Confessions from a Camp Counselor

I have a confession. I am a memory hoarder. I collect meaningful experiences, stacking them in corners, hiding in special wooden boxes, folding them in books and framing them. It is the thankless job of the sentimental. It is the savoring of the moment.

I blame 19 years of camp for making me this way. You can’t write “warm fuzzies”—epic kind notes delivered to your friends at mealtimes—for that many years without attaching some meaning to them. They were sometimes funny, sometimes colorful but mostly spontaneous outbursts of affection and caring.

“I think you’re wonderful! I’m so glad we’re friends!”

Warm fuzzies are like helium balloons. From the outside they are small, silly looking bits of nothing important, but when they’re filled inside, they elevate. I remember an early warm fuzzy, when I was starting as a counselor, that I got from my camper Erin. She was 14 and had opened up to me about her detachment from her dad. Inside the carefully folded 8 ½ by 11 lined notebook paper she wrote,

“You are one of the top best things that has ever happened to me.”

And the words, like helium, began their lifting. I was never the same.

In the theater, they talk about being bitten by the acting bug.   Camp has our version of that. It is an addiction to the real, unbridled embracing of your authentic self and a desire to see each other’s “real” selves. It is wanting to illuminate their greatness so they see it. All I wanted to do was to influence people like that for as long as humanly possible.

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Linger a little longer

Linger

“Mmhmm I want to linger.
Mmhmm a little longer.
Mmhmm a little longer here with you.
Mmhmm and as the years go by, mmhmm I’ll think of you and sigh.
Mmhmm this is goodnight and not goodbye.”

Camp songs have a way of seeping into your skin like expensive hand cream, soaking your skin and helping you to realize that you are long overdue for that kind of nourishment. How we miss these things sometimes…

Linger” is like that for me. Sure there are funnier songs, goofier cheers, handmotions (don’t forget the handmotions, they often bring the whole song together) but Linger…like Wicked, Harry Potter, The Prince of Tides movie and good conversation tends to speak to my soul at the cellular level.

It is a song of appreciation.
A song of longing (in the sense of This is Not Enough time)
A song of presence. You were here with me and you will continue to be with me regardless of where we are.

That’s good time spent. The time spent sighing as I think back to warmth, openness and hilarity. I want those moments to linger too.

Look a Little Closer

On the twisting backroads to the YMCA camp I worked at for 19 years there was a flower farm–a single-wide home on a large lot with an enormous flower garden to the side–at the edge of the garden there was a worn, wood park bench with an old coffee can sitting on it.  Around the can was a handmade wrapped sign “Flowers 10c”  and a pair of garden shears balanced on the lid.

It was the honor system.  I especially liked that.

In the summer on our time off, the staff would often swing by, dig into our pockets for extra cash and bring back armfuls of flowers–dahlias mostly–their mix of color and shade in a blossom that looked like the fireworks we watch off the dock at 4th of July.  The flowers were never for us.  They were for some unsuspecting friend or friends back at camp.  We would bring them into the dining hall and place them in a plastic bucket we’d borrowed from the kitchen.

We bought dahlias because their personalities were big and their message was bold, just like we were.

Yes, I quoted Oprah. So sue me. A tree lover’s guide to cancer and the woods.

What I know for sure regarding grief and nature.

Yes, I did it. I quoted Oprah. I’m not proud of it but the line came to me and I’m going to own it.

This weekend I was reminded of a few things I know for sure.   I escaped this weekend. Broke the chains of laundry. Tore off the shackles of dishes and vacuuming. Late on Friday night—in a moment of spontaneous decision-making—I hopped online, booked a hotel room and packed a bag. Then, like a kid who’s just gotten away with something, I smiled, crawled into bed and set my alarm to make an early ferry.

I had to.

Maybe it was the residue of the previous weekend.   I’d spent the evening with a 25-year old friend who is knee-deep in the trenches of pancreatic cancer. Not good.

Not just not good. Bad.

I am so tired of cancer. I am tired of its systematic and relentless pursuit of people I love. I resent the way it takes who it wants regardless of circumstance, character or age. So you can appreciate why I didn’t give a damn about my dishes or the fact that there are three Amazon Prime boxes sitting in my living room with their contents strewn about. All of this warranted ACTION on my part.

Get the hell out of town. Run for the woods. Head to the Hoh Rain Forest.

It needed to be a little inconvenient. The ferry ride, the 3+ hour drive. You see, the inconvenience underlined the significance of leaving. I needed to be away, tucked beneath Sitka Spruce and Douglas Firs well over 200 feet. Moss blankets everything from boulders to every inch of branches that reach out like fuzzy fingers. I needed the serenade of the Hoh River, its conversation, a loud party full of light chitchat. I longed for the solitude of a trail where I go at my pace and stop when I want to take pictures (even if I already stopped a minute ago.) I want the freedom to jump when thunder booms above me and to leave my hood down when the downpour comes. I want to take the untouched side trail—the soggy ferns soaking my shorts as my thighs pushed them back with each step—up to the waterfall to get a better photo and to stand there and close my eyes.

Normally, whenever I return to the trailhead, to the comfort of my car and whatever snacks I’ve left behind, there is a sense of pride. An I did it. This time I felt that, but it was different. Something about the forest opens me.

I text a video of the waterfall to my 25 year old friend.

Me: I sent you a waterfall. Early birthday present.

My friend: Thank you!!!!!!!

Me: I mentally took you on the hike. I hope you aren’t sore.

My friend: It was like I was physically there!! My legs are killing me! How many miles was that again?

Me: Just shy of 6. I have to tell you, you weren’t very helpful when we found ourselves on the trail with a big elk about 30 ft. ahead and another one about 30 ft. behind (with their family peering in from the bushes.) Otherwise, you were a trooper.

My friend: Oh my gosh!!! I bet I was useless. “Oh look, large and dangerous mammals. LET’S PLAY WITH THEM!!!”

Me: I thought when I had to tell you to stop trying to pet them was the real low point.

My friend: That was the low point. Even their antlers are furry!

Somewhere during the texting conversation the tears started. Tears of loss, of pent up energy, of fatigue. These were tears of relief. Relief that we could still play. Relief that we could pretend we had hiked and faced down some elk together. Tears that sometimes the best way to connect is to talk about what you wish you did rather than what you have to do.

What is summer to you?

Summer has a way of sliding over me like my favorite t-shirt. It takes a little while for me to settle into my summer stride.  Maybe you relate. You know, first I have to fight off the nagging feeling that I should use my vacation to be productive, that I should EARN my vacation by a lot of work.  But then I went camping recently (and totally lacking anything productive) and suddenly it felt real.  There was a precise moment (sitting in the camp chair, feet on the picnic bench, joking about our state park neighbors) when I actually said, “This feels like summer.”

I have a long and meaningful relationship with this season.  I went to camp as a kid and then worked at a camp for 19 years.  I GET summer.  It is a magical time for me. Summer isn’t about weather for me. It is about 5 simple things.  What about you?

1) Being outside.  Getting my nature on.  Wandering into the woods or out on a dock and enjoying not being surrounded by people.  Having the view–the extraordinary view–be enough.  Be MORE than enough.

2) Relaxing.  Not I’ve got 15 minutes to sit down relaxing. I’m talking FORGETTING YOU HAVE A JOB relaxing.  This is the moment where your biggest decision is Should I make more tea or finish off the Doritos first?  It isn’t necessarily laziness–though Lord knows that’s an art form–it is about enjoying the pace of right now.  Nowhere to be.

3) Camping.  Now I know this might be sketchy territory for some folks, but hear me out.  Camping (or hiking even) gets you out of your space.  Gets you out of your home.  Gets you out of your parking spot.  It makes you small in the world.  Bye bye TV.  Hello, JUST SIT THERE.  Watch the way the fire licks the sides of the log you just turned over.  Stare up and actually notice that there are stars in the sky.  Stare long enough that you can’t count them.  Sip a cup of tea, tilt back in the chair and balance a book on your knee.  A BOOK.  Remember those? Heaven.

4) Laughter, preferably about something ridiculous and unimportant.  My friend and I, while polishing off cheese quesadillas, killed a good 1/2 hour discussing whether we could buy green vests and pretend to be the volunteer campground hosts.  We talked about what our duties would be and how we would hide the evidence if the real hosts came around in their golf carts.

5)  Being with kindred spirits.  My favorite people on the planet are kindred spirits.  They know me, they get me, they have no desire to change me, they banter, you get the idea.  True summer to me is saying to them,”I want to spend time with you” and their response is “Me too.”

What about you?  What makes your summer magical?

Mother’s Day Casualties

My hands have been typing for 5 hours today.   Solid.  When I was done, I’d written 9380 words for a grand total of 22 glorious pages.  To be totally honest, I didn’t have to think up most of the words, they were already in pen in my notebook. 

But it is Mother’s Day.  And, as much as my own mother gets her day and her shout out, I’ve been thinking a lot more today about all the folks for whom Mother’s Day is a minefield. 

1)   A dear friend who only days ago had her mom’s funeral.   

2)   A mother whose college-age daughter passed less than 2 months ago. 

3)   A new mom who is celebrating her first Mother’s Day without her mom who passed when she was 17. 

4)   All the women who want to be moms but are pounding their fists against the wall of infertility.

So why the words you ask?  Why the explosion of typing bonanza?  Why risk my fingers falling off?  What do these words have to do with the above people?

Simple.  I’d been holding onto the words of #2’s daughter (my friend.)  Hours of conversation, sharing and openness have been tucked away in my writing notebook.    For weeks they have been talking to me (nagging me really, but I’m trying to be nice.) 

“Hey, you need to share us with her mom…this will mean a lot to her.”

And there is nothing like the dead to prompt me into action. 

So I text her mom…

Me:  Would you like to have our early conversations?  See the things she shared?  Her answers to questions?

Her mom:  Oh [insert my name] that would be wonderful!

And when I am tempted to apologize to her for how ridiculously long it is—22 pages? I mean  really would it kill me to revise??  I warn her to get comfy before she sits down to read.  I am tempted to warn her that—even though it is over text—that it is heavy.  That her daughter says things like “I’m not dead yet.”  But I don’t warn her.  There’s nothing I could say that she hasn’t thought, heard or experienced in the last few years of this.   Instead, I give her her daughter’s words—and with it, many of mine, many of my sharings—and hope that she finds it helpful and warming to the soul.  

Open Your Soul and See What Happens

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When I suggested our college-age YMCA cabin group do the activity “I’m from a place” I knew I was suggesting they open their souls to each other and trust that the group would support them.  That was how “I’m from a place” worked.  In this activity, the group stands up and spreads around the room—our room being about 15×15—and the group is quiet.  Then one person steps to the side and says, “I’m from a place….” And fills in the rest of the sentence for them.  It doesn’t have to be detailed, it can even be general, but it should be personal.

Things like…

I’m from a place where my parents don’t understand what is important to me.

Or

I’m from a place where I’m not sure where to go with my life right now.

Or

I’m from a place where it is hard to tell who my real friends are. 

Or

I’m from a place where I feel loved and supported most of the time.

Since these are college-age participants, their comments often are about finding their place in the world, what kind of decisions to make etc.  And, when someone in the group steps to the side and says their statement, then everyone who identifies or connects with that statement comes to stand near them and put their hand on their shoulder (or on the shoulder of someone who already has their hand on that person.)  Then, once everyone who has moved is done and there is a few moments of support, the next person steps to the side and says their “I’m from a place…”

This goes on for maybe 30 minutes with a group of 12.  Usually everyone goes about 2, maybe 3 times.  It is quiet.  It is thoughtful.  It is supportive.  It is intense.

And the feeling in the room as people quietly say something that is true for them, is powerful.

As the facilitator of the activity, I usually go first.  It sets the tone and gives them an idea of how it works.  It also gives the permission so to speak, to go to the place where they share the thing they struggle to say.  I don’t do this with all groups.  Not all groups get to the place where this activity is the right choice for them.  This is also one of those activities where I ask the group if they are interested in doing an something that really puts it out there. I tell them, “This is a beautiful activity and it is powerful, but if you aren’t in the mood and want to keep it light, are feeling distracted etc., it is totally cool to do something different.”

This particular group was on board.

So we started.  Simple.  Deep.  Honest.  Even when their I come from… was vague, it always hinted enough that individuals could interpret it as they wished.

Such as, “I come from a place where I’m really struggling right now.”

We don’t know why or how that person is struggling.  We don’t know if we are struggling in the same way.  But the reality is that it doesn’t matter.  If you are struggling and I am struggling, then we come from the same place.

We got the activity started and before you know it people gathered around, hands on shoulders, a hand or two on backs and other people standing nearby.  In a few moments, the whole group was connected.  Silent, but connected.

After a few moments—which we called “Giving the sharing its time” someone new stepped away.  And on it went from there.

My anxiety climbed after about 10 minutes when I thought about sharing my “I come from…” with the group.  I wanted to be able to say how what had made this last year so painful—so heartbreaking—but couldn’t find the words.  Everything seemed inadequate, or too specific.  I wanted to speak a truth for me—one that captured the profound loss without saying the details.

Also, as the leader of the group, I didn’t want it to be about me too much. I could be a part of the group to a certain extent, but not so much that the spotlight stayed on me.  The only people who had a sense of what my last year had been like were my co-leader and one of the participants who I had know for 4 years.  As I scrolled through possible phrases, they all seemed to miss what I was trying to say.

I come from a place of deep hurt.

I come from a place where this last year I feel like I no longer remember who I am.

I come from a place of deep, deep anger at the events that have happened.

None of them worked.

When I finally knew what to say I almost panicked at the thought of speaking such pain aloud.  To say this in a group of strangers would be one thing, but 2 of the people (my co-leader and “R”—the participant) would know what I meant.

I stood to the side and said, “I come from a place where I have lost one of the most important things in my life this year.”

Gradually, one by one, they came over to me.  The comforting pressure and warmth of hands rested on my shoulders.  Gathering friends—strangers only 2 days ago—moved beside me and behind me.  Then R walked in front of me and faced me.  She went against the norm of the activity, stood a foot away from me—closer than you stand if you are going to have a conversation, more like a hug—and she looked up at me until she had my eyes.   Reaching out, she took both of my hands—another unchartered territory in the activity—and she held both my hands.

She knew what I was referring to when I said I had lost significant things and people.  She knew exactly.  Standing behind me, or next to someone else was not enough.  R knew the pain I was referring to.  She had seen it play out.  Even though she was 16 years younger than I was (a 19 to my 35,) she stood with me in that moment.  I was unaware of the others once she did that.

Rarely have I felt so exposed, so vulnerable and so supported at the same time.

She didn’t say anything.  She just smiled at me and squeezed my hands.

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Why I Press the Shutter…Why Certain Images Grill My Cheese

What is it that makes someone me press the shutter?  What is it about that moment that makes a photographer–I sound so swanky when I refer to myself that way–say, “Now”?  As someone who got on WordPress to write, I take photos for the same reason I write.  I want to capture something.  I want to get it exactly like it was…a moment, a look, a conversation, an image.  

Above image-Little Cottonwood Canyon near Alta Ski Resort, Salt Lake City, Utah.  

This photo was my respite from an incredibly stressful funeral for my grandmother.  Even late into the fall, it still held surprises as we drove further up the canyon.  It was an escape. 

 

Above image-a close-up of one of the oxygen tanks I used.  

Cart around an oxygen tank for 2.5 years and you might find yourself taking its picture too.  The oxygen, my regular companion–loathed and appreciated at the same time–was never something I saw in my future and never something I felt would ever be “normal” for me.  It would always be an awkward appendage.  This picture isn’t about irritation though.  When I took it this was about acceptance. 

Above image-a dear friend, in a cemetery.

What draws me to this picture is the warmth despite the winter trees, the bare branches and the fact that 20 feet away were acres of headstones.  When photographing people I know, I am drawn to the idea of being able to capture “them.”  Writing is the same way for me. When I write about people I know, I want the reader to see them the way I do.  My friend S says “You always write me better than I am,” but that is how I see her.

Above image-a ghost town jail in Western Montana.  This is where they would chain the prisoners to the floor.

The macro lens lets me see every grain of dirt in the floor, the scratches in the metal, and the grain in the wood.  In the same cell there was a small window that looked up on the hill where the prisoners’ hanging would take place.  When I look at this photo, I think of all the people that were attached to the metal and all the stories I don’t know.  

 

 

 

Funeral Survival Guide…let’s just call it what it is.

Funerals are minefields.  That’s right, I said it.  One wrong step and—wait for it—BOOM, there goes your favorite arm.  They should be.  Everyone is doing the best they can, trying to limp their way through a haze of grief and say goodbye to someone who has only been gone a few days, but it is a minefield.  Pack up your field armor and take a deep breath—minefield.

The number of things that can stress out even the most socially confident person are baffling at a funeral.  Get together a bunch of people—many of who don’t even know each other—and then try to tackle the soul sucking experience of saying goodbye to a loved one.

I’ve collected a few notes that make funerals especially daunting in the midst of your grief.  These are the things that can trigger the explosion, derail the train, snowball out of control (pick whatever metaphor revs your engine.)

*The Ugly Cry.

If you loved the person, chances are you are concerned about the ugly cry.  This is no sniff sniff, dab dab of the Kleenex, this is the Turn the faucet on waterworks.  It is the This snot won’t stop running down my lip onslaught.  Enter bright red cheeks, puffy eyes.   Most significant about the ugly cry is that it came on without your permission and it won’t stop until it is GOSH DARN READY TO STOP.

*The Who Will Be There? Factor. 

Not only are you trying to emotionally wrap your head around the fact that you will not see this person again, no more texts, no more banter, no more visits, you have to think of the Who else is going to show up that I might not be emotionally prepped to see factor.  A funeral I went to yesterday involved this.  I went with a friend of mine—let’s call her Cindy—and told her, “Person X may show up. I’m not sure.  We haven’t talked in ages.  Nothing bad, but if person X shows up and I say to you, “Hey Cindy, this is person X,” know that that is a CODE BLUE.  (or red…whatever code means DO NOT LEAVE while I adjust.)

*The What Do I Say? 

If words could cause paralysis, it would happen at a funeral.  Talk about pressure.   A person has just lost a parent, a spouse, a child, a friend and you have to come up with the words—the right words, nay, the perfect words—that both celebrate the person, offer compassion and support and are neither too depressing or too lighthearted.  At the funeral I was at yesterday (parents who had lost their 23 year old daughter to cancer) I heard them saying over and over again, “Thank you so much for coming.”  I bet they didn’t know what to say either.

*What The Departed Would Have Wanted torment.  This is when you hear the dreaded phrases of

“She wouldn’t have wanted us to be sad.”

“She would want us to remember good things about her and not cry.”

Suddenly I’m annoyed.  Now I have what is known in funeral circles as Guilt Mourning.  I have to mourn the way the departed would have wanted.  To be honest, I’m not even sure that the departed would have felt that way.  But some person—trying to show how well they know her by issuing an edict of What she wanted—is  now telling me that, if I feel like a big o’l hot mess, that I am not mourning correctly.  That I have somehow let them down.

Guess what?  I don’t buy it.

My friend—let’s call her Ruth—said yesterday to me, “When I die.  I HOPE somebody is sad.   I don’t want them to fall into a deep depression over me.  I don’t want them to stop living their life.  But YEAH, I want them to be sad I’m gone.”

Guess what Ruth?  I can do that.  No problem.

Because I honestly think I can celebrate the departed’s life while mourning my loss at the same time.  The other night Cindy and I drank Kool-Aid (the departed’s drink of choice) while toasting her with tears in our eyes at the same time.

So what is a person to do when faced with a funeral?

Have a game plan and remember a couple of things.

1) Be prepared.

Have something you want to say to the loved one’s family before you go up to them.  Pee first before the service—you’re likely to be anxious facing this and it will be hard to focus on your loved one with a full bladder.  Have Kleenex and waterproof mascara.

2) Say goodbye how you need to, not how anyone else needs you to.

If that means going to the beach, going to the service, going shopping and getting some retail therapy or bawling on your couch, do it.  Kool-Aid helps.

3) Running into people you haven’t seen in ages is sometimes a good thing. 

I ran into an old friend yesterday and, even though we had grown apart, when we saw each other at the service, nodded and smiled, both of our eyes filled with tears.  Connection is connection.

4) This will not be the only time you say goodbye to this person.

Goodbyes with the ones that are close to us happen a thousand times and they still hang around.  You didn’t get to know the person in an hour and you aren’t going to let them go in an hour either.

5)  Don’t be afraid of the Ugly Cry.

Think of it as validation that you loved this person, that they impacted you and that you will miss them.  The more snot the better.

That’s the way they would want it.

The Ten Essentials…a survival guide

The Essentials

As a former backpack trip leader, I’d go over the packing list with my teen participants before we headed out into the Olympic National Park.  One of the things we would go over was The Ten Essentials.  These are things that are generally recognized as the must haves of the camping/hiking world such as a knife, compass, first aid kit and extra food.

It is how you survive if the going gets rough.

When I think about The Ten Essentials of my regular life—my life that has integrated with my healthcare—I can think of a different list of must haves. 

1. Warm Blanket– These are available in the hospital during treatments.  The warm blanket wraps up anything that is freaking you out, stressing you out, pissing you off in a comforting sheet of warmth.  It is without a doubt the most nurturing object in a hospital.

2.  Nurses- Whether it is their attentive care or the smart ass remark they make, nurses are the human version of the warm blanket.

3.  A sense of humor-some of the things that will happen with your doctors will be hilarious.  Don’t miss that because you are so busy “being sick” that you can’t laugh at the insanity that you life has become.

4.  Friends who remember– These are the little things.  My best friend tries very hard to remember when my doctor appointments or infusions are.  She doesn’t come to these with me, but she tries to text and check-in.  Friends who remember are essential while you are trying to act like visiting the hospital this often is “normal.”  Which it is not.

5.  Perspective– Remember that other people often have it worse than you do.

6.  Permission-Remember that even though #5 is true, that doesn’t make your suffering less valid.  Pain is pain.  Struggle is struggle.  You are allowed to have a crappy day, even if someone else had a crappier one.

7.  Music-Have something to listen to that makes you want to a) sing along and/or b)dance.  I like musicals, but whatever revs your engine.

8.  “I’d still like you” people–  You should have people who like you even if you are venting, ranting, swearing and storming.  These are the people who will not judge you when you pitch a fit.  They will be glad you called them.  They will not make you feel like you need to say, “Sorry I went off about that.”

9.  Something good to drink-Coke Slurpee, coffee, tea, wine, whatever.  Have something you enjoy.  This drink should be the warm blanket of the beverage world.

10. A flashlight-cause that’s always a good idea.