Face to face with reality in a storm

Youth isn't wasted on the young -- sleep is. I've always found it interesting that people say someone "sleeps like a baby." What? They wake up every two hours and demand attention?

What they should say is "They sleep like a 10-year-old" or "They slept like a teenager."

We went camping again last weekend and actually talked Ben, the 17-year-old, into going with us. Buzz has his own little pup tent, and while it and the air mattress are big enough for the two boys, Buzz also sleeps like a stranded, rabid trout and unless you like waking up battered, bruised and abused, you don't want to share a bed with him. Ben doesn't even like waking up with his hair ("The Hair") mussed, much less looking like the loser of the prize fight, so he tends to stretch out in the mini van and sleep there.

Last Saturday afternoon, with gorgeous blue skies over us and a weather forecast that mumbled something vague about a 40 percent chance of showers far, far off in the future, my husband reverted to cave man radar and decided to batten down the hatches. He stored everything that wasn't waterproof in the van or the tents, which aren't exactly waterproof themselves, and I laughed at him.

Twelve hours later, I wasn't laughing. I was huddled next to him under the comforter, both terrified and exhilarated as Mother Nature put on the biggest fireworks show I've ever seen just over our head. We were camping in a secluded spot, so I wasn't worried about actually getting hit by lightning. But there were all these trees whipping in the wind, and rain so hard it sounded like hail, and my kids weren't in the tent with me which meant I spent the entire night calling out between crashes of thunder, "Are y'all okay?"

The next morning, it was still gray and drizzly, and I staggered from our tent into the morass of mud just beyond it. My hair was standing straight up, my eyes were glued shut and I would have abused small puppies for a hot tub and a feather bed.

The boys bounced out of their bed, tent and van, and chirped.

"What's for breakfast?"

They'd slept through the storm -- crashes, flashes, mayhem and all.

I can't remember the last time I slept through a peaceful night at home, much less a downpour like that one, and I still can't believe it didn't wake them up.

But instead of feeling sorry for myself for missing all that sleep, I felt sorry for them, for missing all that drama. There is something so -- pardon the pun -- charged about being that close to a storm. It reminds us that all of the Blackberries and Apples in the world can't replace the world of blackberries and apples. A battery charger is a cosmic sputter compared to one bolt of lightning and Mother Nature will outlive motherboards every time.

This is why we camp. We cocoon ourselves during the week with television, air conditioning, Facebook and processed cheese-like food and we think we're living it up. One night spent in a tempest, with only a thin sheet of fabric between us and destruction, and we feel more alive than we ever have. Sure, I get a rush out of seeing my favorite actor snarl his way across the screen, but that's a pale, flickering light show in reality. A make believe battle between Wolverine and Sabertooth is mildly entertaining. Watching a tree split in the night by a blast of electric blue in real life -- now that's entertainment!

I wouldn't want to live in that tent all the time -- age has its privileges and one of those is a comfortable mattress that doesn't rely on an air pump to exist. But I do like escaping from the comfort zone now and then just to remind myself of how much I really, really, like my comfort zone.

Camping has many benefits. We sit around the picnic table and talk about things besides Spongebob plots, bills or band camp drama. We actually all eat at the same time. Together! We discover that there are worse things than the occasional flea -- such as daddy long legs, mosquitoes and those weird bugs that look like unholy crosses between moths and hummingbirds.

My favorite part of camping is coming home. Once everything is unloaded, unpacked and shoved in the washing machine, I can collapse on the bed -- the real bed -- and sleep.

Like a teenager.

-- Mary Reeves is a Times-Gazette staff writer. She can be reached at mreeves@t-g.com.