|
Summer camp and camping aren't the same thing...Summer camp is living in a cabin with 10 other girls, learning to cooperate, share the workload, learning about what you have in common and what you don't.
It's about sailing and swimming and softball and services (mine was a Jewish summer camp). It's about writing home and care packages and mail call. It's about being independent in a structured environment, knowing to see the camp nurse when you're sick, making your bed, sorting your laundry not because mom told you to, but because you won't have clean clothes otherwise. It's about growing up with the same people (I went for 9 years), about wish aways and color war about tearful goodbyes and promising to write. It's about being responsible for your stuff and keeping track of it. It's about knowing you can be without your parents but still miss them. It's about dreaming about being a counselor when you are old enough, about singing in the dining hall, about sleeping w/o air conditioning and remembering to put on sunscreen.
It's about arts and crafts, and clay and gimp and macrame.
For my brother, it was about meeting the girl he eventually married.
Sometimes when I smell wet spruce trees or french toast, I'm transported back to those days even though it's been more than 20 years. Camp was so much more than sleeping in a tent twice a summer. It was everything--I don't even know how to explain it to someone who hasn't been. All I know is that I'm a better person because I went to camp.
|