by Adi Alsaid
Living with a bunch of Europeans, I’d had to adjust to a lot of new table manners. With my family, there was no Can you please pass the salt? Life was too short for that. You ate when you could, no offense taken when your uncle almost elbowed you in the face to get to the blanched spinach.
“Mom, remember when you made this soup on that one camping trip?” Ron said after he shoveled a huge spoonful into his mouth.
She nodded as she flitted around the table, refilling side dishes, checking on everyone’s rice bowls. When they hosted dinner, my parents never sat down; there was too much to do in the kitchen. They ate when everyone else had finished.
“That camping trip was such a long time ago. What, three years?” said my oldest uncle from my dad’s side.
“A long time,” one of my aunts said with a nod. “The kids don’t want to do trips like that anymore.”
“That’s not true,” Ron protested. “I love camping.”
“Me too,” said Rachel.
The little kid table piped up with “Yeah!”
“Camping!”
Oh no.
My dad sat up, excitement thrumming through him with big chihuahua energy. “Let’s do it! The kids don’t start school for another couple weeks!”
I tried to make eye contact with my cousins. Like, let us thwart this while we can. But everyone was into it except for me. And by the end of dinner, we had a plan.
I slept for thirteen hours that night.
* * *
One week later, we were, indeed, headed on a camping trip.
“We’re still using that tent?” I asked, pointing at the orange nylon bundle covered in a fine coat of dirt.
My dad shoved a beach chair into the trunk next to the tent. “Yeah!”
“Dad. It’s tiny.”
“We still fit into it,” he said, his voice strained as he maneuvered the cooler in.
“Barely! You got that tent when we were little kids. Don’t you think it’s time to upgrade?”
“Why buy something new when this works perfectly fine?”
The eternal question.
Ron came out of the house with a hard-shell rolling suitcase.
“What in the world is that?” I asked.
“Mom’s stuff,” he said, handing it to my dad.
“Why is she bringing luggage camping?! Where’s the backpack we got her last year?”
Ron shrugged. “I don’t know. She said this was more durable.”
“No one brings a freaking suitcase camping.”
“Well, I guess we do,” he said as he went back inside for more stuff.
I was only a baby when our family immigrated to LA from Seoul. Ron was three. It seemed like those three years were pivotal in our hardwiring or something. All our lives he had never been as baffled or frustrated as I’d been with our parents. He’d never gotten in trouble for sneaking out to a party. When he was in high school, Ron and his weirdo friends spent weekends watching Tom Cruise movies and playing music in the garage. He had absolutely no desire to go on snowboarding trips up to Big Bear or to a school dance.
Watching my sturdy father wrestle with my mom’s suitcase made me feel a melancholy deep in my soul. This camping trip was the highlight of his year. My dad worked long, tedious hours as an insurance broker and he never took vacation days. It was admirable, I guess, but also annoying. Everyone else takes vacation days, just take yours, Dad! No one was handing out extra credit for killing yourself at work.
We hit the road, pretty much spilling out of the car. I rested on a sleeping bag wedged between my head and the window, willing myself into a coma until we got there.
“Hook me up to the Bluetooth.” Ron jostled me as he leaned forward, popping his head between my parents in the front.
I shook my head. “No. Don’t play that EDM crap.”
“Rude,” he said with a jab into my side. “Why do you care? You’re going to be passed out the entire ride.”
“I won’t if you play that garbáge,” I said, using a French accent.
“Stop speaking French. You sound like a douche.”
“Ron. That wasn’t French. In fact, ‘douche’ is French. God, read a book.”
“Oh, I’m gonna learn French from reading books?”
I was about to kick him in the shin when my dad honked the horn, startling all of us.
“Are you going to be babies on this entire ride?” my dad barked, waving his hand in the air with a quick karate chop. “Shameful. How old are you?”
I closed my eyes. “I’m still a teenager. Ron’s a loser super senior.”
Ron’s head swiveled. “How in the world did you become more of a bitch in London? I didn’t think it was humanly possible.”
My mom smacked his head so fast that her hand was a flesh-colored blur. “Yah!”
He blinked. “I’m too old for this.”
I slept the rest of the drive and woke up only when the car slowed, the tires crunching on unpaved road.
* * *
The campsite was nestled into a national park with a desert landscape. We had caravanned with two other extended families, and unpacking was a chaotic flurry that involved a lot of transactions in the oppressive heat.
“Who has an extra sleeping bag?”
“We have blankets!”
“Okay, we’ll take those.”
I stared at my aunts as they passed a giant floral-print comforter to each other. “Why didn’t you realize you were short a sleeping bag?” I asked, my voice flat.
“We did. But I knew someone would have something extra!” my aunt responded as she walked briskly toward her tent.
“Are you going to stand there with your commentary or actually help?” my uncle barked as he walked by me with a giant cooler.
Why we’d decided to come to the one campground in the state not up in the mountains was beyond me. This was an arid wasteland full of chaparral, spindly pine trees, and craggy boulders. In the summer, everything in Southern California was a desiccated hellscape. I remembered the rolling green hills of the English countryside. How everything was just so happy to be there. Blossoming and unfurling itself to the beauty of its surroundings.
I made a face at my uncle and dragged myself to our tiny tent, where my mom was inside, kneeled over and cleaning the tent floor with a wet rag. Cleaning up once we set up camp was the first activity all the women in my family did. One of my aunts had even brought her cordless vacuum to pass around to everyone.
It annoyed me that they cared about how clean the tents were, but it annoyed me more that only the women cared.
“Mom. It’s going to get dirty in five minutes.”
“So? We mess up our beds every night, does this mean we shouldn’t make our beds?” She blew a strand of hair away from her face as she swept the rag around.
Who could argue with that airtight logic?
I squinted into the tent. “We’re going to be squished in here. I can sleep in the car.”
“The car?” My mom looked at me as if I had suggested killing a human being for dinner. “Don’t be cray-jee.”
So many things were cray-jee to my mom. Shaving my legs for the first time. Borrowing clothes from my friends. Sleeping with the fan on. Cray-jee.
But there was no way I was spending the weekend sleeping in that tiny thing with my entire family, their proximity suffocating me, minute by minute, snore by snore.
* * *
After everyone unpacked, Ron discovered a little body of water near the campsite. Excited, we took off our dusty shoes and waded in. It was barely a pond, but it was cool and in one of the few shaded areas of the campgrounds.
The moms sat in their hodgepodge collection of folding chairs in the shade. Our family had brought an old pink beach chair that usually sat rusting in the garage. The sight of that chair agitated
me. Why didn’t we just get camping chairs? And why did we have only one chair? It was always a free-for-all scramble in the evening, when everyone wanted to sit in an actual chair. Most of us ended up balancing our asses on pointy rocks or perched on the edge of a cooler. If I tried to take a chair, my mom would throw me a dirty look so that I would give it up to an aunt or uncle.
She looked happy in her giant sun hat, her trim ankles crossed as she fanned herself with a paper plate. I rarely got to see her relaxed. I could count the number of actual vacations we’d been on as a family with one hand. And even then, she was always bouncing from one task to another, never actually able to enjoy the moment.
Sometimes I wondered what the point of all of this was for my parents. Leaving their home to go to a foreign country where they were constantly playing catch-up. Where every choice, every moment lived, was an investment in their children. An investment that I was sure I would never pay off for them.
“Ouch!” I heard Rachel screech. “I’m getting eaten alive by mosquitoes!”
My head snapped up. Mosquitoes were my sworn enemy. One bite kept me swollen and itchy for days. One by one, everyone in the pond starting screeching and swatting at themselves. I felt it, too, then. A sting on my forearm. Then on my forehead. On my neck.
We left the pond screaming and slapping our skin.
* * *
My parents wouldn’t let me sleep in the car that night.
I tossed and turned between the edge of the tent and my mom. My face grazed the nylon. God damn it. I reached above my head for the netted pocket, feeling around for my phone.
It was only 10:00 p.m.
There was absolutely nothing to do at night when you camp but sleep. I was in for a long night.
I had a single bar of cell phone service. With the patience of a monk, I waited as Instagram loaded. Had anyone commented on my photo of last night’s sunset? I had managed to document this camping trip in the most interesting way I could. Cali does sunsets right.
My story feed was full of images from the London crew. Boomerangs of frosty beer glasses clinking each other. The city lights diffused by fog and rain. Videos that were indecipherable with everyone’s laughter distorting the audio.
I watched them late into the night.
* * *
The next day started off with a hike. It was a million degrees already despite it being fairly early. I covered my head with a lightweight jacket to shield my scalp from the relentless sun.
One of my aunts walked beside me, pumping her arms enthusiastically. Depressing that my middle-aged aunt was in better shape than me. She nudged me. “Did you have fun in London, Nari?”
I nodded, my feet picking up to match her pace. “Yeah, it was really fun.” Fun didn’t begin to explain it. When I had met up with my friends in LA, there weren’t enough words to describe my time there. But with my family, I just couldn’t get them out. I wasn’t able to be myself with them, lately.
“It better have been more than fun,” my mom muttered as she walked up to us. “It cost a fortune.”
Guilt seeped through me. Slow and sludgy. While the travel and lodging had been covered by the scholarship, my parents had paid for the extra month that I stayed there. They had even given me some money to travel a bit.
It’s not that I didn’t feel gratitude. I just didn’t like how I was supposed to be performative of this gratitude. Resentment now filled the spaces where I had only felt thankful and content.
There was just so much bullshit wrapped up in being a good immigrant kid.
So I set my jaw stubbornly and shrugged. “Not everything is measured by money, Mom.”
That made everyone laugh, but my mom flashed me a warning look. “Don’t talk back.”
Normally that would have me biting my tongue, not wanting to deal with Mom wrath. But it was hot. And I was irritated. And I hated this camping trip.
“Don’t be annoying, then.” A hush came over everyone walking near us. A heat that had nothing to do with the temperature flooded my face.
“What?” Mom’s voice was basically death.
I walked faster but my mom kept up with me. “I’m so sick of this trip.”
“We never should have sent you to London!” my mom shouted. “Ever since you’ve been back, you’ve been acting like a little ingrate! Do you think you’re better than your family?!”
Family members were bolting as far as they could from us. I turned around, then. “Yeah, I do! I can’t wait to just leave.” Before I sprinted off the trail, I got one last look at my mom’s face. The disappointment sucked all the air out of my lungs.
* * *
My feet crunched through leaves. Somehow, I’d ended up alone in a wooded area. We had climbed in altitude and it was cooler here. The sun was setting and the bugs were coming out. Shit. I wished my exposed limbs could shrink into my body.
It was fine. I was fine. I wasn’t a little kid. I would find the trail again.
Um...what was it that Bear Grylls always did? Look for a water source? Where there was water there was a trail? And then a trail led to a road. Which led to civilization. Right.
I stood stock-still, hoping to hear water. But why would there be water when we’d been hauling ass on these horrible switchbacks for hours? We had been walking straight up a mountain. But I was in the woods. There was water in the woods, right?
Suddenly all my knowledge about planet Earth disappeared from my brain. What even were mountains? Why were woods? Oh God, I was going to die on a camping trip with my dumb family.
I had stormed off so long ago that I had no idea when I’d stopped hearing their voices. The chatter that had made me shove AirPods in my ears had been replaced by ominous forest noises. Crunching leaves. An owl hoot. Owls were freaky, okay?
It was so late that I couldn’t see where the sun was setting in the sky, which would have oriented me. The sun set in the west, right?
Who cares if you know where west is? It’s not like you looked at a freaking map before hitting this trail. Get your head together!
I took a deep breath and tried to retrace my steps. But here’s the thing about trees: THEY ALL LOOK ALIKE. For about five minutes I tried to memorize the distinct quality of certain trees until I realized that distinguishing them now was absolutely worthless.
When the air was metallic with cold and my eyes strained to see in the dark, I started to cry. Crap. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like someone who was ready to leave home and start college.
I felt like a lost little kid.
Completely alone. Without the cocoon that was always there—suffocating, yes, but warm, too. Protective. I sat down on a felled oak tree and rubbed my arms for warmth, tears stinging my eyes. I feared death by bear, but mostly I feared the loneliness.
Who knew if it was seconds or minutes or hours that ticked by—but suddenly I heard a voice and saw a beam of light. A flashlight.
I stood up and started yelling. “HERE! I’m here!”
The voices grew closer, the lights brighter, and then suddenly I was surrounded by rangers and my family. Relief seared through me and I let my mom hug me, hard and fierce.
“You almost killed me,” she said, her voice high-pitched and furious.
My face was crushed into her shoulder. “I know. Sorry.” And I think she knew what I meant. That was the thing with my family. We didn’t talk about our feelings because, sometimes, it was completely unnecessary. Our emotions were plugged into each other, for better or worse.
* * *
The next morning, after a night of relieved eating and campfire dumbassery, our tent was shaking so hard even Ron woke up early.
When I opened the tent flap, a wall of dust whooshed by. I closed my eyes and tried to zip the flap shut. “Oh, my God. It’s so windy.”
My mom gasped. “Oh no, we left a lot of stuff out!” She started to scramble
out of her sleeping bag, knocking into everyone. My dad turned to his side and continued to sleep.
I resisted the urge to be annoyed by my mom’s overreaction and instead said, “I’ll help you.” My mom paused and looked at me, satisfaction flickering across her features.
Ron plopped back into his sleeping back. I kicked him. “If I’m getting up, you are too.” He grabbed my ankle with older-brother speed and I fell over, slamming my elbows into him. My dad woke up at that point.
A few minutes later we were all outside, bleary-eyed and covering our faces with our sweatshirts as the wind continued to kick up dirt.
My family members were scrambling—grabbing chairs that were knocked over, stuffing paper plates and cups into coolers, picking up errant jackets and boots.
The wind didn’t let up all day. Our usual breakfast of ramen cooked with egg was nixed because the portable stove couldn’t keep a flame. We decided to head back home a day early, and I was relieved. We were the last family to get our stuff together, and we agreed to meet our relatives at the nearest Denny’s.
While loading the trunk, with our tent half packed up, the wind got brutal, and I dove into our car. Everyone else in my family seemed to have the same idea. One by one, they opened the doors and joined me.
“Wow, this is so exciting huh?” my dad said, slapping his hands on the steering wheel. Any force of nature excited my father. Needing to use survival skills gave him life. He loved going to Costco to stock up on “rations,” getting sandbags from the fire department, handing out flashlights. I felt a genuine gladness for him then. That he was able to have this moment on his camping trip.
My mom’s brow furrowed. “There’s going to be dirt in all of our stuff.” An eternity-long list of worries was no doubt unrolling in her mind.
But before she could start spiraling, Ron tapped his hand on the window. “Wait. Is our tent...moving?”
I glanced out at the orange blob. It was, in fact, moving. One of the corners was pivoting—the stake must have come out.