Written, as per usual, in nostalgic contemplation by Keaton Shaffer | Norman, Oklahoma

It rained violently as we drove through Lawton. I did not even want to go, and yet I was driving, propelling myself into the unknown. It was late October and we were headed toward Copper Breaks State Park, very near the Oklahoma-Texas border. 

I’m reminded of that biblical disaster as I look out on a gloomy morning in Norman. It could be worse. Much worse.

The weekend before had been utterly beautiful; we expected the following weekend to be similarly hospitable. As Lawton was washed away, I began to examine those expectations. Still, I beat on. 

Very rarely do we happy campers make it through a whole trip not subject to some precipitation. It rained during my first ever camping trip, when my brother and I played cards with Dad under a four-legged tent. It rained when Dad and I first went to Colorado… and every subsequent time. Really, it always rains. 

And that's okay, actually. As English professors have instilled in me for as long as I can remember, rain is purposeful. Rainfall touching down on a character is nearly always a symbolic baptism — a moment of great change or a turn in the story. In nature, I get philosophical and often consider this metaphor. 

The Lawton rain was not a baptism. It was a beatdown.

I was concerned about leaving town for the weekend. Although I knew my procrastinatory practices would've likely delayed them anyway, something about being unable  to work toward the next week’s deadlines lit up some anxieties in me. 

Despite that, I locked in my attendance by becoming the driver (I’m very often the driver. It’s linked to that anxiety thing). It was as the driver I learned we weren't headed an hour to the Turner Falls area I’d driven past a hundred times between here and Dallas, but three hours up the rising slope adjacent to the Texas Panhandle to get to Copper Breaks. 

Both of those realities were reinforced upon me with every raindrop vibrating my windshield.

Perhaps by appeasing an angry God through the worship of His sunset, which appeared as an orange, shimmering lake on the West Texas horizon, the rain let up and was replaced with a new Herculean Labor upon our arrival.

It was dark. Not like Norman or Dallas dark. Jack, our guide, had specifically selected Copper Breaks because, or so he told us, it was the best scene for stargazing in the state of Texas. 

As we scrambled inky park roads in search of our campsite, aided by dollar store flashlights directed from front seats, I understood why stargazing might be so fruitful there. We were among the stars ourselves. 

Houston eventually gave us the all-clear. We landed and began setting up our gear. The four young men I embarked on the journey with were pretty experienced campers — certainly not beginners — but we also were not nearly as prepared as we should have been. One didn't even bring a chair. 

We relied heavily on “fire-starter gel” and spent a while bartering with the darkness for kindling. We did get a flame going, however, which facilitated collecting plenty of mostly-dry wood and getting the tent up. We pulled the picnic table toward the fire to be our fifth chair. 

We home-d up the primitive campsite alright. Preston, our shaman, flipped some cheeseburgers. I brought my guitar, which we tooled around with. We goofed and limited our profanities as we watched a massive campsite of Boy Scouts move in next to us. 

The conversation was real, but not deep. We put our phones away and became humans again to one another, but we did not touch on the origins of the universe, or so my memory serves. 

By the early morning, I was a wakeful dreamer, ready for bed. I opted to sleep in my car rather than pile into the tent with the four, who I’m told split a bottle of cabernet sauvignon after I left them. Seemed salacious to me, but perhaps the company of four wine-drunk men would have been more comfortable than the trunk I rolled around in for the next several hours. 

When I awoke, I saw Copper Breaks for the first time. Texas is not as pretty as Colorado, New Mexico nor other mountainous regions of the country, but it being my home, there is a certain nostalgia (which defines me perhaps as much as the anxiety) that I cannot escape when there. 

The others beat me to consciousness. Perhaps the trunk really was more comfortable than the tent. They were making pastries on the relit fire. 

My spine was tormented by the roughhousing it endured all night in my Toyota. I desperately wished I had shaved the day before. The flies swarming the campsite, probably because I smelt of mildew from the rain and campfire from the — well, of course — were an absolute nuisance. 

But the pastry was phenomenal although somewhat singed. And the warm fire on an October morning made me feel alright. 

(A footnote I must add here: the morning fire is an underrated aspect of camping, and if you’ve never experienced it, it may change, for you, life, the universe and everything).

I may have even further tooled around on the guitar, I don’t recall. I was starting to forget about the business I would have to return to. 

And if that was the trip, it would have gone down as a pleasant memory. But, too, as those professors instilled in me, pleasant memories don't make great stories. 

Soon after the breakfast, our guide departed. Jack had to return home quickly to attend to some business, the particulars of which escape me. Although we were sad to see him go, we understood. He got in his car, which had also endured the rain and delivered him and Preston to the park, and returned home. 

Following Jack’s departure, we packed up the site and loaded my car, which thankfully fit our gear better than it had me. But I wasn't ready to leave yet. We needed one final adventure, I thought, to make this journey worth it. 

So we drove further into the park where we found the lake and what I believe was the only hiking trail. The shaman requested time to sit by the lake and further ponder his works, which we obliged and pursued the hike as three. My roommates, the troubadour and the scribe, took me on a mile-long pursuit of what we had yet to see from Copper Breaks.

We summited Copper Breaks and documented our accomplishment in photos, regardless of our disheveled appearances. At the midpoint of the hike, we could see Preston, sedentary adjacent to lapping waves.

At the bottom of the mountain, we celebrated a trip well spent. I sat in the car, with which I had made up after our argument the night before, while the two went to grab Preston. 

They were taking a while, so I started the smelly, packed Toyota and drove to see if I could pick them up off the shoreline. When I did, I saw them standing by the water, past a jetty. While we may have been through with the trip, it seemed we were not yet through with the journey.

I returned my car to the parking lot, grabbed a few supplies, and walked to meet them. 

At the shoreline, I looked over Lake Copper Breaks. A chilled October breeze meandered tellingly. I looked at my friends, the journeymen they are. 

The rising action had all played out. I had refused the call, undergone the tests and trails, and crossed the threshold. I remembered the wisdom my guide had left me with — “I have to go, but take your time, explore the park, and I’ll see you at home” — and I knew I had to return with the elixir. 

Therefore, I undressed. 

And as we ran off into the lake water, I cheered at the top of my lungs. With my voice, I hoped to reach my friends, the whole of Copper Breaks, and the stars we had supposedly only now really seen. Over and over, “YES! WOO! HELL YEAH!” My fellow travelers followed suit, and for a moment, my life felt like the climax of one of those great stories. 

The reason I cheered as I did was two-fold. One, it was not exactly a super refreshing dip. It was an October morning and I was in lake water. I needed to distract myself from the pseudo-cold plunge. 

But two, was that I knew I needed to do something I had never done to complete the story. I needed to let the life I had back home, with its deadlines and commitments, take a back seat. 

I needed my friends, for a moment, not to see the careful, anxiety-prompted character I had written for myself, but instead a true, visceral, moment-to-moment reaction to stimulus like the information-coded, reproducing organism I am. 

As I treaded increasingly comfortable waters, I laughed and dunked my head and cleaned off the layers of stink. 

Now, I sit in a coffee shop back in Norman, writing this while a timid sun pokes through rainclouds to Charles Bradley’s “Changes.” The rain was really the inciting incident. The baptism came later. Those damn English teachers know their stuff!

Suffice it to say, we took our time on the way home. It was a much clearer day. 

Life is more fun as a narrative. We’re all artists. Pick your climaxes. Write your story. 

PHOTO: Jack McCarty