Indians and Pilgrims

My parents took us camping when we were kids - like, a lot. That was what we did for vacations. My friends went skiing in Aspen and tanning in Miami. We camped.

It was mostly pretty wonderful. My parents had the packing and the food and the bug repellent down to a science, and the entertainment was free: a lake here, a few croaking frogs there, leaping grasshoppers, leafy trails. The car rides were long, but somehow there weren't iPods and portable DVD players involved. There might have been a walkman or two, there were cassette tapes of showtunes, and certainly there were stacks of paperbacks, but mostly? There was The License Plate Game.

I didn't grow up in the Sixties and I know how old-school I sound. We had a home computer and Internet access before anyone else I knew. But it's the truth - our family trips were about simple pleasures.

I don't have many clear, actual memories of those drives, and now that I have two boys of my own, I'm pretty sure I know why - I must have blocked them out. They must have been rife with fighting and yelling. There were four boys and me. It must have been hell for my parents.

Right?

For years, we really camped, slept in sleeping bags on the floors of blue, nylon tents. I do have many, quite vivid memories of waking up in the middle of the night to pitch blackness, pounding sheets of rain, and a mouthful of blue, nylon tent. Because it always rained at night. And they always collapsed. We'd scramble to detangle ourselves from the fabric and race to the ginormous Suburban, where we'd fall back asleep under cover, listening to the downpour and elbowing one another to get comfortable.

Now that I have two boys of my own, I'm pretty sure I know what drove my parents to suffer this kind of "vacation" - they were clinically INSANE.

I'm also pretty sure I know the source of my often-crippling claustrophobia.

Eventually, we upgraded to a pop-up trailer, and we have loads of camping stories and mishaps that keep us laughing on the occasions that we are all in the same place at the same time. But at some point, I'm not sure exactly when, my mother decided - just as she did, one day, about skiing in Utah with my dad - that she was Done. With Camping. Period. And that was that.

I'm thinking about all of this now, because living in LA, you don't really have to GO anywhere to enjoy the outdoors. Living in a mountainous region is still so incredibly new to me, and the fact that I am never more than ten minutes away from absolute seclusion and quiet and trees and streams and trails and mountain lions - it never fails to impress me. The mountain views on the 101 North never fail to impress me. Yes, there is materialism all kinds of nauseating in Los Angeles. But I've only been here a couple of years, and for the mountains, I'm still appreciative.

So lately, we've been doing a lot of hiking. On Sundays, Y and I try to do something special with the kids, the old quality-time thing, and we've found that we bring out the best in each other when we are being one with nature - or destroying nature, depending on how one views a bug-collecting habit. Last week we did Malibu Creek, and today we hit Franklin Canyon, which is my favorite so far.

And I find that while I work in fashion - and delve into matters zippered, toggled, double-breasted, perfectly-worn-in, pin-tucked, embellished, ruffled, pleated and raw-edged all week long - it takes only the promise of fresh air for me to feel like I'm about six again, with dirt under my fingernails and mosquito bites on my shins. For me to throw on anything that's comfortable and durable, to ditch accessories and makeup like I've never heard of them in my life.

I also find that I love the freedom and familiarity of that feeling, that I love watching my sons explore and empathizing with their flushed cheeks and pounding hearts.

I like seeing Ariel - who has suddenly become afraid of EVERYTHING, who sees monsters in every shadow, who deems anything other than blazing sunlight "too dark," and who refuses to bathe in the kids' tub because a scratch on the bottom of it "has wings" - fearlessly plow up a steep incline to stand on the edge of a cliff, look down, and beg to go higher, to reach the very top. (Yes, Buba, I do hold his hand.)

I like the sight of Elan's face in the car on the way home, his eyes bloodshot with wind-burn and the strain of keeping them open a little longer, as he tells Y and me that he "really loved the day."

I remember both the taste of nylon and the PTSD-inducing shock of being jerked awake to a collapsed tent somewhere in the middle of America, and for years, I was glad those days were behind me.

But these days, these years, and especially since I started working, I'm feeling like my parents were maybe less crazy.

And more along the lines of genius.