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Tears on a Withered Flower

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The Ridge- REPUBLISHED

Into the Wilderness: Part 6

Our rented SUV was one of the last in the parent caravan. We drove along winding paved roads until we turned off onto dirt pathways, passing white clapboard houses nestled among the hills, weathered with moss, a lone horse, a few sheep hugging dilapidated barns. Then, we turned off those dirt roads onto pitted tracks created by other four wheelers. We navigated slowly up the mountain, wheels edging steep declines. We bumped over rocks, tree branches scraping our doors. We passed an overflowing stream.

Finally, the line slowed and stopped. In what seemed like practiced unison, SUVs turned slightly off the tracks. The forest was damp and thick, the soil emitting steam as the sun warmed it. The Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia are actually a temperate rainforest and that becomes obvious the moment you crack open your car door. The moisture and heat- it was now late August- envelope you.

All around us was green. If our teens were camped in these woods, seeing them through the trees was nearly impossible. Chuck and I got out of our SUV and followed the other parents walking toward an incline about a half mile down the path. A sense of human presence started to emerge. An abandoned steel tent frame gleamed in a clearing- not from our campers; they have strict rules to leave the forest as they find it. In the distance, smoke from a campfire wafted through the green light. We walked toward it.

All around us, teens and parents had begun to re-unite. Rustling undergrowth, excited screams: the teens rushed to meet their parents.

Far down on the path, was a spot of red. As we walked, it formed into a shape, then a figure. It was unloading food supplies from the back of an SUV. The figured stopped and faced our direction.

Squinting, Chuck asked, "Is that Catina?" We couldn't tell. We walked closer. And as we did the figure began to sprint toward us. And then we knew. This was our girl.

We ran. She ran, clouds of dirt rising around her like Pigpen from Charlie Brown. We came together, grabbing hold and squeezing in an enormous hug.

The first thing I noticed was how bad she smelled. And how smelling so bad, she still smelled good. Every mother knows the scent of her child. It's there from the first moment your child is in your arms and you bury your nose in the soft spot where the neck meets the shoulder.

That was the smell I noticed, along with sweat and body odor. Deoderant attracts mosquitos and flies so the teens avoid it.

Next, I noticed her clear eyes. And her dimpled smile. She was happy, not just to see us, but happy. Her body showed it. She had a confidence she had never carried before.

She had firmed up from the hiking and healthy eating. The teens do not eat processed foods and can only have limited amounts of honey as a rare treat. She was covered in bug bites, red welts dotting her arms, ankles and calves. She wore a long-sleeved red windbreaker and splotched khakis, an orange vest with fluorescent tape and a mismatched pair of crocs, one blue, one orange (see our photo in the About page), without socks.

Chuck and I wore "I heart Catina Wipper" T-shirts. In her last letter home, Catina had asked Chuck to adopt her, and we wanted to surprise her with his answer. Just two days before, we had found a small printing shop in Clayton, Georgia that could make our T-shirts in a day. The T-shirt was hidden beneath our buttoned shirts and we opened them in a big "ta da."

We were together again. After eight long weeks of separation.

We walked to the clearing where they had set up camp. In the center was a big tarp with a campfire. The teens learn how to start a fire using self-made bow drills. Designated campers tend the fire to keep it continually burning. No fire means eating peanut butter in big spoonfuls from the jar or handfuls of GORP.

Each teen was assigned a pack of necessities weighing about 40 pounds: sleeping bag, school and therapy notebooks, water bottles, food supplies, bowl and spoon, a change of clothes, bags for collecting waste, a toothbrush. The packs were piled in a mound about 20 feet from the center tarp. A constructed bathing area and latrine were at opposite ends of the camp, both lined with tarps for privacy. Above the camp, on a ridge, the teens had set up their tents. Each day, they choose a favorite spot for sleeping. This one had a view of nearby mountains, blue and hazy in the distance like a smudged charcoal drawing.

The teens had settled down with their parents, excited to tell them about living in the wilderness. They were all so proud. They had lived outside for weeks tending to their own needs. While different issues had brought them together, the underlying issue was often the same: anxiety, depression, low self-esteem. But now they had discovered they could thrive- through storms, heat waves, bug bites, pesky critters, slips and falls.

Catina took our hands and led us up a hill above the camp to a rocky nook shaded by trees. Chuck and I unfolded our chairs, portable, legless contraptions that suspend a body in a reclining position. These "chairs" are provided only to teens who have reached a certain level in their progress- an incentive to work hard. Visiting parents are warned not to give our chairs away, or to let our kids sit in them.

We checked in. How were we each feeling? Excited, happy, complete. Catina told us about her days- what time they rise, packing up, unpacking, hiking off trails, setting up camp, cooking meals, cleaning up. She had never camped a single day in her life before wilderness, and now she loved being in the deep woods, sitting quietly with a book or journal, or staring endlessly at the beauty of it all.

We talked about a lot of things. Her letters. Her inventories. Her memories. Her new-found love of reading. Her regret. Our regret. An awful, violent incident she had hidden from us and blamed herself for because it had happened at a party she shouldn't have been at. What had led her here, to this place, this moment.

When we returned to the camp, dinner prep was underway, a counselor watching as they cubed raw chicken and cut up vegetables, sauteed in a big skillet over the open flame. They made pasta with chicken and vegetables, simple and good. Catina added sriracha, gobbled it down and wiped her bowl clean with leaves from the ground. When I couldn't finish my serving, she was happy to eat more.

Joy. I had never seen her so in her body, so present to herself. She was just Catina. The Catina that is Catina. Not the Catina that anyone else wanted her to be.

As the sun began to set, we hiked up the hill to the ridge where they had lined their tents. I captured a fallen branch as a walking stick to help heave myself up the mountain and across the uneven terrain.

Catina had chosen to place her tent last, at the far end of the ridge. She tied it between trees, a sharp inverted V high off the ground so she could see the sky and feel the night wind. We crawled underneath, removed our hiking boots and handed them to the counselors. We loosened our clothes and laid on top of our sleeping bags, arms and legs interlinked, staring at the moon through the branches. We repeatedly whispered, "I love you." There was not much more to say.

We lay on this ridge of mountain. The ridge seemed endless, stretching across the Appalachian shelf. It had risen millions of years ago, rock crashing together, thrusting upward, a massive tectonic shift continuing to reshape the landscape even today. And here we were now, on this ridge, together. We too had collided, fault lines rippling through our lives. We had forged new selves out of this, our own seismic event. Here on this ancient ridge, we knew we had come far.

Source: The Ridge- REPUBLISHED