“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along, with patience and equanimity.” Carl Jung

My mother will tell you she’s not much of a camper. Although to be fair, she’s had more outdoor experience than many. When I was very young, our family of four camped in travel trailers at state parks. Years later, when my brother and I were both out of college, she surprised us all by agreeing to a week-long, guided rafting trip on the Green River.

Given that she is more amenable to a hotel than a tent, I’ll never know what possessed my mom to volunteer for a Girl Scout camping trip to Disney’s Fort Wilderness when I was a pre-teen. To this day, we laugh while recounting the memory of her trapped in the back seat of our two-door, 1976 Pontiac Grand Prix sedan, knocking on the window for someone to let her out, because she couldn’t reach the door handle. She had chosen to sleep in the car rather than in a tent pitched on wet concrete. I can’t say that I blame her but at the tender age of 12, I’m sure I swore I would always be tough enough to choose the tent.

Forty-three years later, on a warm, rainy night in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I found myself simultaneously grumbling and laughing as I searched for inner patience and a comfortable way to stretch out in the back of my Jeep Grand Cherokee. On football weekends at The University of Alabama, we’ve discovered camping is the way to go. There’s no three-night minimum for a room and we avoid the post-game, two-hour wait for a table at a local restaurant. With a quality set of camping gear, one can experience all the comforts of home – except when it’s raining and the tent leaks.

It wasn’t our first time pitching a tent in the blinding rain, but never had we noticed all those little pools of water on the inside. Lynn dried out the tent in hopes the water had dripped in during set up. We took our daughter to dinner, fingers crossed, when we returned our tent would still be dry. Of course, it wasn’t, and that’s how we found ourselves at 10 p.m., lowering the seat, cracking a window for ventilation, stuffing our dry bags into the front seat, and inflating our air mattresses in the back of the SUV. When morning arrived and Lynn pressed the button to lift the hatch, we realized we were trapped – just like my mom in the back of her Grand Prix. Laughing at the memory and the similarity, I located my keys, and opened the door with the remote, revealing sweet, dry morning air.

Admittedly, at the time of the debacle, after a long week of work, it was a bit difficult to be cheery, and as Carl Jung said, “take things as they come along, with patience and equanimity.” However, it didn’t take long to realize, for us, this was one, slightly cramped night in the car. A tiny sliver of darkness in what is otherwise a very comfortable life. Sleeping in a stuffy vehicle made me appreciate the concept that, every now and then, even if it’s unexpected, it’s good to challenge one’s balance.

Certainly, it makes choosing the tent, pitched on dry ground, look that much better. I think my mom would agree.

Note: Later that morning we noticed little flecks of plastic on the tent’s screen and realized the seams on the rain fly were disintegrating, causing the tent to leak. The manufacturer has since replaced the tent for free. We hope the next camping trip finds us sleeping inside a dry tent, even in a rainstorm.