When a Mountain is More Than a Mountain

Oregon is a place of magic.

The mountains there are insane. The moss covered trees by the edge of the streams look like they’re from movies about fairies. The newts that scamper from one side of the trail to another feel like they were placed there on purpose, to be spotted during your journey.

Of course, we had to drive through rural Oregon to even get there, which meant dozens of blue and yellow signs every hundred yards or so that read JESUS as well as various Trump/Pence signs here and there. And no service. Can’t forget the no service.

But overall, Camp Myrtlewood where me and my housemates spent our fall retreat this past weekend, is a place of magic. The weather was cool compared to the constant bombarding head of the Bay Area where we reside. The trees were sometimes taller than the skyscrapers in the city.

And, simply put, it was a camp.

There is nothing more I love than to be at a camp.

Our eight hour drive up to Oregon was… long. It was also beautiful. We went from our city, to the dry fields a bit further up, to mountains twisting and turning and full of the oranges and yellows of fall. Living in a city made me forget that it was fall. Nearly November. Nothing in the Bay Area seems to change with the weather. Even when it starts getting cool, it warms up all over again so you’re perpetually confused about the time of year you’re in.

We were set to stay at Camp Myrtlewood, a small, centralized camp where the mattresses were stiff and hard. It was nothing like my camp, where things were all over the place and you had to hike up a mountain to get to the dining hall, but that didn’t matter. Summer camps across the nation carry a small, similar quality that will always make you feel like you’re at home even when you’re not.

I needed it.

I hadn’t realized how much living in the city had started to wear on me in little ways. Don’t get me wrong, I love the city, but it doesn’t always give me what I need. The air in Oregon was fresh and the wind was cold and the wet ground squished beneath my feet with every step.

Being in Oregon was something that our community really needed, too. Because, as it turns out, living in an intentional community can be a lot harder than people expect it to be.

I won’t get into the nitty gritty of it, but things had been tense for a couple of weeks now. Some people in the house put more stock into the intentional community aspect of LVC, while others might be more focused on social justice or spirituality. Then there’s the whole conversation regarding “community” and what everyone individually sees and defines community as. People haven’t been getting what they needed, pinning blame on one another, simply because we want different things or we’re not all on the same page.

In the end, we won’t ever, all be on the same page. That’s just not how people work. We, as a house, are full of fundamentally different human beings coming into this program needing different things.

We talked about it on Monday and I’m feeling better about our house, and I hope others are too. But our fall retreat came right at the end of all of this turmoil, and it was good.

So, back to the retreat, it sort of forced us to be together. We had the long-ass drive (where I listened to Hamilton for the first time, and am annoyed to admit I love it and I’m addicted and no one can stop me) and staying in cabins together and cooking meals together. In most cases, forcing people to be together does not work out in anyone’s favor. Forced hanging out can be detrimental to forming relationships. But in this scenario, it worked.

We took hikes together, finding the edge of the Earth, as well as creepy human-sized barrels in the middle of the woods. We carved pumpkins together, marveling at the talent of some while wincing away at the work of another’s. (Mine. Mine is the screaming one.) We were ourselves, without the pressures of work, without the pressures of getting it right, and it was nice.

Despite the cold and the wet that came with Oregon, I felt more like myself than I had in months.

There was a small service for those of Christian faith, and I got to take communion. There was a moment in which I realized that three months ago, I never would’ve eaten what was currently (happily) on my dinner plate. There was a small hissy cat named Courage who couldn’t figure out if she wanted attention or not. There was a decision, where me and one of my roommates, decided that we would commit to being vegetarians for the remainder of the year (save Thanksgiving and Christmas). There was Hamilton, played from speakers and headphones and car radios. There was laughter, again and again and again.

November is just days away (and so is NaNoWriMo!) which marks about the fourth month of being in this program, and I feel more ready for it than I did before.