Jersey Woods

Our campground in Jersey was a huge open field of neatly trimmed grass, surrounded by a circle of forest, and more campgrounds on the other side of the gravel path. We were a five minutes' drive from civilization. In the middle were four picnic tables plus a fire pit with stacked wooden planks for seating around the fire. The eight of us pitched our four tents as soon as we arrived, and proceeded to live out a most amazing weekend of uninhibited relaxation and ridiculous games, during which running around barefoot and neglecting hygienic duties became the norm. It's not something I could do for an extended period of time, but for 2 or 3 days, it's the most liberating experience ever. 

For two days, we drank, grilled manly meats and vegetable shishkebabs, played euchre and catchphrase, drew balls on passed-out victims like grade-schoolers, drank some more, played frisbee, had a dance-off to the choicest 90's techno and reggaetone music,...and so on. I adore Sarah's classmates from her BMB program because they're all so fun and interesting. I could go on and on about their distinct personalities, but I'll spare you. There is one, though, who was particularly fun to have on this trip. 

Matt is one of those people who will, when he's bored, think of the most random games, or else re-invent old ones. As soon as he arrived in the boys' car, he got out and started throwing his axe at a tree. It didn't take him long to figure out how to nail it consistently to the bark. Later, Sarah and I decided to give it a whirl, and I ended up nailing it six times. I won't say how many times I actually tried. Suffice it to say, 'twas enough for me to get six hits. And after doing a bunch of push-ups the night before the axe-throwing game, my right arm is seriously sore from the activity. 

On day two, we ventured into the woods to explore the sandy trails and gather firewood on the way back. We crossed a few shaky bridges and saw many different varieties of trees like holly and ones with serpent-like branches wrapping and curling around the main trunk. We came upon a lovely brown river (see, it wasn't blue!) that I wouldn't dare swim in, but still liked the look of it. On the way to the river, Yosh stopped me in the middle of my awesome rendition of “The Ants Go Marching One-By-One” (I was on five-sies. The last one stopped to eat-a-baked-potato-with-sour-cream-and-CHIVES)- 

“Shhh!” he hushed us. We all turned into stone (or pillars of salt, if you like), staring in the direction he was pointing in. It took me ages to see what he was seeing- a gorgeous, tan-colored deer with full-grown antlers staring at us from afar. I waved to it. It stared back with unblinking eyes. Then it bent its crowned head back down to continue eating, then quickly snapped its head back up as if it were only testing us. Eventually, it bounded off into the trees. We moved on and continued our expedition through mini-mounds crawling with daddy-long-legs, past blueberry bushes, and things of that nature. 

When we got back with the firewood, Matt and Yosh started tossing a frisbee around. Then Sarah joined them. I watched, envious of her frisbee-throwing skills (we are clearly not identical!). As the frisbee was spinning toward Sarah, Matt ran and intercepted it, and the game turned into Monkey-in-the-Middle. No more than a minute into this new game, he grabbed a 12-foot-long piece of firewood and started using that to block the frisbee. This game was called “The Stick”, the most ridiculous, most hilarious game to play and watch. I tried spinning with it randomly because I figured it was so long, it was bound to hit the frisbee along its path. Eventually, I got too dizzy and abandoned the stick entirely and proceeded to just tackle people for the frisbee, which was more manageable than using the ridiculously long and unwieldy Stick. 

A new drink was invented, called the Heartburn shot: Hershey's chocolate syrup + sriracha sauce, squirted directly in the mouth, chased down with a shot of vodka. It was a violent unification of contradictory flavors that somehow came out tasting good. The whole was for sure more than the sum of its parts.

Later, long after the sun went down, we teepee-ed a bunch of really long firewood and built a bonfire whose flames reached higher than 5-foot-11 (the height of the tallest person in our group). It was so impressive a fire that the eight of us simply sat or stood around it, magically silenced, watching in reverence as its light orange flames flickered and roared soundlessly, being pulled this way and that by the rather strong winds that blew that night. We watched the flames licking the logs, the logs burning and smoldering, glowing like blacksmiths' iron as the flames surrounded them and seeped through them mercilessly, flames flaring up through the cracks in the old, dead bark. We watched as a strike with the axe sent a million sparks flying like a swarm of brilliant, horny fireflies raining skyward, and disappearing suddenly into the dense, inescapable dark. The teepee-ed logs, too hastily arranged, soon collapsed sideways, lighting a stray shoe on fire. 

It had been cloudy all the second day, and so we were expecting that the moon wouldn't be able to light up the sky for us like it had the first night. How wrong we were. That night, the four of us lay on the blanket, watching smoky clouds moving swiftly and continuously past our lone satellite, and clearing up here and there to reveal a smattering of stars- more than I've seen in a while. Whenever I see clouds moving past the moon, my brain always interprets it falsely as the moon moving against a still sky, so I always have to take a minute to adjust the perception. Adjust and stare. Not a bad view for Jersey, the supposed Armpit of the United States. Crickets and who knows what other creatures buzzed all around us. The night is never quite silent. I learned this fact the night I slept on a bench on the banks of the Cher River in France, back in 2005. Such a cacophony of noise I had never heard before, including creepy dolphin cries, Sincerely! 

The fields in Jersey are much quieter, though. Someone remarked that the celestial movements looked like CGI. My eyes followed the treetops that formed the periphery of the expansive circle of sky above us. The border of treetops curved around and down toward my feet and then I couldn't follow it anymore. I raised my head to see where it led, and saw instead, the silhouette of a giant walnut tree, its inky branches hung with walnut bulbs and leaves, and curving and angling upward into the navy sky, unable to reach the moonlight.