Camp

When I was in the fourth grade, my friend, Elizabeth Robertson, asked me if I would like to go to Camp Kanuga with her that summer. I said yes. 

Although some home sickness sent in for one or two nights of those two weeks, what began has been the longest, most enduring love affair of my life.

I loved sleeping in a cabin when the night air was cool in June, listening to crickets and snuggling under a wool blanket. Growing up in Columbia where summer hosted the hottest and most humid of days, this was a whole new experience.

Learning to swim more efficiently and precisely happened in That Lake. A cold, dark, deep lake, where everyone lined up  on day one, and the lifeguards would say “all right swim three laps, show us what you got.” That first plunge knocked the breath out of me. My technique was awkward at best. A big goal was to be a Swimmer which had the most privileges. I got Intermediate that session, but the next summer, I would be a Swimmer. We received American Red Cross certificates for our levels of accomplishment. I later would be a lifeguard at the conference center up the road and had countless swims to the dam in open water, early morning before breakfast being the best, the quietest, feeling the most sacred.

The whole camp would circle up each night on the main field, hold hands around a gigantic bonfire and sing Kumbaya. Some may eye-roll at this.  What I will say, though, is it was spiritual and so special, a huge sense of feeling connected and belonging.

Square dances, talent night where counselors helped you dress up and play the parts of other counselors or sing goofy songs. Camping in the woods every other night. I had a big yellow sleeping bag with strawberries on the front. It was designed not at all for camping. If it rained, that thing literally was a wet blanket. Having scrambled eggs and bacon in a cast iron skillet over an open fire in the morning, dirty from having slept on the ground and not caring.

Particularly that first summer, when it was time to go, and we were all signing each other’s buddy boards with heartfelt messages, I couldn’t wait to get back. Leading up to the next summer, my mother would have a serious conversation with me that I don’t remember, but she recalled often. She said I listened very politely to her marketing for another camp, a camp she attended. At the end of her pitch I said, if I can’t go to Kanuga, I don’t want to go anywhere. 

I would go first session for many summers. I would become a Counseling in Training. I would mosey up the road in my 1966 valiant with no AC and no radio to work on Summer Staff. Waitressing family style to conferees and families. The drilling of good manners which were mandatory in the house I grew up in paid off in spades.

I would make some of the best friends I’ve ever known. Some of them are still very much in my life. When May rolls around, where I live in Western North Carolina now, there’s a certain smell in the air and I think camp. It’s time. I then remember rounding the corner and seeing the lake on the left at the conference center thinking I can’t wait to get back in there. I can’t wait to see my friends. I can’t wait to sit beside a campfire and listen to tall tales and sing songs and laugh till my sides hurt.

I’ve served in a lot of roles at Kanuga since that first session. I’ve been a volunteer. I’ve served on the Board of Directors. I’ve helped prepare the organic garden for winter. Each in active service which I would gladly do again for my spiritual touchstone.

Here are some prompts to try:

Write a memory in as vivid detail as you can using the senses of a summer memory as a child.

Write about the first time you had s’mores. If you haven’t had s’mores, stop reading this and immediately find a way to have them. Then write about that.

Write about a time you felt free as a child.

Write about a time from your childhood that became a legacy - where you took a role that you benefited from like being a camper to then being a counselor.

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.