have at least one other person with me in my communing with nature. I haven't been camping in quite a while. Maybe I should try to talk my husband into a weekend trip...I suppose getting out there is really the only way to make the fear go away.
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