A Camping Diary: The Rhythm of a Weekend

The Weekend Between the Plans

1Friday evening. Before we left for our camping weekend, I drew three columns in my notebook: equipment, meals, and activities. My cousin Daejun added a fourth column called “things Veda cannot schedule.” I pretended not to see it. At the campground, I checked our supplies while he unfolded the chairs. Everything had a place, including the notebook, which I balanced on a flat stone beside my chair.

2Saturday morning. My notebook, slightly bent at the corners, was waiting where I had left it. The pages had absorbed enough overnight moisture to curl upward like shallow bowls. I pressed them beneath an empty pan while Aunt Marisol prepared breakfast. I wanted the damage to sound like a small inconvenience, not the main event of our trip. Daejun offered me his pencil, and I began a fresh list on the back of a paper bag.

3By afternoon, the activities column had become less useful. We meant to organize a card game, but everyone kept stopping to listen to the sounds around us. A zipper rasped at the next campsite. Somewhere beyond the picnic tables, someone tapped a spoon against a cup. I started writing descriptions instead of instructions. The paper bag—my replacement notebook—filled with arrows, crossed-out words, and a surprisingly careful description of a squeaky chair.

4Saturday night. I told Daejun that the chair sounded like a door hinge—no, more like a violin note that could not quite begin. He tested the chair once, then left it alone. We sat without trying to name the next sound. For a while … the little scraping noises seemed farther away. Nothing interrupted us; I simply let the quiet stretch before finishing that sentence in my head. Later, I wrote it down with the same space inside it.

5Sunday afternoon. Packing took longer than my list predicted because I kept reading the paper bag before folding it. The pan had flattened most of the notebook pages, although one corner remained stubbornly curled. Daejun asked whether I wanted to copy my new notes into the old columns. I nearly said yes. Instead, I tucked the bag between two blank pages. There was room for both kinds of record, provided I did not force them into the same shape.