The wind changes. Campfire smoke hisses in my face like an angry cat so I get up and throw another piece of pine on. I’m good at building campfires. It’s a skill and I have it. I damn well better have it, I go camping several times a month. Having skills creates confidence.

As I left for this unplanned trip around the southwest wilderness, my roommate, a girl I met in Carol’s writing class just a few months ago, beseeched me to be safe and find God. “I’ll keep my eyes open for her,” I answered.

I cannot believe the saturated vividness of Arizona sunsets. The fires in the sky transform the jagged landscape into a Maxfield Parrish painting and I briefly wonder whether I ate a small dose of mushrooms thirty minutes before. After dark, the stars in the desert are clear as polished crystal, joyfully blinking in no discernible pattern and dotting my vision like an array of tiny diamonds on a black blanket. I want to scoop them up and feel them crunch and glow in my hand.

Upon reflection I realize I don’t often camp alone. The screaming highway to the south is my only reassurance that I haven’t been swallowed by a timeless desert void, which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. It’s happened before, just not without the aid of some otherworldly substance. I can hear those cars for miles. They fade away momentarily and I’m confronted with the sounds of the murmuring fire and clicking crickets. SUDDEN OBSERVATION: once I’m out of whiskey I’ll need to head back to the car for another full bottle. It's not a big deal if I’m being honest because my car is only fifteen feet away.

This afternoon’s wind and rain made a mockery of my attempt to set up my fragile one-person tent, turning the thin fabric into an angry flag bellowing its opinions into a world that definitely needs more opinions in it. This tent is a pain in the ass to set up in ideal conditions and the wind and rain made it absolute hell. Fuck this tent! $350 for a laborious 15-minute profanity-laced setup, but it’s a 15-second teardown. WORTH IT.

I listened to a comedy podcast earlier to keep the illusion of a conversation going. Maron’s intensely urgent but still strangely comforting voice kept me company. Now that it’s over I just have my thoughts, which are loud enough. One man hovering over a campfire seems like an incomplete scene. People in muted conversation feel like an integral part of a fulfilling camping experience, so something is missing. But maybe it’s not until a man feels completely alone that he finds God is there keeping him company.