mistakes we knew we were making

Yesterday I went camping at San Onofre with the fam (San Clemente area). We had 2 small tents, but it had been decided that a few of us were going to have to put our beds elsewhere (aka outside). We stopped to see cousins (pre-camping trip) and they begged to come along with us, bumping the few unfortunate (aka me and mia) out of the reserved tent spots. My cousin Mia and I drug our single cot outside to sleep under the stars, waiting for the crackling of the fire to die-down and the darkest hours of night to come, so we could fully appreciate the stars in their clarity. I'm a sucker for wishing on stuff. The two of us together smashed into what we hoped would be the warmest sleeping bag, and awoke only a few hours later to feel my face being pelted with freezing rain, only coming down more adamant as each second passed, and were forced to relocate to our mini-van. (I also made Happy Book #2, and left it on the picnic table outside, which ruined a lot of the pages! no!)

If my mom does the shopping, we always have plenty of food options. Pumpkin, gingerbread, cinnamon, or plain graham crackers on your s'more? We had our propane lamps and sudoku books on the picnic table, and my dad took out the bucket seats in our van to sit by the fire. We befriended our neighbor camper named Donny who came over to share in our s'more making - He was from Connecticut, and quotedly had "no attachments to home, no full-time job (just construction here and there) and decided to see what else is out there in the states, been travelling the country in his navy blue truck, camping, living with friends (who he is fortunate to have randomly dispersed throughout the 50 states), and occasionally sleeping in the parking lot of Walmart to save money. He's been at this for the last 3 months, but hopes to soon end up in Arizona where he hopes to attend a school of the Culinary Arts and one day would like to become a Chef. (Jack Kerouac style, but less poetic, pretentious, and more sincere). I would hate to have no permanence, home, or attachments...really. A life like that seems thrilling at times, but more often than not...lonely. He had a warm laugh. I liked him.

San Onofre has been a favorite of surf spots in past time, but I've just felt pretty exhausted all break - and ended up mostly sitting on shore reading books. Figures. I started Dave Eggar's "Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius", and I'm about half-way through and it has sincerity and energy. But as I grow older, lives so inchoately lived seem unfulfulling. I just read this quote though, and I like it, he wishes for, "Every day a world-clearing sort of revolution, a bloodless one, one more interested in regeneration than any sort of destruction."