Seventeen Celebration with Snow, Lentils, and Camp Robbers

Seventeen, a birthday most spend with family and friends, maybe bowling or watching movies, drinking cheap beer and staying out late.  An unimportant birthday, surrounded by the driving enabling sixteen and the freedom inducing eighteen; seventeen sleeps in the middle with an eye to the future and a quick pace from the past.  February 3^rd, 1997, and it was my seventeenth, a day in which I would celebrate in a unique fashion.     

Pale light and cold air touched my skin as I awoke to another overcast day.  Scrunched in a down sleeping bag under the thin nylon of a one pole no floor tent, I cuddled deep in the warm loft of the bag, not wanting to enter the cold world that awaited me.  I would have liked to sleep in, pass the cold day in a daze of sleepiness and dreams, but the day would not let me.  First, I had to get frozen boots on my feet, and then make my way out of the tent and to the small, snow covered lake I was camped by to break through a layer of ice so I could fill my billy can with water and bring it to a boil.  I would spend the rest of the day journaling, drinking tea, cooking and eating, and watching the scrub jay that was the only other living being I had seen in three days.  I would see no other humans, as had been the case for the past 72 frosty hours, but I would know that others had been near by the footprints in the snow around my camp.  Eerie how close one could get without my knowledge.

I would also know people were near by the birthday card, miniature snickers bar, and summer sausage left in the designated “pick-up spot” on the border of my camp under a large pine.  I would savior the snickers and sausage, cry at the loving birthday card signed by family and recently made friends, and try not to go crazy from the solitude.  It was February 3^rd, 1997, my seventeenth birthday, and I was on a four day solo at the end of a three week adventure called Catherine Freer Wilderness Expeditions.  While the expedition was a backpacking trip, a snowshoeing and cross country skiing trip, a camping trip, and a wilderness experience, Catherine Freer was also and most importantly an intensive three week drug and alcohol treatment program.

The whole process had begun in mid January of 1997. I had just come home in the morning from a night of drinking, smoking weed, fighting and raising hell around Klamath Falls, a small city in Eastern Oregon.  I was already high, smoking marijuana as soon as I woke up.  As I came home my parents asked me a simple question, “Do you want to go backpacking?”

“Yes, of course,” I said.  Even in my state of intoxication the outdoors called to me.  I had been raised with a strong relationship with nature, and it stayed with me throughout my teenage years. Any opportunity to be in the woods or on the lake and I took it, leaving behind the drugs that had become my life.    My parents informed me that it was not a simple backpacking trip; it was treatment for my drug use, my rebellious lifestyle.  I had no notion of telling my parents no to the treatment, which was a good decision since I later found out that if I had said no I would have been arrested and forced to go into the treatment.  I was sixteen, on probation, not in school and hardly ever at home, and my parents and the courts agreed that I had to go into the program.

After stopping at McDonalds to resign my position as cook, we headed north to Albany, where I would, in the next two days, begin to understand the severity of my situation.  The first hint was when at the hotel my parents rented, they rented a smoking room.  While not seemingly a big deal, neither of them smoked, and they only did this so I would be in their sight at all times.  Privacy was not an option, and I was on a sort of lockdown. 

The next morning I was brought into the main office of Catherine Freer and sat down with six other teenagers and their parents.  For the next several hours we sat and the parents talked about what the children had done, the types of lives they were leading.   To see the tears falling down the parent’s faces, to see the pain we were causing was a fist to the gut.  I felt sad, yet also angered and fearful as I sat in that small room and heard story after story about trouble teens, like myself.   I was angered at the fact that we were not allowed to defend ourselves, we sat with closed mouths and were only able to open our ears. This was the beginning of a dose of a harsh reality, a reality where we were given innumerable responsibilities, where we were broken down to the nothings that we thought we had become, and we would eventually be brought back to the scope of humans, to confident people who knew they had a chance to leave the pitiful lives of druggies, gangsters, dealers, prostitutes and the dropouts they had become.  It was also the beginning of an even larger appreciation for the wilderness, and the power that resides in nature.

As the parents left the room we were lead into a warehouse in complete silence.  Stripped of all our personal belongings and clothing we were given new clothing, warm clothing, clothing meant for function and nothing more.  Wool socks, sweater and pants, fleece jacket and vest, a wool stocking cap and baklava, and a large pair of thickly insulated boots.  And last, bright yellow rain coat and pants, heavy enough to drown the spirit of the most experienced backpacker.   All foreign and nothing ours.  No watches, no cigarettes, no talking, and one damn heavy backpack later and to the large white van we trudged.  We were told nothing, not where we were going, not what time it was, nothing, and I began to feel the true fear of not knowing, of not having my family a phone call away, of not having a bong to hit, a shot to drink, a drug to sniff, or a friend to have my back.  Life had begun to spin out of control in my mind, and I felt as if I were victim of kidnapping. 

Several hours later and we were driving up a snowy pass as the sun began to sink and the group began to fidget.  Not a word had been spoken for hours and we were on roads that were obviously not used by many.  With one turn of the steering wheel the van pulled to a snow filled turnout and we were told to get out of the van, put on packs, headlamps, and snowshoes.  Our only other instructions were to walk silently through the dark woods, single file behind one of the counselors.  I had never snow shoed, and instead of being overjoyed over the new experience, I was in pain, emotionally and physically as I slumped through the woods.

I think we all struggled on that first couple of miles, but one girls struggle was much greater.  Overweight, out of shape and in a world she knew nothing of, she soon tired, mentally and physically, and we were shown the true nature of what we were up against in this wilderness treatment.  The counselors, three in all, split up, two coming with the group of six and one staying back with the girl who had stubbornly refused to move, sitting down with her pack on and making a serious attempt at rebellion, and who could blame her, that was the life we knew.  As she cried, screamed, and refused to move, I expected the counselor to coddle her, tell her how it was okay, she would be fine, all the stuff I had heard from other counselors throughout my chaotic teenage years.  Instead I heard something I never expected. 

“Get up!” he yelled, but the girl only cried, refused between gasps of anger and sadness.

“Get off your ass and move!  If you don’t you’ll freeze out here,” he yelled, picking her up and forcing her to move forward through the snow covered woods.  The yelling match lasted for a while, but soon the girl caved; all the while I, along with the others, was waiting with my heavy pack on, wanting nothing more than to move on.  The counselor had gotten her to move, and after much struggle she came along and it was she that led the group the rest of the hike to our first camp.

I don’t remember much from that first night.  What I do remember is the counselors separating the group and being told to set up my tent, get my boots off and get into my sleeping bag.  As I lay in the bag the counselor came to my tent and I remember thinking I would finally be talked to, told what was happening out here.  No, the counselor came and took my boots, took my fucking boots back to his tent.  Escape would mean losing toes, probably both feet, probably death.

 Sleep was rare as I listened to several people sob between my own sobbing fits.  Most likely everyone cried that night, especially since most of the group had no outdoor experience.  I could only imagine their fright, their apprehension, their tear filled prayers and their renewed anger at a society that had labeled them as misfits and losers.  I felt a plethora of negative emotions, from hate to sadness to horrifying anger.  And mostly, I felt as if I was a zero, a nothing in the scheme of life, abandoned into the wilderness by my family, the group was nothing but a waste in society to be dumped in the woods .  Soon we would see we were nothing of the sort.

Day two began the real treatment.  Woken early to a physically and mentally frigid day, we were shown how to use our white gas stoves, and the counselors began to speak to us as people, to talk to us at times when they were not telling us to do something.  On our own we each cooked our own breakfast of oatmeal, melted snow and boiled the water, and packed our bags.  Someone had to use the bathroom and they asked the counselor for some toilet paper.

“Is none,” the counselor said.

“Then what do we use?”

“Snow, rocks, moss, whatever you can find.  But be sure to bury it all,” he said. 

SNOW! I immediately worried over the aspect of getting frostbite of the sphincter.

  Again we were reminded of the extremity of the situation in a strange way.  No longer did we have the conveniences of the everyday lives we were use to. Instead we had nature to help us, to provide us with water and the very necessary toilet paper.

On the second day we began the morning meetings where our group would sit around a necessary fire, talk about issues related to our lives, start to work over our intense emotional issues, and get to know each other on a level that most never reach.  We would also each participate in one-on-one counseling, and then it was time to pack up and move on.  We hiked a good portion of the day, at least I think.  We were still not allowed to know what time it was, how far we were going or a had been, or to talk other than when talked to by a counselor.  During the hike we not only had our heavy bags, cold weather, snowy and rainy conditions to deal with, but we also had the horrible task of pulling a heavy sled full of gas for the stoves, axes, saws, and other important equipment.  Two sleds were shared by the group, and each member would pull for a time over hard terrain-small creaks buried in snow, over hills, down hills, the only terrain we seemed to miss was flat and stable terrain.  It was gut-wrenching, muscle cramping, energy draining work, but within time we reached camp.  Dropping our bags, we all thought the physical demands were over.  No, it was time to cut fire wood, dig a deep hole large enough for the group of ten to sit in and have a fire, set up camp, boil more water, have one-on-one counseling, and cook dinner.  Dinner consisted of lentils and rice, for not only the first dinner, but for three weeks straight, and I still despise lentils for there role in the events of those three weeks.  Throughout the next two weeks we would follow this routine, all the while focusing ourselves on bettering our lives through intense interpersonal dialogue, one-on-one counseling, and the ever important physical demands of the trek.  To write of everyday would be redundant, but several events stick out in my mind.

During one memorable night time fire session I would see, again, the tenacity of the counselors and just how different this program was from any other.  As we warmed ourselves and dried clothes around a hot fire, one of the other males in the group became mad about the line of questioning that a counselor was asking him.  Very harshly, Kid, we will call him, told the counselor, “Fuck you!”

We sat in silenced and waited for the counselor to tell Kid to settle down, to say sorry that he felt that way.  Once again we expected the basic reactions that we had grown accustomed to from other counselors.   Instead the counselor answered, “Fuck you.”  Kid look stunned, his mouth dropped open, but he recovered and responded with an outstanding, “No, FUCK YOU!” 

“No, Fuck you, go to your fucking tent for the night!” the counselor replied.  He won the battle, Kid walking off, obviously not happy about a long, long night in his tent with only a candle for light and his mind for entertainment.  The counselor, in return, put a smile on his face and continued his line of questioning as the fire warmed our weary lives.

On another cold night, the group huddled around the fire and I slowly dried some clothes, including the wool socks on my feet over the bright flames.  It had been days since I had been able to wash my feet, so even the drying of them felt like a good hygienic step.  As I conversed and listened to the group I smelled a horrible odor and simultaneously felt a hot sensation on my feet.  With frightening certainty I realized I had began to heat the socks up so much that the moisture locked in its thick threads had begun to steam my foot.  Other than a little redness, my foot was fine, but the trauma caused by the smell of steamed feet may never heal.

Other events I remember are not dramatic, but just seem to stick with me, more like a memory of a soft kiss than hard punch.  Skiing down a steep pitch on cross country skis and feeling the frigid air encrust my face; the one night we ate dinner in a wall tent, heated to one hundred degrees by the metal stove, a troubled group happy from just warmth; the mint tea I rolled into a cigarette and lit off my camp stove, only to take one drag and become sick with coughing; the martin in the trees and the otter slides across the large, blank white lake.  These memories stay with me and please as much as the painful memories of having no family or the struggle when it rained and froze, all our equipment becoming thick, unmovable pieces of ice. And of course the lentils that haunt me to this day.

On one clear night towards the end of the adventure, we were given the choice to sleep under the stars, beneath the cosmic glow sneaking through the white capped trees and the snow reflected moon.  I reveled at the opportunity and the counselors rolled my mummy bag wrapped body into a tarp “burrito,” only my face open to the elements.  I fell asleep fast, tired from the day’s excursions and genuinely happy, a feeling of gleeful calmness lay up with me on that night.  One of the counselors woke me later in the night.  My blue burrito was now covered.  With sour cream? my groggy mind asked.  No, snow, fresh and falling in large chunks stuck to me, yet I slept through the storm only to be rudely awakened and told to set up my tent. 

These memories still make me smile, but one event in particular shaped most of the trip and I feel much of my life.  Two weeks had passed and all of us had made great strides towards recovery, facing our demons on a daily basis.  Yet the greatest challenge was now among us, this being the aforementioned solo trip.  It began with each of us being led off by a counselor and given a camping area.  The counselor than walked a perimeter that we were not allowed to cross unless an emergency ensued.  If we did break the boundary we could be held over for another three weeks of the arduous treatment.

 My camp was settled along a secluded lake looking like a snow covered meadow.  I had my designated hole to fetch water, a hole next to a tree to facilitate as a bathroom, my tent, a cook area, a tree covered in old man’s beard which I happily used as toilet paper and cleaning rags, and the mail box tree that was the designated “drop-off spot.”  I had all I would need to survive physically, but the real strain would be the mental battle.  It was this battle that would give me an insight into nature that I still hold strong today, a respect and love for nature, a yearning to be one with nature, yet a healthy fear of what nature can become and can do to living beings.

For the solo, we were given a notebook to journal and a skills packet to work on during our long hours.  These would not suffice as entertainment, especially to someone who has been raised in a culture that is set on always having sensory perception overload-highways with fast moving traffic, television, blaring music, fighting lovers next door, rowdy kids with fireworks, computers, videogames, book, cd’s, mp3’s, advertisements, churches, litter, pavement, parking lots, shopping malls, gambling, drinking, smoking, fighting, loving, leaving-I had left that world and now sat among the forest of wind swept snow banks and the squirrel  inhabited snag outside of camp.  Sensory overload was nil and the insights I gained from my brain having a chance to rest, recuperate, and reconnoiter were outstanding.  Through the four days and three nights I would listen to a woodpecker pound a hole in a tree, the squirrel warning the woods of my presence, and I would try to tame the scrub jay that had come to rob my camp. 

I would notice something else to.  I wasn’t drunk, I wasn’t high, I was alone, and I was alive.  Even as my birthday came and went I was full of a feeling of great triumph rather than sadness or despair.  The longer the solo went the more time I spent watching the ways of nature.  Snow covered branches becoming too heavy and letting go of the snow with a great thump was my drum, the whistling wind my melody, the silence my singing voice.  Nature had not joined me, rather I had joined nature and asked nature to let me in.  Healing had become less about the actual drug use and lifestyle and had manifested to a recognizing of a picture that was pure truth, the picture that an animal must see, the picture that allows one to see that in order to survive and thrive, one must be strong, emotionally and physically, and the life I was leading was not accomplishing this.  My picture was a skewed imagining of an ignorant mind, a Picasso with the paint running from the rain.

Time was passed with beauty and in sequence with the clocks of the wild.  I slept when the sun was down and awoke to the cold, pale days with the notion of survival, both physical through food and water, and mental survival through provoking thought and stimulating imaginings.  Enjoyment was the aftereffect.  I had begun to look at the high as the secondary effect, and an intoxicator was not needed to support that high, for it was not a physical attribute, but an emotional ideal, an ideal that I have to this day. 

As my solo neared its end I was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing people once again.  Yet I was fearful about going back to life, back to a life where responsibility means conformity, a job, a life that society has outlined and written and we are only to follow the guidelines, check off the steps as we make each life moment count.  Fearful, yet eager.  I must admit, even through my hermitry, I am a pack animal.  I was also saddened by the leaving of my sacred spot, the spot where I had meditated without knowledge and eaten without need for taste.  As I loaded up my gear and followed the trail back to the others I looked up into the trees.  The scrub jay, or camp robber, stayed with me, and I realized that in nature, one is never alone.

The expedition ended with a circle of family and friends, each of us teenagers telling our stories of healing, our struggles and our hopes.  Tears came to many, including myself as I had to tell my parents of some of the things I had done in my past life that they had not known.  All of us had to tell, it was a part of the treatment. 

As we met with family another grotesque reality came to light.  Treatment was not over, not for myself, not for any of the teenagers.  Four of the others in the group were to go immediately to half-way houses or residential treatment facilities.  One boy was given the option of going to a residential treatment or doing another three weeks in the wilderness.  He made the easy choice to stay in the woods.  I would later find out he stayed in for nine weeks in total, an outstanding amount of time for anyone to struggle with their personal demons.  As for me and one other girl, we were aloud to leave with our families.  I was brought back to Klamath Falls, but then quickly taken to live in the country outside of Medford, Oregon.  In Medford I would continue treatment and be homeschooled.

Of course, this was not the end of my problems, but a start to my resolution.  True healing takes years, is a lifetime experience, and to expect treatment to work overnight, or in weeks or even months is not a realistic expectation.  To rewire ones brain, to fix ones thought processes takes years and a determined frame of mind.  To live with a life of drugs, to drop out of society is the easy road, but not the road that brings one a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment.  This takes years.  I look at it like I look at most things, in correlation with nature.  The processes of nature are on the most part slow.  It starts with a single seed that grows up to be a tree of outstanding height, only to topple in the wind and take years to turn into the soil that then grows yet another tree.  A canyon is slowly made by the tremulous water taking away pieces of earth and digging deeper and deeper until a massive canyon is born.  It happens slowly, over time, and this is life.  Life is meant to be slow, a walk rather than a race, a bike ride down a backstreet rather than a speeding horde upon the interstate. 

I learned this in those snowy woods with that camp robber screeching his song and patiently waiting for me to drop a crumb.  Even now I see that the slower I go, the more time I take to walk through the wilderness, the more I see.  An elk lying amongst the moist meadow, a deer feeding through the oak filled draw, or the eagle soaring high, I slow until I reach stillness, and with stillness the woods come to life, and the healing begins all over again.