Sleepaway

Today I'm missing Camp, as I often do when I'm overwhelmed. So, to tide you over until my next real post, here is a speech I delivered at one of the final camp gatherings of the summer (and of my time there, 8 years as a camper and 5 years as staff). Whether or not you had the pleasure of going to camp, I hope you find something familiar in this ode that helps explain your relationship to the people and places that have helped you grow up and become all the things that you like about yourself. I introduced it as a love letter, and read verbatim from there:

Dear Camp,

Let’s start at the end.

As a Golan camper I felt the end of camper days drawing oppressively near. It was in the dining hall on the last day of camp. I was wearing my “I heart brussel sprouts” t-shirt and standing between Paige and Blaire and across from Shauna and our whole bunk was standing between the salad bar and our table singing at the top of our lungs. This was before ‘home away from home’ and our dining hall revelry usually consisted of build me up buttercup, wonderwall, and the circle game, so I can only assume that’s what we were singing. But I remember it perfectly otherwise. I remember that I stood there grinning ear to ear, overwhelmed by the magic of camp spirit and friendship and by the idea that if someone had offered postponing the rest of my life indefinitely to live in that single moment forever I would have done it in a heart beat. And I remember crying, tears streaming as I sang, because I knew that as much as I wished it so, that moment, like my summer, and like camp, would have to come to an end.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that every valuable experience I’ve had has been at camp. I skipped TAC 2 to spend 5 weeks working on an archeological dig in Israel. I carved out the middle three weeks of TAC 1 to volunteer for the National Parks of the Galapagos Islands. I decided to go to school 3,000 miles from home in Los Angeles and then decided to go even further, to an iconicly tumultuous European country to study abroad for a semester. All of these adventures helped me discover parts of myself that I never would have know if I hadn’t leapt off the edge of my comfort zone. But what I can say with absolute steadfast certainty is that it was my time with you, camp, that prepared me for each of these experiences.

Camp, you are the place that taught me how to be a good friend, how to be a good listener. You taught me to be adventurous, open, understanding, and accepting of difference. You affirmed and encouraged my independence while I built lifelong friendships with the girls around me. You taught me skills ranging from box stitch to shot put and taught that it was ok to try and fail as long as you sincerely tried. You taught me what it felt like to love and to be loved and be appreciated and be valued. You taught me the meaning of community. You taught me that home isn’t your return address it’s wherever there’s somewhere waiting for you to return. You taught me that if you love yourself everything else will fall into place. And that if you have the courage to try that the support will always follow. You taught me the moving power of friendship. Camp friendship is not just about having someone to laugh with or having someone to call, it’s about the unique experience of feeling truly connected to the world. Camp is the place you can never be alone. And for better or worse that means that camp is the one place and one experience where I have felt the most connected, the most comfortable, and the most loved.

I can’t say with certainty that I’ll never feel this way at any other point in time or with any other group of people, but I can say that what was once 10 for 2 (waiting ten months for 2 at camp) has evolved into 2 for 10 (spending 2 months at camp to give me the confidence, support, and energy I need to go out and live my life).

One day very soon this is going to evolve into a 13 for life situation. And by that I mean that one day soon I’m going to have to say goodbye, and the lessons I’ve learned over the 24 months I’ve been here are going to have to be enough. Camp, you have prepared me to succeed in every realm of life. You’ve taught me how to work hard, how to make the best of any situation, how to make new friends, keep old ones, and treat people well. You’ve taught me how to push myself and trust myself. And the time is fast approaching that I’ll have to put that preparation to good use.

I agree with the words of my camp bible, “Sleepaway”: Camp is more than a place, it’s a feeling. But in the same way that I don’t only feel loved on Valentine’s day or only feel full on Thanksgiving, I don’t only feel camp when I’m at camp. Whenever I feel myself getting closer to a new friend or taking a risk or challenging myself or saying the camp hamotzi at Friday night dinner with my family or singing along to wonderwall on the radio I feel you camp. I get goose bumps and I smile and my eyes burn and my stomach turns and my chest tightens because while everything reminds me of this summer splendor, nothing ever quite compares. You are always with me, but there is a constant nagging pain that I can’t always be with you.

I’m writing you this letter to thank you more than anything else. You have given me everything. I am certain of so few things in this world. I am certain that beauty can be found anywhere. I am certain that the universe is unpredictably chaotic. And I am certain that meaning in life comes from the people we share it with. I thank you and I love you for bringing meaning to my life. You won’t always be with me, but my camp friends will, and I know that whenever we’re together and we talk about our lives we will always return to the days we spent together here, under your canopy of trees, with your lake breeze, and we’ll smile and sigh at the magic that brought us together and made us into the women we will become. And for that magic, a million thank yous will never suffice.

Love, forever and always

Mixed Tape - Installment Uno

I'm not sure which mix nomenclature is appropriately outdated, but I settled on mix tape because it is from just before my adolescence. Today, I wanted to share with you the first group of 20 songs that capture the essence of what my life feels like right now. Future lists may include 20 emotional songs to wallow with, 20 songs to drive with, but these are the songs that, when I feel overwhelmed by life, make me feel like it could all be OK. Here are the first 5. Now go dance. (not to these, they're all pretty slow, but to something else).

Fun - Some Nights Intro

#anthem

Frank Turner - Four Simple Words

Enjoy the moment with this punk-folk-rock ditty

Adele (and Glee) - Rumor Has It and SOmeone Like You

This mash-up is fabulous. It's bold and fierce and I love it. Y'know what? Shit happens. Don't cry. Do something kick-ass.

Mumford and Sons - Lover of the Light

I just love mumf and I especially love this song. Enjoy the here and the now. Look forward with positivity. And how elegantly simple: I'll be yours if you'll be mine. Maybe it's that easy.

Sara Bareilles - Once Upon Another Time

Classic S.B. This is an easy pick me up that reminds me it's not all over.

Caveat: Never have I ever pretended to be some sort of music guru. I know very little. I can express even less. This is just what makes me happy. I hope it makes you happy too.

The Apartment Period

Here's a puzzle for you:

What do Carrie Bradshaw, Hannah Horvath, and Jane NoLastName from 27 dresses have in common? (Besides, of course, their varying degrees of despairing singularity, their gender, and, incidentally, their geographic location...)

That's right! They all have absurdly fabulous apartments.

As if by magic they have all managed adorable little dwellings in the urban jungle which provide spacious stomping grounds for them to explore their independence, sexuality, and wardrobe. Beyond the utter irrationality of them affording these apartments with their slave labor professions there is an important message about the American (20-something) dream.

Once upon a time it was the expectation that you did or didn't go to school and then you used that time to court a future spouse, nail em down, marry em, and go on living happily ever after (or until divorce was popularized as an alternative to prolonged misery). But now...the 20-something dream has evolved. The vision of perfection includes me-time, self exploration, orienting oneself towards a career, building relationships outside of your future marriage, and what does a young 20 something need to realize these exploratory,experimental dreams? A fabulous apartment of course.

An apartment is no longer a stepping stone to a house in the burbs or a decadent status symbol for the highly cultured elite; it is a cupboard-under-the-stairs sized backdrop to a  period in a young chica's life (or chico's, I suppose, but  then my mind just wants to call it a bachelor pad) when all that matters is finding yourself. But, to be honest, my inner feminist conscious is a little concerned that these intensely valuable exercises in self development are a moderately well veiled attempt to figure our own shit out before moving into the big, final, will-be-the-real-thing relationships. We're trying to make ourselves less of a mess (a challenge that I suspect will be a huge part of my life, for the rest of my life) to make ourselves more desirable.

And I have two huge issues with that:

1. Do it for yourself! The "self" in self improvement isn't just referring to the person doing the work, it's referring to the person reaping the benefits. Improve yourself so that you can do more, be more, feel more. And part of that is opening yourself up to the world and the people in it, but part of that is also opening up new parts of yourself.

2. I want to spend my life with someone who can help me wade through my shit. How will I know if they're up to the task if they don't help me? In the least manipulative way possible, it's the ultimate test.

The apartment era of your life is about finding yourself on your own, but if you're completely on your own it will be pointless. I know for me the hardest form of courage is social courage, or being willing to open myself up and let other in, to trust, to receive, but you have to be learning that for yourself, not for someone else, or you'll risk it meaning nothing at all.

So let's enjoy the apartment period. Especially if it comes after having moved home. Amirite?

Goodnight, Room

In a series of incredible decisions, I elected to let my parents repaint my childhood bedroom during my last semester of college. I'll share some details to give you a better concept of the gravity of this decision.

First, I take full responsibility. I did it to avoid the emotional trauma of taking down 13 years worth of inspirational Keds ads, class pictures, ticket stubs, and other such paraphernalia of a Manhattan-adjacent adolescence.

And yet, shocker, it turns out that is still quite emotional.

Back to those enlightening details I promised you...I am a loner by nature. I'm actually very social by nature, but that sociability is dependent on a set period of me-time within given time frames. Week. Day. What have you. But in my suburban paradise that place was my room. I loved my room. I spent a shit ton of time there. I read books in bed and did projects on my floor and in the winter I would read books for school next to my space heater and nod off as a combined result of exhaustion and fumes from the aforementioned space heater.

It used to be a heinous pink, because when we moved into the house either my mother or I was operating under the assumption that I was a girl and would therefore love pink. I have disdained pink ever since. But after several years of pleading, when I finally wet away to camp for the summer, I returned to a room that was befittingly wild. A royal blue carpet let loose six different wall shades which were capped with a cerulean ceiling. Lime Green. Sunshine Yellow. Salmon. Deep blue. Aqua. Rose. But the colors became irrelevant as my mind moved at break neck speeds over the next few years to cover my walls with collages, playbills, bands, posters, projects, and pictures from every trip and experience I had. Handmade cups and game boards became homes for pens and my grandmother's old jewelry. I acquired books and t-shirts and hand bags and books and by the time I graduated high school my room was a perfect candidate for that MTV game show. It captured perfectly who I was.

I actually haven't spent more than 4 consecutive weeks at home since graduating high school, and I haven't spent a summer there since before 11th grade. So as I prepare to relocate back to the east coast in my post-graduation spiral, I am made especially nostalgic by the idea of being back in my own room. And I am irrationally undone at the thought of it no longer being mine. I know we all have to grow up and parents move out of houses, and we donate clothes and books and bras...but what I haven't shared (at least not explicitly) is that at the forefront of my irrationality is my sentimentality. I've gotten better at ending things and leaving things, but sometimes a wrench gets thrown in, and the change makes you as miserable as ever.

I suppose it's possible and you're probably insistent that my nostalgia for my multi-colored tornado of a collage that I call my bedroom is merely a metaphor for the waves of change my life has already begun to undergo. But this time, I think it might actually just be my room. Not "just," I mean it's solely about my room. It's about the person I was allowed to be there, the person it set me up to become, and all the less desirable versions of myself that died between phone conversations and replays of Rent and journal pages and America's Next Top Model marathons. It's about having the choice, and looking back and feeling you've made some right ones.

And no place, whether it remains the same color or not, will ever witness such evolution in my life.
So let us bow our heads for a moment in memory of what was, and raise a glass to what might be.

Let me tell you, this time around, there will be coasters for wine glasses.

I am...SO sorry

This is my grand romantic gesture: I apologize for my absences, I regret having led one or more of my beautiful audience to believe that I had died in some tragic margarita mystery accident, and I vow to make it up to you with lots of opinions that you may or may not like on this funny thing called life. Prepare Yourself... here it comes