The Bright Side of Going Dark

by Kelly Harms

  And I’d urge everyone to get off their own phones for the weekend. Just one weekend! It’s only been a few days since I trekked up Mount Wyler, and that’s all it’s taken for me to get the soles of my feet planted back on the ground. I do mean “planted.” I’ve heard that expression—used it, too—a hundred times. Only now, by the fire under the stars, do I consider what it means. It means that when I rock the ball and heel against the insole of my shoe, and the tread of that same shoe sways over the gravelly mix around this firepit, and the gravelly mix shifts slightly, the earth below me supports my weight. And that earth is supported by the stone below that, and by the water and the fossilized ammonites and the magma at the core. I am planted amid all that support, shooting up from the ground as surely as an evergreen.

  I lean my back against the table edge and look up at the stars. They are good here—my mom was right. Always so annoyingly right. What else does she know that I haven’t figured out for myself yet? I try to think of all the ways she’s harassed and harangued me in the last ten years. There are many. Too many to list. Uncomfortable shoes. Funny diet. City life. Childlessness. If she only understood how that ticker tape of disapproval makes it so hard to hear the things I actually need to know.

  I hear car wheels.

  I turn and see blinding headlights.

  I think, I hope it’s Dewey. Then I think, Better unpack that later and go see who’s here and if they are going to kill me.

  The car stops; the lights cut; I blink away the spots left behind. The shape of the vehicle comes into focus. It’s a truck. A truck with a magnet sign on the door that reads ORGANIC EGGS with a phone number below.

  I think of hiding my smile of delight and decide, in the spirit of my one-eighty, not to.

  “Hello?” whispers Dewey as he steps out of the truck. “It’s Dewey. Is everyone asleep?”

  I am probably outlined by the fire, but I say anyway, “Over here. It’s Mia.”

  His boots crunch softly as he makes his way to me.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask softly.

  “Camping,” he says. “I got the door on a new coop today, and all the girls are inside for the night. Fences are reinforced. Coyotes are gonna have to find a new restaurant.”

  I look at him. He’s wearing those low-slung jeans again, a rolled-up flannel shirt, a lazy smile. Of all that information he’s just delivered, I can only ask, “Where are you going to sleep?”

  “Not between you and your mom?” he says, and now that he is close enough to the fire, I can see his smile turn into a grin.

  “She snores,” I say. And then, because if he’s here for the night, I might as well spill it, “I think we both do.”

  He laughs. “I’ll be in my hammock. I can get it ready for the night in about thirty seconds, and I won’t wake anyone.”

  I look at him blankly. “You’re gonna spend the night in a hammock out here?”

  He shrugs. “I’m too lazy to put up a cot and too wussy to sleep on the ground. Speaking of. How’d you get my daughter to go to sleep out here?”

  I shake my head woefully. “I didn’t. She’s in the Prius.”

  He laughs loudly.

  “Shh!” I say. But my mom doesn’t stir. “Sorry,” I add. “I just don’t want to wake my mom.”

  “That’s nice of you,” he says back.

  Little does he know it’s not entirely altruistic. Sage though my mother may be, I don’t need her critiques at this particular moment in time. “Hey, since you’re here,” I say, “can you help me make this fire more . . . fiery?”

  He looks from me to the fire. I hold out my poker for him, but he just sets it down on the table and grabs two logs instead. One, the smaller one, he uses to flip the burning logs off the center area of the fire. He stirs the little glowing coals beneath them, fans away a bit of ash, and then replaces the logs, turned upside down so the black part is up, in a tidy Lincoln Log formation. The larger log in his left hand goes across this. He puts the right-hand log back on the unburnt pile and then crouches low, gets face to face with the fire, and blows one long, slow breath of air on the coals.

  The fire bursts to life. Flames leap up to knee height, and I hear hisses and pops and then that wonderful sound of a happy campfire, the crackles and fizzles and snaps. Sparks light up the two feet above the fire, and smoke begins to ascend in earnest. Gently, I feel the heat climb all over the front of my body, and I sit back down on my sleeping bag to take it all in. “Nicely done,” I say. “Thank you.”

  “No sweat,” he says. “I like playing with fire.”

  “Is that meant to be some kind of double entendre?” I ask.

  “No. I literally like playing with fires. I like building fires. I like staring at fires. I like poking fires with sticks.”

  “Should I be worried about arson?”

  “Not in the slightest. Or, I should say, not more than you’re worried about anyone with my genome. I am pretty sure this particular trait is on the Y chromosome.”

  I raise my eyebrow. “You think so? A lot of things that are put down to gender just come from the culture,” I say. I realize I could be my mother verbatim right now. “Anyway, my mom can build a fire like nobody’s business.”

  “I have no doubt of that. And Azalea will be the same. She likes knowing how to do things, all kinds of things. It’s a great trait for the daughter of a chicken farmer.”

  I’ve noticed that about her. She wanted to use her compass for our out-and-back hike on a clearly marked trail. She listened attentively to my mom’s lecture on edible mushrooms and how to make stinging nettle tea. She turned her marshmallows over the fire like an even browning was the meaning of life. “I really like that about her,” I tell him. “She’s good company, if studious.”

  “I was like that as a kid too,” he says.

  “Same here. Lots of passionate hobbies, lots of science documentaries and encyclopedia browsing. I guess it went away in my teens. I got more interested in staying in my lane.”

  “Grown-up life is all about choosing what to let in and what to keep out. But Lea’s miles from that point. I tell her, ‘If you’re interested, let it in. Chase it down. See what you’re capable of.’”

  “You sound like my mom. She’s the king of nerd enablers.”

  Dewey makes a face. “Don’t let me hear you calling Lea a nerd. She’ll take it personally, and in my opinion there’s nothing nerdy about being a polymath.”

  “What’s a polymath?”

  “Someone who’s good at several things.”

  “Ah. Well, I won’t. But to clarify, nerdiness is not an insult to me. I’d like to be a polymath. I’d like to be the sort of person who knows what a polymath is without being told.”

  “When you’re a gorgeous twentysomething living la belle vie in Los Angeles, you might be flattered by being called a nerd. When you are an actual nerd and in the fourth grade, you might feel differently.”

  “Do you think I’m gorgeous?” I ask.

  Dewey raises a hand up at me. “Don’t even. You’ve already friend zoned me. I don’t have to go through the motions of flattering you for flattery’s sake. Besides, you know exactly how you look. You had to literally throw your phone off a cliff to stop yourself from taking selfies.”

  I wince. “That sounds like something my mother would have said. Were you guys talking about me?”

  He smiles. “Busted. I mean, I did ask her about you. Someone new and . . . interesting . . . comes into the neighborhood, you’re gonna ask.”

  “And she told you I’m vain?” I ask sadly.

  “She told me you are some kind of internet celebrity. Or you were. I assume the phone toss means you’ve quit.”

  “I’m taking some time off,” I say. “A break. To get . . . ah . . .” I think of the sensation I feel here by the fire under the stars. “Replanted.”

  “And how is it going?” he asks.

  “Extremely well,” I admit. “Better than I thought it would be. It turns out
half my reasons for being a phone addict were based on absolute nonsense.”

  “Such as?”

  “I thought it made my life so much easier,” I say. “I mean, maps, navigation, online shopping, banking apps, that sort of thing.”

  “I like all those things,” he says.

  “Me too. But only when I’m actually going someplace I’ve never been before or buying something I actually need or automating my bills. When I’m using maps to intricately plan trips I’ll never have time to take or shopping online to kill time while waiting at the pharmacy or getting notifications about ups and downs in my retirement portfolio twice a day, then I hate those things. I never realized how completely draining they were. It’s much less crazy making to just be still.”

  Dewey smiles gently into the fire. “Sounds like the replanting is going very well,” he says.

  “The trouble is, at some point I have to go back to real life.”

  Dewey frowns. “Do you?” he asks. “Do most addicts go back to using after rehab?”

  I roll my eyes. “Phone addiction isn’t the same as heroin addiction.”

  “Of course not,” he says. “Phone addiction is much less likely to kill you right away.”

  My shoulders sag. “I’ll admit, some of my game plan has involved trying to pretend that I never have to go back.”

  “Do you?” he asks.

  “I do. It’s my job. And it’s just life. Even if it’s a genuine addiction—”

  “Which it very well may be . . .”

  “I’m beginning to see that it might be,” I push on. “Even then, there aren’t very many people in this world who can totally avoid digital life. It’s how we file our taxes, how we order pizzas, how we learn the news and talk to our friends and play music. My friends are scattered all over the world. We would have lost touch if we couldn’t use Pictey.”

  “So what do they think of this total-abstinence plan?” Dewey asks.

  I pause. “To be honest, I have no idea if they think anything about it. Either they haven’t noticed, or they have but can’t reach me about it. If I had to guess,” I admit, “I’d say it’s the former. I haven’t really made that many real-life friends since college. And I haven’t seen the college friends in years. They have husbands and babies. I have work and . . . work. And when Mike was still alive, he was the best friend a girl could ever have.”

  Dewey nods. “It’s hard to make friends in adulthood. I met some nice dads when Lea was small, and her mom’s friends would drop a line from time to time, but now Lea picks her own friends and leaves me out of it, and we’ve all lost touch. That’s what makes it so hard to walk away from social media,” he adds. “It’s the only way I get to see how my old friends are, see their kids grow up.”

  I get that. “It’s a little thread of connection that feels too precious to break. Without it, the loneliness can really get to you.”

  “You’re not lonely, are you? Because if so, I would like to be friends with you,” says Dewey.

  “We’re already friends,” I tell him. “Aren’t we? I mean, you can’t complain about being friend zoned if we’re not friends.”

  He smiles. “Ok, then you have made one real-life friend recently. And I didn’t even meet you on the internet.”

  I smile. “You know, the trouble is, if I hadn’t tossed my phone, I don’t think we would be friends.”

  “Really? Why’s that?”

  I look him right in the eye. “I think I might have already slept with you.”

  Dewey blushes. Even in the firelight I can see how pink he is. “Ah . . .” He coughs. “Do you have any beers at this campsite of yours?”

  “The blue cooler,” I say, pointing to the lockable ice chest my mom has placed farthest from our tent. “Bring me one, too, would you?”

  When Dewey comes back, I say, “Sorry if I embarrassed you. But you always say exactly what you mean. I like it. I thought I’d give it a try.”

  He opens two cans and gives me the first. “I’m all for radical honesty, as long as it passes through the three gates,” he says.

  I look at him, surprised. “I didn’t have you down for a Buddhist.”

  “Buddha didn’t say that all speech should be true, kind, and necessary,” he says. “Or at least not anywhere official. Its origination is still unknown. But it’s a decent bar for me, as long as you count dad jokes as necessary.”

  I laugh. “I really thought it was the Buddha. I’ve attributed it to him many times. And no one has ever corrected me,” I add. “Who do you think did say it? Rumi?”

  “Probably not,” says Dewey. “I read that Rumi’s vote was for more liberal expression. He says, ‘Go up to the roof at night in the city of the soul. Let everyone go up to their roofs and sing their notes!’”

  “‘Sing loud!’” I finish for him. This is one of my favorites. In my more active yoga days, I was a big fan of a little Rumi to start out the class.

  Dewey looks at me and smiles. “You surprise me not at all,” he says casually. “You’re just a high-fashion internet celebrity quoting Rumi while backwoods camping.”

  “You either,” I agree. “You’re just a chicken farmer single parenting a polymath and discussing the great philosophers. In a hammock.”

  Dewey’s eyes light up. “Do you want to see my hammock?” he asks.

  “God, that sounds dirty.” I laugh.

  “It’s not. It’s the opposite. Hammock sex is an impossibility.”

  I try not to consider that too closely. If I do, I feel like I could prove him wrong. “Fine. Show me your hammock.”

  Dewey fumbles around behind him on the table and procures a flashlight. “Follow me.”

  I tag along to his truck. He removes a small item and shows it to me. It is a tiny bag made out of parachute fabric. It’s the size of a venti latte.

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s the hammock,” he says. “And this is the rain fly and bug net,” he adds, handing me another bag, slightly larger, but not much. “And this is my sleeping bag,” he says with finality. He grabs a compression sack and leads me to a niche in the woods. “These,” he says, producing two black straps, “go around those two trees.” He points out two trees a good two cars’ length apart. He puts the straps up, high, where I could barely reach them. Then he uses carabiners to connect one end of the tiny latte-size parachute to each tree strap. Before my eyes it unfolds all the way to the other. “Ta da!” he whispers.

  “You’re gonna sleep in that?” I ask.

  “Yup. Climb in, and I’ll show you how the rest goes up.”

  Gracelessly, I try to get myself into the hammock. This is not a beach hammock, a giant piece of flat canvas held by an iron stand. It’s a floppy bit of fabric in a weave thinner than most of my panties, hanging nearly at chin height. I look for an entry point and wonder if I’ll put my hand right through the delicate silk.

  “Go to the middle and hop up on it backward, like a playground swing,” Dewey tells me. “Then swing your legs around.”

  I do this. The fabric bunches up under me, and to my surprise, I do not fall on my ass. I swing my legs around, and the fabric opens up into a wide sling that cradles me head to toe and rocks gently side to side. “Oooh,” I say.

  “Yup,” he says. “And now we bug-proof you.”

  I watch from my comfy repose as Dewey knots a bit of clothesline tightly from one tree strap to the other, running it just over the top of the ends of the hammock but well above where my body actually is in the middle. With a few deft moves he clips up a mosquito net that falls to the ground with weights.

  “Wow,” I say.

  “Now, in cases of possible rain, I would add a fly,” he tells me. “But the forecast is clear tonight, and I like the view.”

  “Me too,” I say. “But my butt is cold.”

  “No problem,” he says. He grabs his sleeping bag, which turns out to be almost double width on the bottom but normally sized on the top. Dewey crawls under the net so he i
s inside the little netting tent with me and snaps the sleeping bag, large side down, around the whole burrito that is my body plus hammock, leaving only my head uncovered. “And that’s the works. How do you like it?”

  “I love it,” I tell him. “I’m up so high! I’m sleeping like a monkey! But what if I have to pee?”

  “Do you?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Unzip the bag halfway,” he says, and I do. “Sit up. Now swing your legs back out, and then”—with this, he puts his hands around my waist—“jump.”

  I jump. He catches my weight and eases me to the ground. I stand there for a moment, toe to toe, his head a foot higher than mine, staring into his chest. I watch it rise and fall from the exertion of the catch. Neither of us moves.

  “All right,” he says, after a few long seconds. “Off you go.”

  I walk away, trying very hard to think friend-zone thoughts.

  When I come back from a very, very, very faraway pee spot, I find myself seeing double. Directly under the first hammock, hung from the same strong trees, is a second, with a second overbag. Dewey is standing at the fire. The unburnt wood is moved off the coals to the edges of the pit, and the coals themselves are sizzling.

  “Did you pee on that fire?” I ask.

  Dewey smiles. “Yes. I hope that’s ok. I’m getting sleepy. Time to hit the hay.”

  “Over there?” I ask, pointing to the bunk-hammocks.

  “Yep. Do you want the top bunk or the bottom bunk?”

  “Whichever,” I say, surprised to find I am agreeing with this arrangement.

  “The top one, then,” he says. “So you can see better.”

  “That’s really nice,” I say. “Thank you.” I climb into the hammock, a little less hesitantly this time. As I zip up my bag, I see Dewey standing in front of me, bending, then climbing into his own.

  “If you get stiff,” he calls up, “make your body diagonal in the hammock. And scooch up a bit so your head is higher than your—yes, like that.”