RE: An Insomniac Goes Camping (Nonfiction Version)

Wow, I think this is the most intimate piece I've read by you. It's such a human moment, like stepping into your mind for the night.

I just woke up, 2:29 am, I can't remember what woke me up but I couldn't sleep again. I spent about 30 minutes tossing and turning in my bed, thinking of hypothetical scenarios with faeries.

One of my favourite activities as a young teenager was camping. I used to camp a lot with the scouts. I loved building stuff out of wood, the campfires, the songs, the camaraderie. There is a lot of beautiful tropical nature here in Venezuela, and there aren't any big wild animals. There are snakes and such, but I imagine we were in controlled environments near civilisation where these are not big problems.

I loved to read the moment with your daughter's hair on the velcro. In a certain sense, it was some sort of sacrifice, like "I give my sleep for your sleep". I also have a lot of trouble sleeping while camping, especially because, being a tropical country, at least half the days of camping have rainy nights and the tents are roaring with water splashing above and around us, and if the tent is old, they're also leaking water and we have to cover up from the tiny droplets of nightly cold.

Thank you for sharing this. Really. I feel like I'm back at those pleasant times, despite the anxiety of not being able to sleep.