Post date: Apr 10, 2017 12:00:48 AM
I'm not gonna lie, I read ahead since this week might kill me so spoilers ahead (kinda). I rather disliked the Decameron until day ten's ninth story. Then, I started to like the characters and the atmosphere they were creating. I hated the ending of them returning to Florence 15 days after they had left since it made no sense to me, seeing as they were trying to avoid the plague and melancholy. It seemed ludicrous to leave the safety and tranquility of the gardens to return to the uncertainty of the cities.
Then, I realized what they were doing. It's something that we even today do. They went camping. I'm not talking about the roughing it camping where you get lost in the forest for a month and live off of squirrels and get chased by bears or the camping where you can still be connected to the outside world via a television and private bathroom with running water, I'm talking about the kind where you bring a pop up, with a stove and comfy beds, where you bring your family and a nice radio, where their are public restrooms and squirrels that eat peanuts out of your hands, where every night is accompanied by a flickering fire and reminiscing and storytelling until 3 AM when the ranger comes to yell at you (again). That kind of camping. The camping that relaxes you, where you don't have to do anything but read or sleep or play cards under the shade of trees. Where you forget what day it is, but the radio will always play music from the fine arts camp across the street.
We camp like this in order to rejuvenate ourselves to be able to withstand the chaos of adult life, of American life. Camping is the truest form of vacation because it's a voluntary removal of oneself from the bustling city into the tamed wilderness. You bond with people and become different people, with different morals and goals and personalities than the ones that society expects and demands from you. The men and women who go out into the gardens away from the cities never intended to live out there, nor do they want to. As Panfilo says, " to prevent an overly practiced custom from turning into boredom as well as to prevent anyone from criticizing our having stayed here too long... I now think it proper... we return to the place from where we came" (799). As anyone who's had a too long vacation knows, your fellow travelers get really annoying after a couple of weeks of nonstop company.
And that's the kicker. We always must give up the guise of peace, the illusion of timelessness and face the world head on. We have to take what we have learned and apply it to our actual lives. We can't stay camping forever, we can't stay in Narnia forever. We must return home and actually live instead of pretending to live through stories and pastoral peace.
*From "On the Loose"