Memory Of Camp

-'kay, I was thinking that I'd like this board to be a little more camp-oriented. That's why I put SongsOfCamp in the PoetryPick. I know I already created a forum for memories but I thought I'd make another one for camp specific memories... such as what we did on the listserv after first session '99 ~Eire

i remember her hair still fresh full of dye, his paintings, her poetry, our cups of tea on the sofa, my first fling, my last kiss, hugs that make me fall over, food power shuffles so entence i cant see anything through my tears yet i can still cross on my same scary shit and have people on the other side cair. i miss who i was and the way people say how rad my poetry is. i miss heather because i'll never meet her

I remember a feeling. Not an incident, just a feeling. It was a feeling of being totally included, and loved by everyone... even people who didn't know me. A feeling of being accepted, and understood. Feeling like people would stand by me no matter what, be my friends forever. Now I feel so alone and so disconnected, but I'm not as open as I used to be so maybe I shouldn't go back to camp. Maybe no one would bother to work hard enough, to work through the barrier of indifference I've put up around myself. But I want to see if they would, or if I would love and accept them. I miss camp '99, where I felt complete. I miss that memory.

~Eire , Feb. 2001

I remember a huddle with Rosie and April, sitting out in the middle of the lawn with our arms around each other, just talking and giggling and looking at the other campers. It probably looked like one of those typical summer-camp girl moments, but it was really close and special to me. Later, Rosie and I went for a walk around Lost Valley, and we talked and scruffed our feet in the gravel while the midday sun shone down on us. ~Eire

Three little sobby tubby rummers on the next to last night of camp... We followed Corale out into the field and sat with her and listened and we each shared and cried and freaked out and hugged eachother and felt special and needed, I think. Then we fell asleep curled altogether in sleeping bags, and woke up a handul of hours later with rain dripping on us. (~summer)

The first We're All So Rad workshop, seeing people tear up when they were in the middle and watching everyone's faces light up upon hearing compliments about themselves and also upon filling with love for whoever was in the middle. (~summer)

Rosie goes memory digging:

• On the first night of camp, walking out the dirt road towards the fields of Lost Valley by myself, feeling the strange sensation of being back at camp again. I passed a barn with a little room above it, I remember it was so special, I heard giggling girl-voices and saw light shining through the cracks between the boards. The moonlight was covering everything in a soft powerful pale light and the mountains stood dark and familiar at the edges of the valley. I made a drawing & later a painting of my memory.

• The first day at camp, feeling flustered and strange...meeting Dawn for the first time and her & Shippy zealously releiving me of my bags and escorting me to my cabin.

• Carrying April around on my back, introducing ourselves to beleaguered new arrivals who looked at us strangely.

• Making bliss balls in the kitchen catching up with Jake listening to Bob Marley & Dar Williams & running to the river garden to pick nasturtiums to put into the bliss-ball patties we made for Reanna & Noam's birthdays, singing joyously.

• Blueberries.

• "Winter" & "The Boxer" around the piano, again and again. Trying to hit the high notes on "The Boxer" & deciding to leave it to the sopranos. *grin*

• walking with Eryn (& April, I think) down the Lost Valley road, right to the edge of the property, talking about life & romance & whatever. My memory is fading, but I think I walked the road one more time by myself, I think it was one of the last mornings..perhaps not. But I remember seeing the morning sun in the pine trees and the dust motes rising up through them on the road.

• the Not Necessarily Straight workshop.

• practicing the Platypus skit with Elizabeth & Melissa over & over again out in the fields & basketball court, trying very hard not to laugh but doubling over each time we got to the "well honey, it's platypus" part.

• Thai food with ten unschoolers in Eugene.

• sitting on a rock in a river in Dunsmuir, CA on the road home, so sick with the Camp Cold I felt dizzy, my feet in the cold fresh-from-the-mountain water, watching the sun on the water & thinking about all of the last week and the passage of time and life as I know it.

• lying on the platform listening closely to Dian playing her guitar & singing.

• meeting Sarah C. & Rachael K. for the first time and passing around a bag of chocolate chips.

• unexpectedly missing my family very badly

• having theological conversations with Noam as he helped me fill up the big ol' washbuckets

• showing two of the Lost Valley kids how to do a swing step they were trying to figure out

• going to April for hugs

• on the 2^nd or 3^rd night (thereabouts) sitting around with Rick & Robyn in classroom A bonding over old '80's kids shows we remembered.

hey I could go on and on....sigh/sniff...goddess maybe this wasn't such a good idea. *sob* heh.

   Love,
     Rosie

• Singing rounds over and over and over again on the moonlit basketball court

• After an incredibly hectic day, talking in Room A for hours and for the first time feeling as if I belonged

• Watching people from a distance in the lodge, thinking how beautiful they all were

• The hugging circle

• Borrowing Rosie's Sari

• Crying over cups of tea with Dawn

• Sitting on the grass at the Greyhound station, reading my book on psychology, while Jenny G. played her penny whistle --- we got a lot of wierd looks

• Watching the crowds of people go by on my first day there, feeling ashamed that I was new, feeling too scared to go meet anyone, feeling generally out of my mind

• Oversleeping --- augh!

• Playing Balderdash

• Walking in on the Modern Dance workshop

- Naela, drowning in her own nostalgia

• Playing a-hole until 5 am in a huge warm tent with 5 - 8 other people
• Writing on the TAM page and being really crazy with other really crazy people
• Piling 17 people on that 2 person orange couch
• Going from 'eww, vegetables??' at the beginning of camp to eating anything and everything at the end
• Going up to random people and hugging them for no reason, and having them hug back
• Waking up to Nia's lovely singing
• Singing 'Dona Nobis Pacem' in the food line
• Listinging to someone play guitar and suddenly realize I was singing along without even knowing it
• Playing Calvinball
• Learning the song 'Henery the eighth' from Robyn and singing it over and over and over
• Talking with Noam for 4 hours on the bus
• Playing Truth or Dare
• Laughing histerically at wacky dares (caleb running across the field at night...)
• Hearing about wacky dares that happened after I went to bed (cold water + jake and jake...)

oh gosh, wow... i wish it was august already!!

marina 2 months and 7 days til camp

• sob* I'm not going to camp this year... I'm not used to going such a long time without sharing my life with tons of lovely unschooler types. y'all email/call me! (xiao at subdimension.com)

camp memories:

• taking a nap on the big playing field in the sun
• drumming, for the first time ever, in a two-hour circle (I now have two hand drums, a doumbek and a djembe, from africa and play them all the time!)
• taking walks with stuart, talking about buddhism
• having my first real conversation with zack, after getting off the phone with my family
• hitching rides in dune buggies
• the way my leg muscles ached after climbing sand dunes
• skinny-dipping in the lakes
• discovering that the counselors regularly skinny-dipped in the lakes....
• singing through all the songs I knew in the Rise Up Singing book
• borrowing jennyrose's black dresses, the velvet long one and then getting hot and stripping down to the silk slip
• tossing around the tissue paper in the women's group to dry tears
• talking about sex with steven and marlene
• being shell-shocked after the jakes' power shuffle
• teaching people how to play paper-ball
• getting a sore throat, and sounding just exactly like jake m. for a couple of days
• serving dinner with an orange-rind smile and pink frilly apron
• volunteering to be the indian food salesperson
• making out with zack on the couches in the lounge... giggle....
• jumping in the freezing creek after the last round of the sweat lodge that steven ran

oh dear... that's all I can do without starting to feel really bad... I hope everyone is having a wonderful time. love you all, ~becca r.~

Z... Dear god... I'd best get off line while I write, this could take hours. As of 3 days ago I can no longer say I've been to every session of camp that has ever happened. As far as I know Jake. M, and Grace herself, are the only people who will still be able to say that after these two sessions. That includes staff and everyone. I'm jealous. Soo... my nastalga... eghads.. this goes way back. I wrote a 50 page story about camp 97. (no, you can't read it, it's auful, and imbarrassing, and includes all sorts of private conversations, and it's on a harddrive I don't have connected to a computer at the moment.)

• 96'
• Meeting my first camper. It was a short, curly haired, Demetri. He was wearing a black Nirvana shirt with a dead smily face on it. We met in the Denver airport while switching flight.
• Talking to Janet about the girl who had broken my heart earlier that summer.
• Learning to flirt, and waisting the talant on Abra, who wasn't even slghtly interested. Jake claims that several times I would be in mid sentance talking to him and stop, because Abra walked in the room. I do not recall!! ...but knowing me and knowing jake, he's probably right.
• Being told for the first time that someone had a crush on me, and being incredibly flattered.
• Meeting Jake. Actually, I barely remember him from camp that year (we never do hang out that much at camp), but we met the first year, and we've been best friends ever since.
• Perhaps my most distinct memory of the first year of camp was just a feeling of the whole week - being able to create myself. Being able to be whoever I wanted to be. ...and finding to my amazement that people liked what I came up with.
• Singing the king missile song "The Story of Willy" in the talant show and Billy Wimsat being so thrilled by it that he ran up and jumped on my back and said "I love you man!!!"
• Talking with Jennifer Lawrence about, as she termed it "sexual frusteration" when I was totally fed up with trying to flirt with Abra.
• Jared jumping up on a table in the lodge durring lunch one day and proclaiming loudly "I AM SATAN, LORD OF THE UNDERWOLRD!!!"
• Being horribly teased by Abra on the way back to Eugene after camp, while me and Jared were berating everyone for buying stuff at the McDonalds we stopped at thank's to the bus drivers. ...she came running at me holding a McDonalds drink in each hand and when I ran away she said "Oh, so you don't want to kiss someone who's been eating McDonalds food." ...she walked away before I could get my mouth to make sounds...

• 97
• Staying up the entire first night with Jared, Logan, and Risa.
• Resting on the dunes on the way back from the death march, watching Amanda and Margaret each write in their journals. That was one of the most blissfull moments of my life. I was sitting with two people I loved and admired, and I knew they loved me too, and enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed theirs.
• Total adolecent cofussion, several years worth in one week.
• My first kiss... I was set up with a girl a barely knew, but she had a very nice tongue, and kissing someone who has a fever is very interesting. Someone else timed it... ten minutes straight, then she went to sleep and wasn't there in the morning.
• My second kiss... hehe... the next night, with a girl I rather liked, and for considerably more than ten minutes.
• The second year of camp was perhaps the most interesting and intence week of my life... perhaps... and deffinitly the most incredibly group of people I've ever been around all at once, though I didn't know all of them (such as becca) at the time. Just glance at the photo sometime. It's incredible.

• '98, session one
• This was the second most intence week of my life: Not less intence than camp '97, just second, chronologically. ...but I'm getting tired so my lists will get shorter now.
• Being infatuated with three girls at once, all of whom seemed to return it in thier own specific ways.
• My best friend feeling old.
• Meeting becca.
• Pure joy, reveling in hedonist, 16 year old insanity. (which all seems so taim looking back...)
• Maresa's Breasts. ...sorry, but it had to be said. They're just beautiful and I remember them. [1]

• General to all sessions/can't remember
• The always confused hug circles (good god people just do what jake tells you to, he groks how it's supposed to work, trust me.)
• The singing... *drool* I sware, when I was in Nepal I got sick of my dad and spend most of my time trekking a half hour ahead of him, and at some point I got incredibly lonely for music, and I just started singing every song I could remember, a lot of which where the songs I learned at camp or unitarian conferences. It was awesome... but nothing compared to a whole room full of people singing them... god I wish I where at camp... oh god... fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.... ^sniff ...fuck.
• The closing cirle. I always get bored when we're about a quarter of the way around the circle with people blabbing about what they're gonna do, etc.... and then it goes away, and by the time we're done I wish we weren't.
• Spontanious exclamations of jubulance, greeted by smiles!
• Hugs, hugs, hugs, hugs, hugs, hugs.
• Food. I don't care what anyone says, camp has rockin' food. It's awesome even when I'd rather french my dog than eat it, 'cause it's got amazing people pouring thier souls into it: It's got luuuuvv...

anyway, I'm tired... more another time, much love, ~MR.z~

Okay... dont anyone take this wrong and get all offended and mad like you campers sometimes do.. I'm just relaying what I find to be an amusing experience, the first time I came across campers.. it was the day before session 1 '98, and I was to spend the night in a nbtsc arranged hotel with other campers...

So anyway... I flew out to Portland, then took a taxi to the train station. I had a few hours till my train so I got a sandwich and sat down to eat... Before I go on, let me point out that there are NO freaky people in TN, and the freaky people from Key West were of a very different variety ("conchs", drunks and boat people) than those elsewhere.... so as I'm sitting there eating this tall dude with long blond hair walks into the train station. My initial thought was "Huh, I guess one of those Hansons escaped" (this was back when they were still around)... So I eat my sandwich, read a newspaper, and finally my train comes. I notice the Hanson guy getting on the train but gave it little more thought, other than seriously wondering if he was in fact a Hanson (I was not a fan, just so you know)....

I dont know if this is the appropriate spot for a new paragraph, but that last one is awfully long so I'm gonna make one..... So I get off the train eventually (damn, that's one slow moving train)... I noticed the Hanson guy run up to a bunch of other freaky looking people and then realized that there was a good likelyhood that he was not a Hanson. Oh well, woulda made a good story ... So these freaky ass looking people are all hugging and stuff (the guys are even hugging each other, and not in the appropriate way)... there are hippie looking dudes, girls with strange colored hair and all sorts of bizarro things... (warning, this next thing may cause an uproar) there were even girls with hairy legs and armpits. I swear I did not previously know this occured....

Another new paragraph cause long ones are hard for attention deficit people like me.... so supposedly I was going to be met by people from camp. As I waited I just decided to observe this odd bunch of people.. "it's like some kind of strange hippie get together or something" I thought, "wow, I've never actually seen someone who's currently a hippie".... so I waited and waited and started to think I should call someone... finally, after perhaps 20 minutes I happen to notice something totally mindblowing: one of these bizarre looking people is wearing a "Not Back To School Camp" t-shirt!!! You gotta be kidding me!!! As it turned out, I had not absorbed some strange drug by being too close to these hippie types, they were indeed from camp...

So that's my little story... To fully appreciate it, dont be all offended by my descriptions.. This is a true account of my mental reactions at the time......... oh, and one final note: In case you hadn't guessed yet, the Hanson dude was some fellow named Stuart.

Jason

laugh... I'm glad somebody decided to finally tell the truth about how they felt upon first seeing campers... I had something of the same revelation. I, too, remember not even realizing that it was possible for girls to not shave. my first year of camp, I saw girls without bras and boys with them. I got a serious education. ~becca~

Memories, hmm? *sighs wistfully, feeling nostalgic* Lets see what I can come up with.

• I remember getting off the train, waiting for my baggage and watching everyone talk and grin and thinking, "Well, shit! This is my second year. . . . I should know people, should find someone to hug!" Then I heard a shriek, an "Amy!" and saw my Sammmy-antha friend running towards me. I was nearly knocked off my feet when she wrapped her arms around me, but oh! I felt a very great deal better. And then I saw Susy, and found Irina, and suddenly I remembered why camp made me smile inside.

• I remember getting up and modeling my Rennaisance costume in the talent show. . . . I felt so insecure and inadequate, almost wanted to melt into the floor. And then everybody clapped, Corale gave me a hug as I went to sit back down, Caleb gallantly kissed my hand he does things like that, sometimes and suddenly I was beaming.

• I remember sobbing outside alone at a picnic table on the second or third night, feeling crappy and unloved, not knowing why, and then suddenly realizing that I had PMS. How silly I felt! But how very much better.

• I remember walking across the line at the power shuffle and gazing at the people around me, surprised at how many had crossed. I was nervous, still afraid of what I was admitting, but able to hold my head up and look into their eyes, able to think, yes. This is who I am, and what I have experienced. I remember crossing back, having Sam's arms circle about my waist as she hugged me, knowing she knew how hard it had been. I remember crying, a little. I remember feeling finished, relieved, knowing that people loved me and that I was stronger than I had been.

• I remember sitting in the train station, feeling small and scared even though Garett and Selena and Forest were there too, and seeing Susy and Irina and many many other people walking through the doors. They had come back! I didn't feel abandoned anymore; my beautiful, wonderful friends had returned. I knew it wasn't totally for me, but part of it was, and I was completely thrilled.

• I remember singing "Leaving on a Jet Plane" in so many different places; on the deck between Myrtle and Laurel, along with Ted's guitar. . . . in the lodge, over and over on the last night. . . . I heard it playing on the boom box at about one in the morning, as I sat on the blue painted floor with Susy and laughed. . . . at the train station, minutes before I left, in a circle with darling people, some who thought they could sing and some who didn't, and thinking that I had never heard a better sound.

	-Amy

[1] i just want to say to zack that that comment is completely inappropriate and rude and offensive. i mean, i don't believe myself to be a snob or anything, but that's just completely tactless. i would thank you to remove it, eh? please. Jenlakins

• I saw that coming. Of course I'm going to comment on this. I have to disagree with you, Jennyrose. Women I know, you included, are always saying how women's bodies are beautiful and how they should be apprieciated. Would you have had the same reaction is Zack had said she had beautiful hair, or beautiful hands? He didn't even say it in a rude way either. It wasn't like he said something like "cute tits" either, which is offensive just because of the wording... but his comment was admiration for a beautiful part of the body. I don't believe he was trying to be rude at all. Soooo yeah, there's my rant. ~Eryn
• Wow, a responce bitching me out, and one defending me, within 24 hours, that's even more than I expected. ...Yes. Eryn is correct, had I meant it as a lewd comment I would have said she had nice tits, but I don't tend to say things like that, because I don't tend to think of peoples bodies that way. I meant exactly what I said, I adore her breasts, I think their fabulous, and I remember them destinctly, and yes they're something about camp that I get nestalgic about. I don't think what I said is tactless, inappropriate, rude, or offensive. If Maresa reads it, in context and would rather it not be there, she can send me a personal e-mail telling me that, and I'll take it and everything refering to it off of here. If anyone want's to tell her it's there, that's fine by me. Short of that, it was meant as a compliment, and it's staying. ~z~

Well I agree with Zack on that. If Maresa has a problem with what Zack said then Zack can edit that out, but it has nothing to do with us so lets just not talk about it.

 And on a final note. I do not like being refered to as "the Hanson Dude". I
can not stand Hanson and it doesn't make me a happy camper to have people
say I look like them.

Stuart

• i remember lying on the grass in the field with Caleb and Maya and Jake with my head on Jake's stomach and we were all talking, and i was thinking "my gosh...this is an incredible place...camp is amazing and i have never felt this bonded with any group of people in my life" and i felt like crying for happiness.

• i remember cuddling on the couch in the lodge with Rachel C., Orjan (i'm sorry, did i spell that right?) and Caleb... the first time i discovered my hands were ticklish.

• i remember The Power Shuffle, and crying with everyone- an experience i had never before had...

• i remember dancing with everyone at the "unschoolers prom" and having so much fun... laughing and laughing...

• i remember the political discussion that started with me and Caleb and ended up with about ten people all talking...

• i remember talking and crying with Samantha who helped me get through a really hard day i had at camp...

• i remember All So Rad and how wonderful a feeling it was, and the things people said to me and the things i said to them...

• i remember singing "leavin' on a jet plane" on the morning of the last full day of camp, and how i burst into tears at the words "hold me like you'll never let me go"...

• i remember singing "all i ask of you is forever to remember me as loving you" and the hug ceremony on the last night of camp.

• i remember hugging people and crying histarically for two hours on the last night of camp.

• i remember the very last embraces and words and tears and goodbyes.

• i remember nbtsc- everything

~ butterflygirl

meeting my chicas, carsie, corale, laura, lindsey, sarah, summer, theresaand angel boys, cory, jake m, adrian, and a long line of etc.'s caleb teaching me to swing begging lindsey not to go home carsie's voice performing, petrified, in the talent shows "the chicas" singing in the talent show 12 steps having 3 outfits per day cuddling, cozying, crying, and binding friendships that make my lifetime feel valuable the intensity, and the intensity of depression at leaving crying more than i ever have in the hug line and at the same time feeling some sort of radiant joy

so i think i can end it with what sums up the the lessons and the conclusion that i reached about camp. as much as it pains me to think of not seeing you again, i only hope that what brought us together can keep us together, and that distances won't permanantly hold apart the ones that were meant to last.

i will remember you (by sarah mclachlan, performed in 1999 by carsie, lindsey, laura, sarah and samara)

I will remember you Will you remember me? Don't let your life pass you by Weep not for the memories Remember the good times that we had? I let them slip away from us when things got bad How clearly I first saw you smilin' in the sun I wanna feel your warmth upon me, I wanna be the one I will remember you Will you remember me? Don't let your life pass you by Weep not for the memories I'm so tired but I can't sleep Standin' on the edge of something much too deep It's funny how we feel so much but we cannot say a word We are screaming inside, but we can't be heard But I will remember you Will you remember me? Don't let your life pass you by Weep not for the memories I'm so afraid to love you, but more afraid to lose Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose Once there was a darkness, a deep and endless night You gave me everything you had, oh you gave me light And I will remember you Will you remember me? Don't let your life pass you by Weep not for the memories Weep not for the memories

• love forever, samara.

I remeber the sad parts best sometime. i remember on night when i felt out of it and alone and like i could stand in the middle of the lodge and scream and no one would notice or askme what was wrong. and i couldn't just go up to someone and start ranting and raving. so i wen toutside and sat by a tree. and i put my head on my knees and i cried and cried and cried. and then i lay down and looked at the stars. and then a cried some more. then i forced myself to get it all out of my head. and i talked to myself in a whisper for what felt like a really long time. then i went back inside because it was cold and i sat on the couch and laughed and laughed and laughed because suddenly it felt like i was in my own little world and no one noticed and it was funny. i wondered that night if that's what it felt like to be on a drug of some sort only more so. i write about my camp memories in way to much detail.so more later i guess. franny

• okay. more. I remeber how last year crossing on bisexual was the hardest thing i'd ever done and this year it felt fine. but i remember how i couldn't meet "her" eyes when i was standing over there.
• i remember loving my advisee group and wishing i could meet with them every day for the rest of my life
• i remember taking a shower at one thirty a.m with Fiona and laughing hysterically over basically nothing
• i remember the night fiona and mel and i sat up in our cabins with the lights on and had a girl talk.
• i remember the stream of conciousness workshop and feeling [erfectly comfortable reading what i'd written in that group of people
• i remember being too scared to read in the peotry slam and hating myself for it
• i remeber two nights i sat by a tree and cried
• i remember throwing rocks into the creek with becky
• i remember seeing heather leaning out the other bus window at a rest stop and wanting to cry when i heard her scream my name. i remember holding her hands through the window until we had to leave
• i remember stepping off the busses at camp and thinking "i'm home"
• i remeber avi's hair
• i remember the way mel's lap felt
• i remember candra's hugs
• i remember sitting on the bus with kim and ethan b and being happy
• i remember being scared when i didn't cry in the power shuffle. than i remember when i started sobbing
• i remeber trying to center myself, and it didn't work
• i remember not wanting to cry when the bus pulled out...but i did
• i remember you

franny again