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Constantly Camping, or, Tending to Sophia

Less Is More | Smith Mountain Lake, VA | 2018

Our philosophy is simple and was conceived when we decided to move from Manhattan to Lynchburg. As y'all know, we've been in the LYH for over three years now, so our darling progeny, albeit moody, is battle tested and confident. Today, on Thursday, May 28th, we would like to formally introduce you to our sixth jellybean, Sophia. And for the sake of clarity, Sophie is a concept not an edible. And yes, we are hippies, and proud of it. Peace, man. Dee is my partner. When I say we, I am talking about the two of us. Dee asked me how we would go about actually introducing the Sophster to our pals. I asked on top of her ask, how about a blog post?! She was like, well, okay, but since your blogs tend to be, respectfully, esoteric, maybe we can give them a for instance, you know? I being the coffee maker in the family, and Dee being otherwise everything else, happily responded with a hearty Truce Lee! who is our second born jellybean and often invoked to quell a possibly uncomfortable confrontation that might morph into an awkward silence. For instance, in relation to Sophy not Truce, we enjoy the legume. Lately we've been buying the red kidneys in a 40oz tin. We add onions, garlic, and curry and serve them with brown basmati and avocados with generous heaps of cilantro and lime. Yum, especially with a legit pour of cabernet. Remember back in the 70s? I'm talking to our fellow tie-dyers now. Electric can openers? Hell yeah. Nothing brings me back to California sunshine and redwood hot tubs more than an electric can opener. But we don't have one. We don't even have one of those cheap ass manual twisty doodads. Nah. We use one of the blades on our multitool, which in our case is a stainless steel, fits in your pocket, built to last, Leatherman. The can opener blade is a tried-and-true classic. It takes approximately 50 punches of the blade to open a 40oz tin of beans. Using the blade slows one down, focuses the mind, makes you appreciate the simple things in life like shelter and water and affection. In the 70s, my Uncle introduced me to backpacking. Everything you needed you carried on your back, or in the case of affection, in your heart. Tent, sleeping bag, canteen, gorp, sterno, a blade. Paring down your existence is good yoga. Less is more. So the concept of Sophia might have manifested in the distance between Manhattan and Lynchburg, but the idea of constantly camping has been a grounding influence for us hippies since, at the very least, the rise of the disco ball.