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I can hear fluttering, like someone is lashing a wooden board with a strip of velvet, it draws me slowly back to consciousness. Without opening my eyes I stretch out and feel a cool spot at my toes. I smile and listen to the fluttering. As I move steadily toward a more conscious state I hear more sounds; I hear…chirping. Light chirping sounds mixed in with the fluttering. I breath in deeply and then roll back and forth slightly, trying to work my way back into warm sleep. I try relaxing and letting myself fall back into my dream, but it is too late. I am awake. I lie there for a moment and listen to the birds outside my window.

I roll over and slowly unzip the nylon panel that covers the screen window in my tent. I open the zipper no more than two inches and pull it open to spy on the birds. I search for them in the gray of early dawn. At first I don’t see them, they are further away than I expected. I finally catch sight of them, a blur of gray amongst the darker gray of morning. The two birds flit and flutter around each other, taking jabs when the other one leaves an opening, bobbing and weaving away from each others beaks and talons. This early morning ritual has something to do with mating, I try to remember what, but I can’t.

The serenity lasts only a moment. The birds and I are shaken out of our revelry for the dawn by a crash of leaves and branches. My heart jumps to full speed as adrenaline rushes into my system. I am now fully awake. The muscles in my stomach tense and I immediately break out into a cold sweat. Images of bears crashing through the brush flash before my eye,s no doubt coming from some dark crevice in my mind, while the reasonable side of me races to restore order. I remind myself that it was just a squirrel, just a squirrel. You might laugh, but squirrels are deceptive. They don’t walk in the woods, they leap from spot to spot, stopping periodically to look around for predators. They space their jumps apart and sound like a larger animal to the untrained ear. When they jump from a tree to the ground and take off they sound more like a bear than a squirrel. I know better, but it still surprises me. Especially in the quiet early morning.

The birds have left, finding solace in the higher branches of the surrounding trees, and I decide to get up. I unzip my sleeping bag and the cold rushes in like a cold stream. Immediately I have to go to the bathroom. I grope for my boots, which were carelessly discarded under my cot the night before. Finding them I pull them close and orient them the proper way, left boot on the left, right boot on the right, so as to minimize the time I am standing on the cold floor. I stand up, put on my boots while bending over, and without bothering to tie them I ease myself out the zippered front door and into the gray.

Now I would like to tell you that I only urinate in the bathroom, but that just isn’t so. I am in the woods after all and my camp companions are still asleep. I walk to the edge of the clearing and do my business as nature intended. After I am finished I stand there quietly and breath deeply the smells of the woods. I smell the pine trees and the rain from the night before. The smells fill my lungs and flood through my body like a wave of cool water. Refreshing me and chilling me at the same time. I shiver. I continue to stand and breath and shiver. Finally the cold is too much and I turn my back to the woods and walk quietly back to the center of camp.

The fire which burned so brightly the night before, is now a pile of light gray ash in a patch of dark gray earth. I put my hand over the ashes and feel some residual warmth. This also makes me smile. The fire isn’t dead it is just resting. I pull together the charred remnants of the previous nights wood over the warm spot and immediately a trickle of smoke appears. I add a few small branches and twigs. I then lay some large pieces of wood around like a log cabin, interlacing the pieces of wood to provide a wind block. I then top off the small wooden box with three more pieces that will catch soon after the kindling does.

The smoke has increased during this time and soon I see a small flame flickering between the logs. I draw my camp chair close and hunch my shoulders to the cold around me, willing the heat of the small fire to radiate into me, to warm me, to renew me. I sit for a while with the fire, listening to the sounds of the trees rustling in the light breeze. I can’t feel the breeze where I sit. This morning the breeze has stayed near the tops of the trees. In the gray light I can just make out the tree tops swaying as if dancing. Dancing to the beat of nature’s song. I return my gaze to the smoke coming off the logs. I am aware of the crackling of the fire. I concentrate on it and lose myself in the moment. The smoke is hypnotizing and after a while I begin to see shapes across the fire from me. I look closely, peering through the smoke, but I don’t move. I am careful not to disturb this scene. Instead I study the figures with quick movements of the eyes, being careful not to breath too deeply. The shapes continue to develop until I can see they are settlers from long ago sitting by the fire after a hard nights sleep in their covered wagon. The men are wearing gray wool jackets over multicolored plaid flannel shirts. They have the telltale triangle of white at their throat which tells me they are wearing long underwear beneath their clothes. The women have discarded the bonnets, so popular in the city, and are now wearing wool scarves around their heads to keep the chill at bay. They wear long dresses that must be impossible to keep clean and look deeply into the fire as one of them stirs a pot of food hanging from an iron pyramid. The children, impervious to the cold, chase each other in the clearing squealing and laughing as they play a game with no rules. I smile at them and as I do they vanish into the smoke and I am alone again by the fire.

I think about the ghosts a moment. I think about how for just a moment time had stood still. The past and the future were all connected. Our history was alive. Our future became the present. For that moment the world around me was a distant memory. For a moment I almost touched the past. It was as if, in that moment, God revealed a small part of himself to me.

Behind me I hear the familiar rustling of nylon and look over to see my friend stepping out of his tent. His shoes are untied and he is heading to the edge of the clearing. Without saying a word he ducks out of sight behind a tree and he does his business. I look back to the fire and think about the images from the past. I wish they would come back, but they won’t. They only appear when I am alone. I will have to wait until tomorrow morning before time will stand still again.

- Sean