3AM

An electronic jingle woke me and I patted blindly at the edge of the tent to locate it. I squinted at the bright white numbers which read “3:00”. From the sounds of it, a similar scenario was playing out in the adjacent tent where my brother slept. For some time I stared at the shape of my feet at the end of my sleeping bag.

Head hunched, I unzipped the rainfly and stepped up and out into the night. Overhead, thousands of stars separated the black. Each tent was deconstructed independently. Aluminum poles were inserted into tubular nylon bags. The bags were rolled into the fly and tent. And the tent was stuffed into a larger tubular bag. The sounds created by moving these bits and pieces were the only audible aspect of the night.

We brought everything down to the waters edge and began carefully packing it into the canoe. Neither of us spoke. Starlight caught the edge of several ripples in the water, there were few. We each paused with our feet in the boat and ass on the dock.

The first paddle stroke created a stream of flickering greenish yellow lights. Each subsequent pull against the water revealed another cloud of tiny glowing organisms.

Everglades, Florida - March 15, 2012