Camp @ MindSay

Well Sam,

a year ago today the world lost an amazing person.  It's hard for me to believe that it's been 3 summers since you and I met and worked together.  It was only that one summer you were in my life, but what it lacked in length, it made up for in volume.  Working so closely with you was amazing; I was the newbie, the weird New York girl who didn't know a soul and was pawned off on you to tame the rowdy CITs, and instead of leaving me out and only talking to your close friends, you welcomed me in with your warm smile and those beautiful blue eyes and helped me have a great summer in this new setting.  I've worked there for 4 summers now, and none have compared to the one you and I spent together.  They've all been missing something, and I know for a fact a large part of it is you.

I can't believe how many times you've been with me since you've departed the Earth, Sammy.  How did I get so blessed to still get to feel you near me, when I knew you for such a short period of time and other people (like your sister, or high school friends) had you for as many as 18 years? There wasn't a single day the last 12 months that you weren't on my mind, and so many instances that I could feel you around me, so near like we were sweeping the pavement side-by-side and I could see your pitstains :), that tears would well in my eyes when I realized you weren't.

-- Every time I see someone diving off the board at the pool, I don't see them, I see you.  I see your energy and your SCHS tat and I see the feeling I used to get watching you in your element.  Even the bad dives and jumps and flops make me smile in your memory, Superman.  Always incredible.
-- Or when I see someone balancing something on their hand, I think of your ridiculous skill in this area, and your even more ridiculous lie about being an ex-circus performer.  'Til the end of my days, I promise not to forget your tricks for how to balance "anything".
-- Suffices to say, I can't listen to most country music without thinking of you.  The radio plays an awful lot of Dierks Bentley and Kenny Chesney and Garth Brooks, and I know you have something to do with it, Mr. Sly.  When those songs come on, I close my eyes (unless I'm behind the wheel), and I envision you sitting in the seat on the bus on the way to the D.A.R. for our lake day.  Absolutely blissful.  Of course, Anna Molly by Incubus will always make me think of you, too.  I promise you that.
-- I still HATE Napoleon Dynamite, but I also still quote certain bits of it, like "Do the chickens have large talons?!?" and, "You got like THREE feet of air that time".  Just for you.  Your impressions were dead-on, much better than mine, but I'm doing the best I can.
-- River rafting will always make me think of you.  And your crazy shoe collection!  "These are my river shoes...these are my hiking shoes ... these are my golfing shoes...".  NERD.  I STILL just have one pair of general sneakers that I use for everything, thank you very much...but I miss getting to compare them with you nonetheless.
-- Taking hikes in the woods makes me think of you, my little forester.  I miss you stopping walking on the trails and letting the kids go ahead while I brought up the rear so you could show me different plants I could eat; I would love some wild cucumbers if you get a chance, Sam.  They were delicious.  I'll be on the lookout for Jewelweed, and I forgive you for letting me walk through that patch of poision ivy and then jogging up to me to say, "hey Emily, that was poison ivy youjust went through".  Still think you could have stopped me before it happened, but... big picture.
-- I went for a walk with my co-teacher and aide and student in June, Sam, and she took us through 'The Purple Forest', so of course, I thought of you, and actually cried quietly on the trail as we walked along.  If I give in, if I pretend the trees look slightly purple and end that ridiculous argument, will you come back to us? 

**If you just sat through reading me type through my tears, you're brave.  But now you also owe me.  You have to go to at least one person who means this much to you as he did to me...and tell them.  Before it's too late.  Because I can write this as much as I want, and mean it as much as I do, but he's still gone.  Unless there really is a listening section in Heaven, he'll never know.  And I hate it.

               I'm calling it now, the rumor of the summer is going to be, “Emily peed her pants!”.  Today after swimming for a bit, one of my campers was blue in the face, covered in goosebumps, and chattering audibly.  I wrapped her in her towel, but not all that helpful.  So I sat her on my lap to try to warm her up a bit.  Worked a little, but I still made her wear my sweatshirt for awhile.  Finally time to stand up to go leave the pool, and though I had purposefully sat her forward more on my lap to avoid it, HUGE wet stain all over my body, including a giant one around my crotch so it really did look like I hadn’t made it to the bathroom in time…and that I’d been holding back Lake Niagara when I exploded.  Amazingly hilarious; I mean, embarrassing too, and not comfortable to walk around in jeans that are clinging to you awkwardly, but it was perfect.  Today was yucky weather wise, and we all needed something to joke around about.  This was it.
             ...or DID I accidently accident myself today?  I mean, I'm 24 now; control's not what it used to be :-P.

Most of this'll be adventures from the different activities. There's a lot more that happens at Camp, but most of the spiritual aspects are more personal than I can share here.

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Last week, we had tornadoes. This week, we had three different days where the temp enthusiastically left 90 in the dust with high humidity. On one of them, there was actually a heat advisory issued. Our response was to close the ropes course for the day. I drank five liters of water.

The first of those three days, we took ALL the girls tubing. The guys did archery and high ropes, or something.
 
The second, we converted our afternoon plans into a giant impromptu water game. Very fun, and possibly ended up being the very beginningest of beginnings between me and another counselor.

Wednesday was okay, because there'd been a thunderstorm earlier that day. There's something in me that really wants to see what a thunderstorm would look like when the temp's 112.

Thursday, we just decided that we were tired of complaining about the heat, slapped on extra sunscreen, drank more water, and pretty much ignored it.

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Every week, there's a different speaker. We refer to each of them as, "Pastor [firstname]," whether they're actually pastors outside of Camp or not. This week, we had Pastor Heath. Nice guy, has the ability to hold the kids' attention because he's both very real, and will unexpectedly say some very funny things. For the most part, he's pretty serious, and when he does say something entertaining, it's in exactly the same delivery.

The kids kept pestering him to scrap his teaching for one night or morning and do stand-up comedy instead. He informed them that if he did a half-hour comedy routine, there would be about three minutes worth of funny material in that half hour. Claims he just can't be funny.

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One of my favorite shirts is a raspberry-colored tie-dye tank top. This is relevant to this one. At the moment, it's entirely Camp-appropriate, though if I wear it for too many more games of British Bulldog, it'll be good for a sleep shirt and nothing else. But, we played Capture-the-Flag, Monday night.

I don't know how you play Capture-the-Flag. I know I've always loved the game. I'm pretty sure that, back in the day, I used to be one of the adventurous people who was always looking for the flag on the other side, and spent a lot of time getting hauled in and out of jail. Yeah, I don't do that anymore. I'm now kind of a wandering guard. It's fun.

Pastor Heath called to me later that night, in the parking lot after the game. "Phirefly, do you have, like, jets in your feet?"
I laughed. "Why?"
Pastor Heath was one of the most determined players from the other side, but we'd placed a decoy, were guarding that, and that's where all of his efforts had been determined. I'd made a token effort for chasing people away from it, but I was mostly flying in and out around the jail, picking off would-be rescuers.
"Because I'd see this kid, running just all-out," he gestures, "running for all he's worth...and then I would see this pink blur, closing in behind him, and he'd go down."
I laughed.

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I had one girl who was shy. When her sponsor dropped me off in the cabin, she took me aside and whispered, "She's very shy." When Toast (my co-counselor) was helping the girl's other sponsor carry her bags in, he said, "Well, just kind of keep an eye on her. She's really shy." Mango, who was helping out with registration, came up to me while we were hanging out with the kids playing four-square, tetherball, carpetball, that area, and said, "I don't know if you know this, but one of your campers, her sponsor told me that she's really shy."

Okay then.

Tuesday night after chapel, she came up to me and wanted to talk. She wanted to know how you live your life for God, going beyond the accepting Christ in the moment, and actually living for him. Startlingly mature, I was impressed that she grasped that, since it hadn't been talked about that week. We chatted for about an hour, she was very down on herself, and at some point she asked me about what I was like when I was younger.

Interesting coincidence, but as a kid and young teen, I was not only shy, but absolutely awkward. I had teachers who were concerned about my development, because I shone in my classes, but as soon as recess let out, I would book it for the edge of the field, away from all the other kids, and spend the whole time out there, walking along and singing to myself. They took away my books at recess. I loved reading, didn't know how to interact with people. I read more than I talked.

I am not shy now. This girl looked at me in stunned shock when I mentioned that. My kids will get some very entertaining notions about who I was before camp, or what my outside life is like, but I haven't ever had one say, "I bet you used to be super-shy before you came here."

The cool part was when we talked about the notion of God's plan, and how she fit into it. About a quarter of the kids at Camp are somehow "at risk" or "high needs" in one way or another, which can often mean that they just come from a pretty messed-up home. Unless they really act out a lot, or we get something mentioning it in their paperwork, we don't really know. Turns out that her family's not exactly a supportive one, and she's got this rather trashed notion of her own self-worth. Hearing that God not only cared about her, but knew that she was going to be here, wanted her, and had a purpose in mind for her life that no one else could fill in on...she pretty much threw herself into my shoulder and started to cry.

And something drastically altered. Because up to that point, I would have agreed with her sponsors. This girl gave the impression that she wanted to hang out with the other girls in our cabin, but was afraid to. She picked the bunk right over mine, which campers never do. Various other things, just indicated that she didn't connect with people very well.

After chapel that night, we had a split Night Game, Gopher Ball and Nukum (volleyball catch). She was not only engaged, she was pretty much leading the team in Nukum. She was laughing with the other girls. She was having fun. And she didn't sink into the sand the one time she went out, just came over to the side and talked a little bit with the other girls. The rest of the week was like that - she was actually engaging with the other girls. Complete switch.

Way cool to see.

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Normally, the girls' cabins are kept cleaner and smell much better than the guys' cabins. I had a novel experience this week. And that's about all I'll say about that one.

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Once a week, we have a short five/six-mile canoe trip. The kids have the option to sign up for it, since it involves skipping all other activities for the afternoon. Of the four counselors who went this week, I was the only girl. I did get to know two of the guys better, and got some inkling of just how cool they are.*

The reason this trip takes all afternoon is because, a) campers do not know how to control, or in some cases, power, a canoe, and b) we stop about every two miles to go swimming. Great trip. There's one point that's just a big sandy dune, with a strong current running alongside it. We pull up on the opposite side, the four of us work out encouraging the kids to swim across (Tails times who's going when, Juice Box catches them on the other side, Splat catches them if they get carried too far, and I swim with the ones who can't make it on their own). And then we climb this great sandy cliff. This is a challenge, but it's great, because you can go as high as you want, and then you go leaping and bounding down into the river, where it's deep.

Surprise to no one, nobody remembered that if you go swimming, you have to reapply sunscreen, even if its waterproof. The three of us counselors are rather put out with Juice Box, because he seems to possess that special trait - if you're a lifeguard, you don't actually sunburn. Splat and I were pretty much magenta (we're both of Irish descent, and you can see it as soon as you look at us), Tails' arms were pretty bad. Juice Box has this tattoo of a cross between his shoulderblades, and we were thinking it would look cool on a pink background. Nada. Stupid lifeguard. :)

It was a great trip, though.

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*That ties in well. Almost no staff left Camp Friday night, since we all had to work Saturday's festival. So, we went bowling in town instead. Pretty fun. I tanked, which is normal, because I seem to require a warm-up game every time I go bowling. But, after we got back to camp, about five of us were sitting in the staff lounge, talking about how guys and girls communicate. Very informative.

I love the guys on staff. I'm not looking for a relationship at all, not right now. These guys are my brothers. And both Leaf and I mentioned that night that we're more relaxed around people of the opposite sex when we know that they're not trying to date us. Girls are just fun to be friends with. Guys are awesome to talk to and compete with.

On the subject of competition. We had three head injuries in one night. I was one of them. Oops.

We have this game. The nurses hate it, the campers love it. British Bulldog. It's like "Octopus" with a lot more potential for injuries. I was immensely proud to be one of the last three free on the field for the first game (in the last round, all three of us did go down, but it took about ten people on each of us to achieve victory). Then Vertigo informs me that this means that I have to be one of the people in the middle. Well, monkeys.

So, I'm pursuing this kid. Boys are more fun to try to take down than girls, because you have to be very careful with the girls. They break. Boys aren't quite as breakable. So, I'm pursuing a kid who's just swung back around, trying to elude me. I can tell you that I never saw Nick, who was hot on the trail of some small girl. By astonishing coincidence, Nick never saw me.

(Nick's an SIT this week. They're a cross between campers and staff, but for all legal purposes, they are most definitely campers).

My campers thought I was dead.

Really. I got back to my cabin later that night (they wouldn't let me walk up the hill), and as soon as I came in, there's a flurry of nightgowns and pajama pants down from the loft, and I'm tackled up against the door I just closed. "Phirefly! We thought you died!!"

I remember the collision fairly decently. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing something right before it hit my head, but I didn't have time to ID it. I remember that the jolt was hard enough that I lost all vision, but as I informed my girls several times, I did not pass out. I went down hard, and was lying without moving on the field. I was not unconscious. I was in pain, and the pain was overloading my brain so that I could hear things around me, but couldn't actually focus enough to do anything, or open my eyes.

The first person to me was Rockstar, one of our former lifeguards. I had my eyes closed, so I thought it was Leaf or Tails. Toast had run for ice, Tails had run for the nurse*. Splat (paintball instructor) is a former EMT and Star Scout who knows way too much about anything to be 21, but he's got my head and is watching my eyes. Pele, with his soccer career, has had a concussion or two in his life, and has my other side, and is also watching intently.

Toast was the only girl on that list (camp names, I realize, are mostly asexual). I have no idea where the rest of the female staff went, unless they were all checking on Nick. I remember having a bunch of people clustered around me, and that with my eyes closed, I was saying something authoritative to the effect of, "If any of you are my campers, get back with the rest of your cabin!" I had a grin at the time. I was hurting, but I wanted to play more. Vertigo wouldn't let me.

For some reason, at the most random and often worst possible moments, my sense of humor decides that it's time to come out and play. I have a possible concussion, and I spend the whole time cracking jokes. Splat kept commenting, whenever the nurse asked about how I was feeling, "Well, there's no attitude change." :)

This was definitely a case of, "You should see the other guy." I came out of it with a nice goose egg, very slight discoloration, and my co-counselor had to wake me up every two hours that night (my sympathy and applause go out to her for this). Nick came out with the beginnings of a good shiner, and half his face bruised up and misshapen. He's generally okay, just looks terrible.

_{*Tails is absolutely great to have around Camp, because he's always looking on the bright side, and always has a smile. The single downside to this is when he comes up to the nurse with his usual smile, and says, "Hey, we need you on the field," because she thought it was an invitation to come play. He had to insist, "No, we need you right now."}

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There was more. There's always more. It's Camp. But, I racked up quite the sleep debt this week, and need to get to bed.

Evidently exhaustion is only half of it.

My campers rock, btw. They like to get up at five a.m. Sunday night, I told them that anyone who got up before me and Starfish (my junior counselor) had to shower first, and help clean the cabin second. That was a mistake on my part. Admittedly, our cabin took the lead in points that day, because our cabin practically glowed, but Starfish and I were shot for the day. Monday night, I told them that they could wake up whatever time they wanted, but nobody could get out of bed or talk before 6 a.m.

 One of my girls this week is from Russia, and enjoys into the night games. It made me laugh to hear, last night, "Vahn, two, fhree, Breetish Boolldog!!" :D

But, there is a bit of sickness going around the Camp. The good news is that, so far, it's only striking the staff - the campers are fine. Unfortunately, it's striking the staff pretty hard. Cheez and Leaf were ordered home this morning (with face masks, numerous symptoms, and fevers of 104), and in the nurse's opinion, should have gone home last night. I was supposed to be subbing for Cheez, for his Skills Track, which I'll explain in a sec. One of my campers had morning meds, so I took her to the nurse, and on a whim, asked her if she could check my temperature while I was there.

Turns out that I'm a tenth of a degree shy of being ordered home myself. Hmm. I knew that I hadn't been doing so great for at least the last day or two, but I didn't know that it was this bad. I headed off at this point to have a chat with Parks.

Parks is the coordinator for everything to do with overnight camp, which includes Skills Tracks. This is a more organized activity that the kids sign up for - they pick one or two at registration, and spend their mornings working on just those, which progress in difficulty as the week goes on. Sunday, they surprised me with, "Hey Phirefly! How do you feel about doing the Nature Skills Track?" Me, surprised, "Surrre! Why not?"

I haven't led a Skills Track at all before, and I've had absolutely nothing to do with the Nature Track. In the past, I've been the assistant for the Ropes Course Skills Track. Rather different. I was informed that, when she was looking for someone to lead Nature, Parks thought I was the most qualified to do it. This is the part where Signscout starts laughing uproariously.

This morning, as soon as leadership let her know that she was losing her mountain boarding and archery instructors, Parks started scrambling to find subs. This ended up being entertaining, because it's a week where the programs that have the most kids are all off-campus. So, the staff that might normally be extras have all been pulled to fill in for these programs. There are no extras. We're actually short for a lot of afternoon activities this week. Parks ended up pulling the Sports Instructor to go do Mountain Boarding (a lesson I'm sorry to have missed, as Juice Box told Starfish and me over breakfast that he'd never seen a mountain board before), and I have no idea who covered Sports. There are about five staff certified for Archery, so, before breakfast is over, Parks grabs me and Splash. It is worked out that I will cover Archery, Splash will take my Nature class. Cool.

Until that point where it turns out that I'm really sick. Not yet ridiculously sick - evidently, if I'd made the call to keep teaching and counseling for the rest of the day, I would have hit the Cheez-Leaf fever tomorrow. This is irritating, as I'm supposed to be leading a canoe trip tomorrow. Blah. Parks orders me to bed until at least lunchtime, and sets about finding a sub for her sub.

The rest of the day passed in naps and hallucinations for me. At some point, Gopher, Thunder, and Stripes (my program director from last year, who's no longer at Camp) were in my room, or so I thought, arguing not about theology itself, but the origins of some part of theology. Doc showed up twice, and one time, he was my doctor and I was telling him that my baby wouldn't come. When my imagination is let off the leash, it gets going - I had a whole life that I'm sure nobody else knew about. Doc asked my birthday, and I told him, immediately, that it was five years earlier than he knew it was. He asked about my marriage (if anybody knows a Stephen Chisholm, evidently he's my husband, he was a kinesiology major and is now an instructor down at SCC, and we've been married two and a half years), and my past medical history (I was only four months pregnant, so I'm not sure why I was so concerned about the baby), and seemed to be trying to reason me back into reality.

No, the irony is not lost on me of a hallucination trying to use logic to get me back to reality. That's what Doc does.

I'm not sure which part was giving Doc more of a headache - the part where I had an extra five years in my memory that couldn't have happened (I had all the details, too - if you asked about how Stephen and I met, or our wedding, or anything about college, whatever - complete memory of five years that didn't ever happen), or the fact that he had a patient who was concerned because her baby "wouldn't come" when she was in her second trimester. Or the part where he had to convince a patient (as an RN, he was the highest medical authority present at Camp) that she wasn't pregnant at all.

I was hoping that by suppertime, I'd be fit and dandy to go back with my campers. It was not to be. I was very upset about this - to the point where Cubby, Twinks, and Splat each asked me what was wrong. I have since been sent home, described the Stephen Chisholm story to Santas (she says I need to go to bed), and am on my way to bed.

We'll see who comes by to visit this time.

Not a hallucination, but a dream, where the lobby of Signscout's hall was blended a bit with the construction of the cabins. I came in, and Signscout and Stryder are hanging out, just chilling, wearing identical mint-green suits. I have no idea why they're dressed this way, but the three of us end up having to fend off this...angry...Flubber...stuff that feeds off of people's emotions. If you get angry, there's more of it. If you get scared, it gets bigger. If you're a virgin and you scream at it, it gets blown apart into much smaller pieces, and has to take some time to regroup.

There was also a school bus somehow involved, but that stayed outside, and most of our fight was inside. Because Stryder was a dumbhead and opened up the window to get a better look at the Flubberstuff on the ground.

So, I was thinking, planning, expecting that the first time I'd see K (Doc) after the breakup would be Saturday night. I was planning on going to a show that night, and knew he'd be there. Signscout's had an influence on me that says that I have to dress up at least a little for shows. So, I knew I'd be acceptably pretty.

This is in sharp contrast to what I wear at Camp. I'm doing maintenance work, mostly. So, I have these terribly grungy (yet surprisingly sturdy and comfortable) ex-running shoes that have seen maybe three years of mowing lawns, staining wood, and who knows what else. They've possibly served as my river shoes a time or six when I couldn't find my real ones. And most of the time, I'm wearing jeans, because we're working in the woods or with materials that I don't want on my skin. Beat-up jeans, that fit terribly, have splashes of wood-stain on them, very unflattering, but again, very sturdy. During the school year, these jeans are set aside for when I'm working at the animal shelter, and nowhere else. They have outlasted all but one other pair of jeans I own.

For a change of pace, I know I'll be spending the day working in the store with London and her helpers. So, I have elected to wear shorts. I am of course blazingly tanless on my legs (in contrast to my face and arms), because I am of European descent, and we're definitely talking about the northwestern part of Europe. Also, I keep finding myself lacking time or energy to shave [1], so it's obvious that I haven't done THAT for about a week.

Discretion forbids a complete description of what I'm wearing, but suffice it to say, it is very clear that I am there to work, and maybe run, but not to flirt. I am also sunburned, my hair's doing craziness [2] so I'm keeping it together under my hat [3], and thanks to that splendid combination of sunscreen and sweat all week, I have a nice little breakout going on down one side of my face.

The guys at Camp don't care. For the most part, the personality seems to hit way before the appearance does. I'm another pair of hands, and it's just kind of a side note that I'm female. A few of the main staff guys are kind of fatherly towards me, as they have daughters of their own [4]. But I dress to work at Camp.

About a week ago, I'd had a chat with Muskie and Carebear about what happened with me and Doc. Everyone's usually both disappointed and baffled to hear that we broke up. Usually, it's enough for me to say, flippantly, "He decided that he didn't want to be a Christian anymore, so that pretty much put the kibosh on that relationship." From there, we can gauge the reactions of what needs explaining. Either people want to know, "What? What changed? Why wouldn't he.." etc., or "So? Why's that matter?"

So, I'm working in the store, London's out getting stock, I'm labeling DVD's and singing along with gospel penguins, and Muskie comes in. I didn't really think anything of the look on his face, but he says in a lower voice, "I just wanted to let you know, K's here, and he'll probably be staying for lunch."

If he had used K's camp name, this would have been fine. But I actually hadn't been thinking about my ex at all. I've been doing Camp work. Yesterday, in fact, this work involved clearing out some junk from one of the former Head Counselors offices, who coincidentally has the same first name as K. So, I lit up. "Seriously? Is [his wife] here?" And then it occurs to me, "Waiiit...did you mean, K as in Coach K, or K my ex." "Doc."

"Oh." *shrug* "Okay."

Muskie, I think, is very slightly protective of me. I do mean slightly - on the other end of the spectrum entirely from Rogue. But, no worries. We did see each other over lunch, and he admired the floor Skippy and I had laid earlier that week in the Craft Hall, and that was about it. Doc had a building project left over from last summer, and I think my big hope for the day was that he would finish it. It's taking up a lot of space in the old shop. It looks cool and all, and it's a good idea, but come on, let's get it done and get it out of there so we can use the space again. :P

But, yes, I am wearing the grunge shoes, the shorts that aren't particularly feminine but still reveal a complete absence of tan and razor for the last week, work clothes, and my hair's a mess. Not pretty. Hopefully my sparkling personality was enough to redeem that encounter. :)

_{[1]Really, most nights it's a huge effort just to take the time to shower at all before going to bed.
[2]See, when my hair's short, I have to shower in the morning to tame it down. If I shower at night, I get mad-crazy bedhead. It's probably very cute in its own disheveled way, but the hat is pretty much a constant.
[3]The hat is from Signscout. My hat is made of Awesome. I tell people this.
[4]Usually, it becomes very apparent when a guy has daughters. There's something different in his personality.}