Feb 26, 2005 14:03
I dreamed about camp last night and now I can't stop thinking about it. God, why does this have to happen? As soon as I think I'm really past something, it pops up again. The dream wasn't even that spectacular. It was opening Sunday and I was working in the welcome center checking people in. That's the whole dream. I dunno, maybe the fact that it was so true and realistic is what made it stick. I just can't get over my love for that place. Despite the multitudes of exciting possibilities I have open for the summer, there's still this part of me that's aching to email Deborah right now and tell her that I'll be at camp this summer. There's just something so right about being at that place, even though it's changing and it's not the place it was when i first went there almost 9 years ago. I grew up with it and I can't get rid of it. I know what it sounds like when you walk down the path and your flip flops crush the pebbles underfoot. I know what a mixture of garbage, horses, and freshly cut grass (aka the smell at the drama pavillion) smells like. I know that toilet paper's really the best kind of a fire starter. I know what it sounds like when a rain storm comes over the mountain. I know how to patch up cuts, console a homesick camper, soothe a nervous parent, and work out a "fight" between two "best friends." I know how to teach over a hundred girls "Country Roads" and "Leaving on a Jet Plane" in half an hour. And I know that there's no greater reward than seeing just one of those girls grinning up at you and singing her heart out. That's maybe my best memory of camp (although it's hard to pick just one). Funny thing is, I didn't even know the girl I'm referring too. She wasn't my camper, I didn't have her for drama. I don't think I had ever seen her before that rainy day when it became my job to teach all the girls the songs for Candle Float. And yet there she was at the front of the group giving me the biggest smile you ever saw and singing with all her might. I never knew her name and I probably never saw her again after that, but it was one of those moments that's what being a camp counsellor is all about.
And I really miss that.