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Ben and I camped our first night at The Dalles Campground, just north of Mount Rainier, deep in the heart of a redwood grove. We arrived around six, took one look at site thirty -seven, and made it our own. The Campsite Carrion even commented that it was the best site on the premises and this was obvious. It overlooked the river from the edge of a cliff and the foliage was sparse enough to allow the final rays of the sun to envelope our campsite in a warm orange glow as we slowly set about unpacking our gear for the night. It was wonderful.

After we had silently setup the campsite, we ran down to the river, threw off our clothes, and frolicked naked in the icy runoff and sat with our bare butts on big logs and smiled at our good fortune. And this is the ACTUAL GOD’S HONEST TRUTH because this is what my audiolog reports:

DAMON: It is June 23rd, at six o’clock in the evening. We’ve arrived at The Dalles campground. We’re at site thirty-seven, which overlooks the river and has a wide opening through which sunlight pours. It is like a little slice of heaven. Ben and I went down to the river and washed our clothes and frolicked naked in the surf, washing ourselves with peppermint soap — it was quite a time.

But, dear reader, fear not: this will not digress into an interesting and all to common homosexual revelation between Ben and myself (see example at: Brokeback Mountain). We are, as his girlfriend calls us, Heterosexual Life Partners. The key word, in this adage, is “heterosexual”. We are often naked around each other; we are often independently lathering ourselves with soap; we are often frolicking naked in streams and ponds; we are often mimicking the bass line played in a pornographic film while flexing our pectoralis minor muscles and dropping bars of soap; but we are always, always, heterosexual. As often as we have been asked — even offered money, mind you — to be otherwise in public, it shall never happen. And this is good. I’m just not ready for that kind of turn in our relationship, and if I am not ready for it, Ben would not take it very well at all. And neither would his girlfriend, although I think it would answer a lot of the questions she has about me. Even the term “Heterosexual Life Partner” makes Ben a little nervous because having to include the word “heterosexual” implies that there is any another option.

At the Dalles Campground we reviewed our first day of riding, most of which was spent lauding over the grandness of our trip. Comments were made, such as:

“This is awesome.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Amazing.”

“My heart is full of love for the earth and all God’s creatures.”

“If ever I were to die happy, my happiness would be measured against the moments I have spent with you on this day, my friend of friends.”

“Bring me an unhappy man and show him this trip and I will show you a man who is no longer unhappy.”

“Hand me a hardboiled egg.”

And it was terrific. It was beautiful. It was exhilarating, scary, life-reinforcing, inspiring, majestic, and holy. It was all things any man could ask for. And yet there was something that it was not. It was not #6. It wasn’t how her hair looked in the morning or how her laugh brought joy to my heart; it wasn’t how she smiled at me or how she held my hand; it wasn’t how I felt when she came into the room.

I didn’t realize what it was not until we had stopped, washed off in our Stream of Love, and setup camp for the night. Not until we had eaten the worst (and last) packaged food we had ever tasted. Not until we went for a walk and stood silently in the great wilderness near the running water and observed the absolute stillness and bleak emptiness of the empty valley. Not until it was quiet and Ben had busied himself with some important and time-consuming task (such as hitting a chipmunk squarely in the tail with a pinecone thrown with his left hand). Not until I looked at the words in my book and realized that they no longer held any value for me. Not until I was sitting on a cold picnic table in the semi-darkness in the middle of the woods with my Heterosexual Life Partner did I realize what was missing. I was missing #6. My trip was supposed to be about finding her and here I went and did and then immediately abandoned my greatest discovery ever.

It was not a good feeling. It was hollowness; a sort of fear; a self-loathing. For here I was, on the brink of five weeks of what was supposed to be the greatest trip in my life, and all I wanted was to be back in a tiny little condominium in suburban Issaquah. I looked over at Ben, who was giggling foolishly after having recently scored a scathing strike on the chipmunk that had unzipped my bag and chewed a portion of our last piece of fruit, and realized that this was something I could not tell him. I could not bear to see his face. I turned away.

But Ben knew. Ben always knows. And I knew he knowed. It’s just that I didn’t want to have to admit it. I wanted to give myself some time — maybe I would come around. Maybe I wouldn’t look at this trip like the prison sentence it had become that night. And, besides, #6 had agreed to come and see us the very next night, Friday, and camp with us at Mount Rainier for the weekend. How bad could it be? How could I, having just seen her that very morning, less than twelve hours prior, all the while knowing I would see her tomorrow night, be feeling so entirely unsettled? How could I, having rationalized myself into a corner about what a bad idea it was to start a relationship with a lady so far away, be having any regrets about what I was doing?

And yet: I was.

And this is the ineluctable modality of the kiss.

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