Maddy Marquardt

To be totally honest, I was dreading it all week. On Saturday, I’d finished a 6-day trek on the La Cloche Silhouette Trail in Canada, followed by a ten-hour drive home. On Sunday and Monday I cleaned my gear and rested. Tuesday and Wednesday was a mix of work and catching up with friends and by Thursday it was time to pack again for another backpacking trip and I didn’t want to go.

Coming home feels like a crash landing. I’d left the house messy, the disarray our lives slip into as the summer wears on splayed across the dining room. A sleeping pad hangs on the drying rack. Andy is repairing gear on the dining room table. There’s a duffle of my paddling gear outside the laundry room, unmoved from where I left it two weeks ago. I shouldn’t have been surprised to return to it messy still.

On the first night I fall asleep to the sound of thunder. Rain lashes at the side of my tent and I am lingering in some in-between space — listening and gauging the sounds of severe weather but not fully awake either. Just a year ago, with the same friend who is sleeping in a separate tent next to me, I weathered the worst storm I’ve ever experienced in the backcountry with lightning so frequent the sky was a strobe, trees moaning so loudly I was sure they would crack in pieces over our heads.