Are you ever too old for camp? I mean, I’m four months away from being 18 and I still head to the summer camp I’ve been going to ever since I was 8. And I’m probably going to go back next summer. And the year after that. And maybe, just maybe, the year after that…
The thing about my summer camp, Raquette Lake, is that once you step foot off the bus, see the dancing diamonds sparkle on the lake… Honey, you’re home. The dancing diamonds are the shimmering sparkles you see at the flagpole at 8 in the morning. They are what you look out onto and are baffled that what you are seeing is real, and not a picture.
I’ve always been a camper, never a counselor. Campers have the whole camp revolve around them; activities, banquets, campfires. It’s a time of opportunity; at Raquette Lake Girls camp, you are careless in the way that you act but heavy in your heart that’s full of the care you have for the place around you. As a counselor, every action you make is critical. One bad move and you’re out. If you don’t think so, feel free to watch the hour-long insurance video that freaked me out for the entirety of the summer.
I had 12 kids, all 10 years old. I was once told by a friend that 10-year-olds can either be a dream or a nightmare, easy to work with or intolerant of instructions. It was probably a mixture of both. They definitely were a challenging bunch, but being a counselor was a weirder concept than I initially took in: their lives were in our hands. There were definitely more than a few instances where threatening situations happened that were put on my shoulders.
Being a high school student, I feel almost like a camper in the sense that I have teachers looking out for me] as well as the fortunate support and tools that I need. Being at camp, I was hit by a strong wave of independence that almost knocked me out at first. Yes, I was 17, but I was taking care of these kids in substitute for their parents, which is pretty amazing yet hard to grapple with.
Heading into school and back into all the work I have to do, I desperately miss camp. I miss taking a hot shower after jumping into the lake with my campers. I miss days off, when we’d opt to do something wild like cliff jumping or something more serene like watching Oppenheimer (although I don’t know if “serene” is the best adjective to describe that movie). I miss the people that I grew deeper connections with, even the ones you would never expect. But I also just really miss the place and the relaxation it provided me with; it was almost like medicine in the way it made my bones and minds at total ease.
Well, I guess the countdown is just beginning; about 290 more days to go!
