I am so fortunate to have gone to a northern California summer camp in the 1960's and 70's called Camp Beaverbrook; I don't know why people laugh when I say that, but I was able to return to that hallowed ground last weekend and re-connect with a youthful, empowered part of my self that I am most grateful to integrate into my adult life.
I was at camp from the age of 8 to 15, for three weeks a summer. They were the happiest days of my childhood and the time I looked forward to all year long. No parents, no chores, expect K.P. and keeping your bunk clean...great friends to be made every year and others to reawaken with. Once puberty hit, camp became about who you'd sit next to at campfire , or who might ask you to dance on Saturday night. I felt my first love at camp, and my first heartache when I never heard from him again after camp!
Last August I Googled my camp and lo and behold, found a Yahoo group site with a 160 members! At the time I joined, the site had been up for two and something years and there were 4000 posts of memories and pranks and stupid camp song lyrics. And photographs! Since that time, I have been looking forward to the weekend now past, when a few dozen of us came together on the same land and had a camp out. Great food and drink, silly camp songs and campfire skits, walking through the hills to the old riflery range...a few intrepid spirits even went for a creek walk!
Of course things have changed there, Beaverbrook closed in 1985 and became a RV campground a few years ago. Things look different, but the sensory aspects of scent and sound and sight are still evocative of a halcyon period 35 years past. I've dreamed of camp for as many years and am so happy and grateful to have made that dream come true. Who ever said you cant' go home again didn't have a Beaverbrook, a place of the child where my spiritual roots are dug into ground as sacred to me as any I've ever walked.
Namaste`,
Connie
No comments:
Post a Comment