But First, Let Me Take a Selfie

I know that I'm getting older... and that I "just don't understand"... and that taking selfies is just what everybody (insert the words "under thirty") is doing.

And I've been known to stick my arm out with the best of 'em, to capture a moment with the camera turned the wrong way...

But, truth be told, I'm a little disturbed. I find the selfie craze pretty disconcerting. I'm concerned about what it is turning us into... who it is making us. It scares me a little to see people so utterly self-absorbed that literally every kind of moment has to be captured with the camera facing SELF. It is changing how we view things. It is changing how we document things. It is changing how we do relationship.

I don't know about you, but I didn't need anything to come along to make me more self-focused... more self-absorbed... more looking at myself and how the world affects me, instead of how it is affecting those around me!

Last night, my family and I were camping, and all of them had headed to the bath house to get ready for bed. I had stayed behind, enjoying the last few moments of our little campfire. The embers were morphing and moving in the smoke, and the last dying flames joined their movements in a mesmerizing dance. It was glorious, that sight, as it combined with the sounds and smells of that fading fire... crackling pops... rising sparks... the scent of wood and earth and smoky tendrils filling my nostrils...

It was in the context of this peaceful, beautiful, holy moment that I saw one of the most ridiculous things I think I've ever seen. Across the way, at the next campsite, I became aware of a couple of guys who had set up a tripod and camera in front of their campfire. (Yes, a full-blown tripod, complete with camera attachment.) They were ready to capture their selfie the old-fashioned way, I guess... at a decent distance, and without the distorted shoulder in one of the corners. And so I watched them as they attempted to do so. Not once. Not twice. Not six or eight times. No, I watched these two young men literally set up the scene (clinking beer bottles in front of their campfire), hold the pose (as in, "Let's keep these beer bottles in this fake clink for eight seconds while the camera takes the shot), look at the result (apparently never quite perfect enough), and then re-stage the entire thing for a re-do-try-over TEN TIMES. They wasted almost twenty minutes with this project. Were they enjoying the fire? The beers? The company? No, they were obsessed with staging and then capturing the perfect (fake!) moment.

I had been experiencing the perfect (real) moment, and I was never once--not even for a fleeting instant--tempted to spoil the mood by trying to "capture the moment" with my camera. And, had I been so inclined, I certainly would never have been tempted to try to capture it by sticking my arm out and centering my big ugly mug in front of the real show!

I'm not sure what to make of it all, but I know that I never want to miss the real things going on around me because I'm too busy staging some fake ones.

----------
*Entry 4, April - The 12 Months of 2015 Blog Challenge 
The title is from the song "#SELFIE" by The Chainsmokers.

(For some interesting thoughts about selfies, you can read these two articles, which discuss some research-based findings suggesting that our selfie-centered behavior is making us psychologically sick. I wouldn't be surprised.)

We're Happy Tonight

I love camping. I love everything about it... the smells. the views. sleeping in a tent. cooking over a fire. walking through the woods to traipse to the bathroom. the sound of crickets and other singing insects. the freedom from the tyranny of the schedule. sleeping under the stars...

Given that I'm currently snug in my bed while it's in the teens outside, I can dream of those wonderful spring days ahead when we'll go camping.  Every year, my oldest daughter asks to go camping for her birthday. Some years we make it, and some years we don't, but it's always exactly what I'd rather be doing if we're doing something else.

This spring, I hope to implement several of these great camping ideas!

Conifer Climbing

Below is a "guest post" from my oldest daughter, EV. She posted this on what was then the "kids' blog," which has turned into her brother PT's blog since she and her sister OG only posted a couple of things. I like the things they posted, however, so I've preserved them here...

I had my 14th birthday a few weeks ago, and we went camping. It was so fun! We arrived at the Shenandoah National Park in the late afternoon, and after another hour or so of driving to the campground, set up camp. There was this conifer tree in our site, and we had a great time seeing who could get the highest. The branches were growing so close together (especially toward the top) that we could only get so high, but once you stopped climbing and actually sat still, you could feel the tree literally swaying in the wind.

After screaming your pleasure of this windy phenomenon at the top of your lungs down to the family (and the rest of the campground) far below, you would start to feel a little disconcerted. You can't really help it, seeing as you're almost to the top of the tree, and you're seeing the top of the mountains in the distance, and there is a strong breeze swaying the tree you're sitting on, and you have images of the whole tree snapping and falling on top of you. I sure skedaddled out of the tree when my imagination got the better of me.

The next day, I woke up to the smell of pancakes and eggs and bacon sizzling on the open fire. After breakfast (and a brief nap), we went hiking. We were gone practically all afternoon, and arrived to our "home" just in time to have bread and cheese and apples for dinner. - 'ding 1