Monday, July 29, 2013
Won't You Come Dance With Me?
So sing the Commodores and so I listen. Listen to the upbeat tunes that I so miss after a full afternoon of organizing, of tossing things aside, recatagorizing, wondering if I can ever I can find the emptiness I search for, I long for, as I keep keep keep so much. But I am trying. Forever trying. I think of my son Kennedy and his Elmo Potty Time DVD. There is a song that I myself remember from the 1980s watching Sesame Street. Trying trying again, the tune goes. It is part of the video to show children clips of children learning how to do things, how to have their own rites of passage. So too, I continue to try to create my universe of mindfulness, of writing, of creating, or letting go. The dance of being alone, of neither being in denial that the song has actually ended or of dancing in a sad, alone, mourning state. Here I find myself. On the brink. On the cusp. But sometimes feeling so deep in the weeds. Maybe I am perched on the top of a cattail in the weeds of a beautiful swamp with the sun shining down. One things feels certain: I am beginning to see the light and gain perspective from my perching point.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Evergreen
We welcome you to Evergreen,
We're mighty glad you're here,
We'll send your song reverberating with our cheer,
We'll sing you in, we'll sing you out.
Two ways, a mighty shout.
Hail, hail, the gang's all here.
Welcome to Evergreen....FIGHT!
The victory song. The cheer song. The welcome song. The song that I remember as I think back over the summer that rocked my universe and changed my world. The worst summer of my life. The summer that would somehow forever define who I would become because I would grow up so much and appreciate life outside that summer so much more.
It wasn't meant to be the worst summer. My parents had sent me to camp because Lois' daughter Marcy went for years. She was going back this summer. She loved camp. She had special camp friends. They all returned every summer. Tears of joy swept over the girls like a momentary sugar high and with the same intensity tears of sadness drowned out all other emotions and final hugs were given when the summer came to a close.
Why did I hate overnight camp?
1. There was never enough food
2. There was never enough personal space
3. I had no friends
4. I felt so different.
5. I felt so young and not ready for the world of boys
6. I was so homesick
7. I felt all this and more every day for seven weeks.
My first time away from home. This was it.
But where does the humanity come in? What is the (positive) desired end result that warms my heart when I think of this summer? The never-ending, felt-like-it-never-even-began summer?
1. It was the summer of Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park!), of my all-time favorite book Catcher in the Rye, of painful self-awareness and stark brazen alone time.
2. It was the summer of countless acts of kindness of my friends and family from far and wide. Lynn wrote to me. My dad wrote. Mom send words of encouragement ever day. "If you want to go back to Evergreen you can, but I vote for you to be a CIT next summer." Dad: "I hated overnight camp, I only went for a few nights and then went home. If you don't want to go back you don't have to." Lauren Pappone and I had lots of correspondence from Casco Me to Andover NH. My cherished friends. My friends I had almost forgotten about. My friends who I somehow have lost that connection with but who nevertheless are still my life and still so important and special to me.
3. The letters now serve as relics of a time in my family's life that I would not otherwise have. Strange to say, but it is true. Without those letters, we would never remember Dad starting his company almost exactly 20 years ago. WIA has its first client and the fee is only $1000 but we have to start somewhere. We wouldn't remember Mom, Mike, and Danny McShane going to the beach house for the week or coming back early because of the rain. We wouldn't remember Lauren's synopsis of her day with an illustration of her bunk and common area, or Lynn's date with Peter who "is nothing compared to the lifeguards and how hot they are but he is a sweetheart. We are going to the movies Saturday night." Michael at Camp Academy. Dad taking a course at Yale and going to the Yankee Doodle every day with Nanny Lila. Can anything surpass the extreme passion and intensity of the every day mundane, in retrospect?
4. I was never homesick again. I was never afraid of boys again. I would never feel sad away from home. Or scared to take a leap. It was the summer of counting down the days until I could leave camp. Of making a mix of the songs from the summer and gleefully playing them as others wept, knowing I would be free soon again. It was the summer of rejecting this boy, the idea of dating that one, but ultimately surrendering to the nice, not so popular, not to so tall Ryan and getting an end-of-the-summer kiss. The kiss to tell everyone about back in eighth grade. The kiss that lasted a second and barely touched my lips. The kiss that marked my advancement into womanhood so much more than the training bras or monthly cycle visit that seemed to be less dramatic and more of a nuisance every time they came up.
I think back to the summer often. The changes. The elation at making it to the top of Mt. Washington in a pair of off-white canvas high-top keds. Little 7-year old Marie who became my friend and we smiled at one another, perhaps both feeling the newness of being in a strange place over the summer, even though we were six years apart. The ecstasy of putting on my dad's old blue pajama bottoms and jumping countless times on my bed at home while listening to my camp mixes in my old stereo on my bureau. Back in my bedroom. At my house. In my world.
Less than a year after that summer, I traveled to Washington, D.C. with my eighth grade class for a week. I traveled to Costa Rica with my eighth grade Spanish class for almost two weeks. Although nervous and a bit scared of the homestay in Costa Rica, it was nothing compared to surviving the summer at Evergreen. Five years after that summer, I traveled to Barnard College, Columbia University where I stayed for four years as a student (including a semester at the University College London as an exchange student and as a a Washington DC Senate intern for Hillary Rodham Clinton). Shortly thereafter I became a Peace Corps Volunteer for two years in Ecuador after which point I moved back to the United States and after a brief stay at home in Boston, I moved to Washington DC where I stayed for almost five years, earned a law degree and met my husband.
We are home now, back in Boston, back where I started. I think back to camp. To the hate. To the fear. To the elation at being home, forever grateful to have my life back where I left it. To the following summers where I became a counselor in training and then a full counselor at the day camp near my house and experienced all the summer madness the Evergreen girls had so lusted after only with my friends, with people like me, with people who went home at night and attended camp parties after hours on Friday and Saturday nights.
Would I send my little one to summer camp overnight if he wants to go? Yes. It's the process that matters. The end result that matters. The fear and pain and angst and ecstasy and rejuvenation and exploration that matters. What I couldn't see then, I can see now. I can see how to truly become who we are we have to experiences that shape us. Thank you, Evergreen. Thank you, everyone. The gang's all here.
We're mighty glad you're here,
We'll send your song reverberating with our cheer,
We'll sing you in, we'll sing you out.
Two ways, a mighty shout.
Hail, hail, the gang's all here.
Welcome to Evergreen....FIGHT!
The victory song. The cheer song. The welcome song. The song that I remember as I think back over the summer that rocked my universe and changed my world. The worst summer of my life. The summer that would somehow forever define who I would become because I would grow up so much and appreciate life outside that summer so much more.
It wasn't meant to be the worst summer. My parents had sent me to camp because Lois' daughter Marcy went for years. She was going back this summer. She loved camp. She had special camp friends. They all returned every summer. Tears of joy swept over the girls like a momentary sugar high and with the same intensity tears of sadness drowned out all other emotions and final hugs were given when the summer came to a close.
Why did I hate overnight camp?
1. There was never enough food
2. There was never enough personal space
3. I had no friends
4. I felt so different.
5. I felt so young and not ready for the world of boys
6. I was so homesick
7. I felt all this and more every day for seven weeks.
My first time away from home. This was it.
But where does the humanity come in? What is the (positive) desired end result that warms my heart when I think of this summer? The never-ending, felt-like-it-never-even-began summer?
1. It was the summer of Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park!), of my all-time favorite book Catcher in the Rye, of painful self-awareness and stark brazen alone time.
2. It was the summer of countless acts of kindness of my friends and family from far and wide. Lynn wrote to me. My dad wrote. Mom send words of encouragement ever day. "If you want to go back to Evergreen you can, but I vote for you to be a CIT next summer." Dad: "I hated overnight camp, I only went for a few nights and then went home. If you don't want to go back you don't have to." Lauren Pappone and I had lots of correspondence from Casco Me to Andover NH. My cherished friends. My friends I had almost forgotten about. My friends who I somehow have lost that connection with but who nevertheless are still my life and still so important and special to me.
3. The letters now serve as relics of a time in my family's life that I would not otherwise have. Strange to say, but it is true. Without those letters, we would never remember Dad starting his company almost exactly 20 years ago. WIA has its first client and the fee is only $1000 but we have to start somewhere. We wouldn't remember Mom, Mike, and Danny McShane going to the beach house for the week or coming back early because of the rain. We wouldn't remember Lauren's synopsis of her day with an illustration of her bunk and common area, or Lynn's date with Peter who "is nothing compared to the lifeguards and how hot they are but he is a sweetheart. We are going to the movies Saturday night." Michael at Camp Academy. Dad taking a course at Yale and going to the Yankee Doodle every day with Nanny Lila. Can anything surpass the extreme passion and intensity of the every day mundane, in retrospect?
4. I was never homesick again. I was never afraid of boys again. I would never feel sad away from home. Or scared to take a leap. It was the summer of counting down the days until I could leave camp. Of making a mix of the songs from the summer and gleefully playing them as others wept, knowing I would be free soon again. It was the summer of rejecting this boy, the idea of dating that one, but ultimately surrendering to the nice, not so popular, not to so tall Ryan and getting an end-of-the-summer kiss. The kiss to tell everyone about back in eighth grade. The kiss that lasted a second and barely touched my lips. The kiss that marked my advancement into womanhood so much more than the training bras or monthly cycle visit that seemed to be less dramatic and more of a nuisance every time they came up.
I think back to the summer often. The changes. The elation at making it to the top of Mt. Washington in a pair of off-white canvas high-top keds. Little 7-year old Marie who became my friend and we smiled at one another, perhaps both feeling the newness of being in a strange place over the summer, even though we were six years apart. The ecstasy of putting on my dad's old blue pajama bottoms and jumping countless times on my bed at home while listening to my camp mixes in my old stereo on my bureau. Back in my bedroom. At my house. In my world.
Less than a year after that summer, I traveled to Washington, D.C. with my eighth grade class for a week. I traveled to Costa Rica with my eighth grade Spanish class for almost two weeks. Although nervous and a bit scared of the homestay in Costa Rica, it was nothing compared to surviving the summer at Evergreen. Five years after that summer, I traveled to Barnard College, Columbia University where I stayed for four years as a student (including a semester at the University College London as an exchange student and as a a Washington DC Senate intern for Hillary Rodham Clinton). Shortly thereafter I became a Peace Corps Volunteer for two years in Ecuador after which point I moved back to the United States and after a brief stay at home in Boston, I moved to Washington DC where I stayed for almost five years, earned a law degree and met my husband.
We are home now, back in Boston, back where I started. I think back to camp. To the hate. To the fear. To the elation at being home, forever grateful to have my life back where I left it. To the following summers where I became a counselor in training and then a full counselor at the day camp near my house and experienced all the summer madness the Evergreen girls had so lusted after only with my friends, with people like me, with people who went home at night and attended camp parties after hours on Friday and Saturday nights.
Would I send my little one to summer camp overnight if he wants to go? Yes. It's the process that matters. The end result that matters. The fear and pain and angst and ecstasy and rejuvenation and exploration that matters. What I couldn't see then, I can see now. I can see how to truly become who we are we have to experiences that shape us. Thank you, Evergreen. Thank you, everyone. The gang's all here.
Monday, July 22, 2013
To Write or Not To Write?
That is the question plaguing me as I clean up the bedroom for the bizillionth time. The boxes, the bags, the memories of college, study abroad, even middle school. But especially the Peace Corps. It felt like a life-changing event at the time. It still feels like one now. But somehow for some unknown reason I don't really feel like writing about the Peace Corps. I don't know why. I even started a book about the Peace Corps...and sort of gave up before I got to the part about the Peace Corps. I do think there is still something there to write about. I mean, I have journals, notes, even notes on napkins all to illustrate...what? I have pictures, necklaces given to me from friends when I lived in Machala, and shirts that I wore when I was there.
But really what I am getting at here is the essence of memory. If we don't hold on to the past do we lose it? What happens to it? What if I want to write my book one day and I wish I had the artifacts? Those notes, those paper napkins from bars, those pictures that were taken of us at the time but now have a different meaning where we can see the bar stool in the background, or the menu and the table setting at Cafe Patecon. The people are still here with us (of course if the people were not still here with us the picture takes on a deifed quality, an inescapable essence where getting rid of it feels sacrilegious) but really, it becomes less about the people and more about the memory. The feelings, the emotions, the ability to go back in time that we don't want to lose. The fear that getting old really just means, getting unfamiliar, getting away from the essence, our own essence, whenever, wherever it was.
But what I try to remember and what does become more clear as I go through this process is that there only really is one true essence, the here and now. Yes, nostalgia, picture, places, people, paper napkin notes have their place, but if those become what we rely on, they are figments of our true self coming through, not our actually full-self in the moment. In other words, when deciding what to save and what to chuck, here is my adage to live by: I will have the right things to save just by feeling out what seems right to save. Ok, it sounds too fake to be true. But seriously, that helps me get through this organization process. I will have the right things. Maybe maybe maybe there will be something I miss someday, but those instances will likely be rare. Instead, I love the space I am opening in my life for new experiences, and new memories. So long farewell, old Peace Corps napkins. The memoir may have to go on without you some day...you'll be with us in spirit. And I, having thrown out my treasured napkins, like someone throwing out a napkin after a big meal, feel more full than ever.
But really what I am getting at here is the essence of memory. If we don't hold on to the past do we lose it? What happens to it? What if I want to write my book one day and I wish I had the artifacts? Those notes, those paper napkins from bars, those pictures that were taken of us at the time but now have a different meaning where we can see the bar stool in the background, or the menu and the table setting at Cafe Patecon. The people are still here with us (of course if the people were not still here with us the picture takes on a deifed quality, an inescapable essence where getting rid of it feels sacrilegious) but really, it becomes less about the people and more about the memory. The feelings, the emotions, the ability to go back in time that we don't want to lose. The fear that getting old really just means, getting unfamiliar, getting away from the essence, our own essence, whenever, wherever it was.
But what I try to remember and what does become more clear as I go through this process is that there only really is one true essence, the here and now. Yes, nostalgia, picture, places, people, paper napkin notes have their place, but if those become what we rely on, they are figments of our true self coming through, not our actually full-self in the moment. In other words, when deciding what to save and what to chuck, here is my adage to live by: I will have the right things to save just by feeling out what seems right to save. Ok, it sounds too fake to be true. But seriously, that helps me get through this organization process. I will have the right things. Maybe maybe maybe there will be something I miss someday, but those instances will likely be rare. Instead, I love the space I am opening in my life for new experiences, and new memories. So long farewell, old Peace Corps napkins. The memoir may have to go on without you some day...you'll be with us in spirit. And I, having thrown out my treasured napkins, like someone throwing out a napkin after a big meal, feel more full than ever.
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