Downtown Jackson, Georgia
The Marinade was approved to cover the Bonnaroo music festival in Manchester, TN this year. This is Jason’s Journal documenting the experience, part 1 of 4.
Georgia seems to be conspiring against me getting to Bonnaroo. Just across the Georgia line and the tornado warnings are beginning. My first attempt to find shelter is an abandoned gas station that appears to have served as a home for the unhoused. Broken windows reveal a sad menagerie of furniture. There are four of us executing this ill-fated plan.
A rest stop relocation and thirty minutes of wait time lets the weather clear enough to keep driving. High Falls State Park is home for the night. Marinade Twitter came through with the suggestion. It is a beautiful slice of North Georgia. I am the only tent camper and due to the tornadoes I’m late setting up camp.
A family moving at the pace of zombies in a horror film passes by on my way to the campground. When you live with generalized anxiety, and are experiencing a heightened bout, the innocuous can be viewed as threatening. There are maybe a dozen of them staying in a two-campground wide compound just down the row from me. As I set up camp it feels like I am on display. Members of the zombie party passing by at an unsettling, disorienting clip.
Anxiety has not left me alone of late. Its specter is constant, but usually I know how to keep the worst of it at bay. Not so in the days leading up to Bonnaroo.
Setting up camp is a breeze. I head to the Dollar General on the hill for a few last second supplies- water and toilet paper just in case. The weather has calmed but is still threatening. Fireflies dance, taking me back to childhood in Kentucky.
It is muggy and I’m beat. There is a bottle of Spanish wine in the car that would normally call my name but not tonight. I need sleep in the worst way.
My fitful rest is disrupted by a flash and loud crackling. I can hear something falling above me and cover my head for protection. The thud shakes the tent. I peek out of the half zipped tent entrance and see two zombie partiers strolling by as if nothing has happened. Deep breaths to get my bearings. The ground outside my tent is littered with splinters of the lightning struck tree towering overhead.
This is where anxiety is such a bear. Did the zombie family have something to do with this? It’s not raining. There’s no thunder. How the fuck did lightning make its way through the pines and hit just above my tent?
I get out to survey the damage and use the restroom. What seems like a near death experience to me goes unnoticed by the rest of the campground. Should I sleep in the car? Maybe it’s best to just break camp and get on down the road.
Tossing and turning some more leads to a bit of rest just before daylight. Tent camping plays tricks on the mind, less so in a state park than the back country but it’s still wild. Any noise can sound like a threat, and it might just be that.
Four hours later the sound of falling branches is repeating, this time resulting in a strike on the top of my tent. Now is the time to break camp. The sun is peeking out and I’m sick of this place.