Canoeing

Read this.  My eyes were open but I couldn't see a thing.  It was akin to the darkroom experience I had at home.  When I got nothing better to do, which was quite often--though my significant other definitely disagreed on this one, after I'd done washing dishes, taking out the garbage, recycles and doing the laundry, sometimes, I would get some black garbage bag and taped it up against a closet in the bathroom or down in the basement at night to make it light proof so I could get my film loaded into the developing tank.  I lined up my material and made sure I knew exactly where they were, film, scissors, reel, tank before I turned off the light.  But spooling the film onto the reel always got tricky when done in total darkness.  I didn't do this often enough so I remained pretty much a beginner all these years.  But overall, I didn't think I had any major screwed-up, even if I had I wouldn't tell you.  As much as I consider myself anal, somewhat and somewhat selectively perhaps, I didn't think I was anal or scientific enough when it came to the developing process.  Everything from dilution to shake (or inversion) to temperature to developing time was just "in the ballpark."  I never tried hard to control the variables, kind of "let it go."  It was the second night on our canoeing trip.  I was awake.  Acutely aware I was lying, essentially in the mud though inside a tent, somewhere along the Delaware Water Gap, breathing in and out the air that was heavy with moisture and smelled river, grass, mud and decays.  It wasn't pleasant like the romanticized nature people always made it to me.  It was just filth, though not the kind of filth like nuclear or chemical pollution that could actually kill you, slowly but surely.  This kind of nature dirt only disgusted and annoyed you and caused inconvenience, at least when you weren't in the "I just love nature" mood, which to me was almost all the time.  The ambient noise at night was just unbelievable as it was unbearable.  I could hear the river making all kinds of noise as it meandered interminably along; the wind stirring up the tree branches, the ruffling leaves and everything else in the air.  And all the nameless bugs were just merrily chirping all night long.  If only I had a mirror I would have seen in my own eyes how terrible I looked, unkempt hair, a stubbled face covered with oil that sure if scrapped off could fire an egg or two.  (Actually I looked like this all the time even on non-camping days.)  It was pitch dark even if I had a mirror I wouldn't be able to see myself.  I was just groping for my headlamp.  I was just excited to field test the headlamp so I could review it.  The whole point of buying stuff now was so I could review them, online.