BROUGHT SUCH BEAUTY

Dear Spike:

You awoke last night in your mother’s arms to the shrill songs of an legion of crickets, the gurgling of the Green River and — barely audible behind it all — a nightingale calling for moon to rise. Fainter still, the wind rustled through the stickly trees and bushes, making a sound like sandpaper on soft wood.

We’d spent the day with our friends in a tiny town across the Colorado border, before seeing them off in a tow truck this afternoon. We then pointed our wagon back to Dinosaur National Monument, where we were met by ancient petroglyphs, primeval fossils, jagged mountain peaks, rainbow-painted rocksides and this glorious desert symphony.

Yes, I thought, this is how camping should be. This is what camping should sound like.

And then, as if in reply, you began to cry.

And cry.

And cry.

And scream and wail and squeal and moan and shriek.

Innately, I wanted to soothe you. But quickly, I simply wanted to quiet you. It wasn’t a full campground — but it wasn’t empty, either.

No, I thought, this is now how camping should be. This is not what camping should sound like.

If there was ever a time in which I fully understood how much our lives have changed, it was in those moments, when your tears washed away the sounds of nature like the Green River washes through these sandstone mountains.

Yes, I was frustrated. But not for a moment did I wish it were not so. Just as the river has brought beauty to this desert range, so to have you brought such beauty to our lives.

The crickets, the nightingale, the wind against the trees — those sounds were here when the ancients painted these caverns walls. Those sounds will be here tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

We broke camp this morning exhausted and eager to return home. And as you slept, the whole ride back, we laughed at how contentedly you seemed to be slumbering.

Yes, I thought, this is how life should be. This is what camping life sound like.

Love,
dad