Camp
Joy. Love. Fear. Sadness. Anger. Happiness. Tears. Peace. Completely Content.
Almost every emotion was felt in such a degree I have never
had the ability to feel anywhere else on earth. So close to heaven. If you were
to lay your head among the grass and push your ear hard enough, I still believe
that you can hear the earth's heartbeat. It's a place we dance with angels
daily. We laughed together, we shared terrifying stories of villages at night,
and cried together. Daily, we had the rare opportunity to simply breathe
together. In and out. Out and in. We swam under the treacherous sun, as beads
of water flowed from our lake stained skin. We comforted campers at night, and
each other as the summer days grew thin. We counted until we couldn't count any
more. Stars, weeks, memories, hours, and
campers. Endlessly we counted campers, until we knew the number sixteen in all
of its forms and clumps. 8 and 8. 4 and 4 and 4 and 4. 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 and
2 and 2 and 2 and 2. We bound them together as roommates. We bound them
together as friends. We bound them any way we could to help us count. Daily we
grew, we grew in Him, and grew in ourselves. The beat of camp rang through
everything we did. It's warmth could be seen on our faces, and it's songs rang
through our hearts and were lifted in voice. Our feet trod miles and miles upon
the dirt we were simply lucky enough to call home for a mere summer. A mere
summer that offered only a keyhole view of everlasting life.
Smells. Nothing compares to the smell of the lake filled
air, perfectly combined with sunscreen applications, and the occasional wafting
of lunch cooking in mid morning. The unavoidable presence of the everlasting campfire smoke. The smell of green will forever be imprinted
in the front of my brain. I would know that smell anywhere, ferns, grass,
mildew hair, pasta salad, the carpet of the RC, the earth ball, the village
mattresses, the athletic field prota potty, army blankets, sour skittles,
towels, the second pine branch up on the right of the panty tree. Green green
green. We were floating, stuck in a completely, unbelievable, indescribable
high.
Days were filled barely awake, lifting our stuck together
eyelids to take in the new day, too tired to function but waiting for campers
to sleep so we could stay up and talk. We wandered, we waded, we paddled, we
yelled, we screamed, we swam. We strategically voiced our love for ice cream
with great hopes of a free treat at canteen on hot days, and knew how to pick
the perfect flannel on cold ones. We walked and talked and stargazed and
laughed. Sunlight and laughter filled our days. Stars and pure joy filled the
nights. On days we were lucky enough, we experienced just enough emotion to
laugh, cry, and love. Endless feeling
days flew by as fast as a flying arrow. Gone. Gone. Gone. Till one more left.
No one can prepare you for the day you must return to utter
reality. It's gone. Summer is soaked up like a dry sponge. The nudging fall air
blows away those around you. You're summer family is swallowed by an
approaching season. I've seen it disappear in the blurr of a robin's egg blue
v-neck in the front of a Chevy Malibu, in the back of a van pulled into the
courtyard. It's been carried off in boxes and guitar cases. It disappeared in
duffels and bins. Its holes are seen in empty crates and empty hooks. Rooms and
refrigerators scream vacancy. It makes you question whether or not movement is
a certainty. Are we all just pieced together as fragments of seconds? Are we
really moving on, or just simple film strips pieced together, unable to be cut apart?
We know for certain that it can't be a possibility for us to move on
voluntarily. So are we really moving in time at all? Does life still exist
beyond this? It makes you question whether
it was all a dream. And as your tires cross the pavement, and hit
the road just off the bridge, the tears falling are no longer summer tears.
They are now possessions of the fall. The emotions just aren't as deep in reality.
You're alone. No one can prepare you for the utter feeling of emptiness. Never
would I have guessed that the simple act of breathing alone, without the
conjoined breathes of 30 others, can make you feel ultimately hollow. The unmistakable absence of fellow lungs supporting life sustaining breaths simply
can't be felt until you experience their vacancy. Somehow, the state of their
absence is heavier than their conjoined presence. It's the one thing in my life
that I have ever experience as being heavier when nonexistent at all than the
weight when they're all as one. Coincidentally, it's the heaviest thing I've
had yet to bare. And surprisingly, your
heart continues to beat. And beyond all recollection of belief, your lungs can
still fill themselves with a completely empty air. Alone.
