Pangs of Nostalgia: Camp Cherith

I just found most of this in my drafts. I wrote it almost five years ago, but since it's a collection of memories it holds up. Woo!

I went to Camp Cherith for at least one week every summer from age 7 to 19. I calculated it once, and I lived in that place for about three months total. You may have noticed that Zoe calls me Pyg once in a while - that's because at camp I had to pick a bird name to go by, so I picked Pygmy Owl and shortened it to Pyg. Sometimes I can't think too much about my time at Camp Cherith because the camp I knew and loved is gone now. Sometimes it hurts to remember all the joyful memories I had in that place, but here are a few, all jumbled together: 

• the quiet of the archery range and the dull thump of a bulls-eye (I'll try to forget the flies and mosquitoes that tried their best to distract me)

  

  Photo courtesy of Rebecca Thelin

• the squeals of little girls calling me "Pyg! Pyg! Pyg!"
• the giggles of little boys calling me by clever variations of Pyg
• the excitement of my first trip to Big Bear on a weekend with a boy I liked
• the raucous laughter during a vicious late night game of rat slap - and by vicious I mean I still have a tiny scar on one of my fingers
• the thrill of a good soap bubble fight in the kitchen
• the chill of the morning
• the heat of an afternoon hike
• the silliness of skits and camp songs

  

  Photo courtesy of Rebecca Thelin

• the beauty of a wooden cross behind a camp fire with the mountains looming in the background
• the irresponsibility of engaging in a squirt gun war when we were supposed to be working
• the deliciousness of trying my first cheese raviolis
• the delight of telling campers about a fake smiley face constellation named Bob
• the relaxation of watching Newsies or Princess Bride for the hundredth time
• the amusement from startling the entire camp during meals by shouting a CILT cheer 

  

  Photo courtesy of Rebecca Thelin

• the adrenaline from seeing the occasional bear or raccoon
• the mindless satisfaction of weaving a colorful lanyard
• the stickiness of a good marshmallow fight
• the savoring of dough baked on a stick over an open fire and smothered in butter, cinnamon and sugar
• the sweetness of a hundred voices and one guitar singing for Jesus
• the cheesiness of holding hands with new friends and hearing our director say "Y'all come back now, hear?"

I learned so much from that place - how to get along with people who were very different from me, how to lead, how to put Jesus first by centering my day around Him. I first heard about Westmont College from one of my camp counselors and from my camp director - I may not have attended without knowing they'd gone there. Which means I might not have met Zoe. Which means this blog is here because of my camp experience. Mind. blown.

I hope Eiley and Margot get a similar experience some day. 

. . . and then my life flashed before my eyes

I'm a little slow to jump on board, but I loved the posts by Emily and Jenna on ". . . and then my life flashed before my eyes" and so, without further ado, or too much thought (it is supposed to be a flash after all), here's my own list:

• doing the Cotten Eyed Joe (with Emily and others) up on stage at the President's Inaugural Ball in front of the entire extended Westmont community
• washing students' feet when I was a Westmont staff member
• nursing Sofia in the middle of the night when she was about a week old and seeing her eyes look into mine for the very first time
• standing by my Dad at 2am when he was on the phone with the hospital who was about to tell us whether my sister had survived a tragic bus accident in Colorado
• running in the rain with Manny one night during college when the power went out and the entire town of Montecito was in total darkness
• dinner at the Nadlers' with the entire Spring Break in the City crew, standing in their driveway with Manny with a huge rush of wind swirling around us. 
• standing in the back of the Fairmont Ballroom on my last night working for Breakthrough, watching Cory Booker invest genuine interest and enthusiastic high fives into our students before receiving a bouquet of flowers from my beloved CEO, Mialisa, on the center stage. 
• wearing the hugest, goofiest grin of my life while my jaw was dropped throughout the entirety of Cirque-du-Soleil, next to my dear friend Charity
• jumping up and down in my driveway in 5th grade when I got a piece of writing published for the first time, and feeling so excited to tell my great-uncle, my pen-pal, who was also a poet
• sobbing on the very very hard floor in our Berkeley apartment after a very long day that bled into the wee hours of the morning of loading up our moving truck the last night we lived there, grieving the separation from a place where we'd started our lives together.
• Manny rolling around on the floor/ground, tickling Sofia, the both of them laughing up a storm

• the candle-light vigil for my sister and the other victims of the bus accident, held in the art gallery where my photo series of crosses was on display
• walking along the beach at Renwali in Sri Lanka before dawn, watching the huge waves of the Indian Ocean crash alongside me
• sitting with a 4th grade client during a time of fear for him, hearing him tell me about how God was bigger than anything he could be afraid of
• K playing with water in the sink at his school
• Manny requesting "our song" during the dinner portion of a Westmont formal, standing up beside our table, and dancing with me while everyone else was still eating
• driving around Houston, windows down, praise music blaring, and singing with my sister at the top of our lungs, while some unsuspecting passenger(s) sat awkwardly in the back seat
• walking across felled trees that served as make-shift-bridges across the water and through the woods at Little Creek Hollow
• tending to my transplanted potted trees I'd grown from seeds on our little front porch in Houston
• climbing up the steps to the graveyard where Van Gogh was buried with my grandparents, passing the church he famously painted, and surveying the fields and view out over the town of Auvers Sur Oise
• walking through the headstones for the tenement yard in Trenchtown with a Rastafarian friend who pointed to all the friends and even the brothers he'd lost in local gang fights
• worshipping around some picnic tables, surrounded by grapefruit orchards in Texas, during a mission trip to Mexico.
• sitting on a couch all alone on my wedding day while everyone else rehearsed, journaling about how perfectly happy I was right at that moment 
• Sofia falling asleep on my shoulder in the plane, during a hard day of travel

• kneeling in the mud, weeding the lavender fields with my dad, in the rain
• getting drive-through for dinner with my cottage-mates, wearing our PJ's and bathrobes, when the rain knocked out our power
• Sofia dancing vigorously to the ABC's with a giant one legged stomp and arm flail

• twirling with Sofia
• sitting on a porch, watching the world go by with Sofia and Manny

photo by: Manny Reyes

. . . and if I think about this any more, it'll be a meditation, not a flash.

Any others have some flashes to share? 

Pulchritudinous Places #2: Disneyland

You may have already gathered from a portion of my Father's Day post that I love Disneyland. This is half because I have oodles of happy memories associated with the place and half because it is just awesome. Things I love about Disneyland:


1. Rides. They're not as exhilarating as what some other parks offer, but they are significantly more magical. Favorites: Space Mountain - galactic lighting and a fun soundtrack make me feel like I'm in a 70s Sci-Fi show (in a good way). I've always longed to see this ride with the lights on. Maybe someday. Sigh. Splash Mountain - When I was in middle school, my cousin and I rode Splash Mountain five times in a row and we were completely drenched by the time we returned to our families. So fun. Plus I love the story, even though the characters vaguely promote racism.
2. Ambiance. Depending on where you are in the park, Disneyland sounds like polka, excited children, happy squeals and screams, calypso, fake birds, real birds, ragtime piano, whiny children, trolley bells, bluegrass, splashing, and automated ride instructions ("Permanecer sentados, por favor"). It smells like waffle cones, chlorine, barbecue, popcorn, water on hot cement, cows, churros, and faint cigarettes. It looks colorful, pristine, cheery, impressive. It tastes like chicken tenders, because that's all I tend to get there. And it feels like home.
3. People watching. Everyone goes to Disneyland. Sullen, gothic teens, families, large groups of Chinese tourists, couples on honeymoons, college friends, nerds, cool kids, rich people, poor people who have scraped and saved for this special day. Everyone. I could sit on a bench for hours watching a sampling of the world pass by. One time my dad and I sat on Main Street for about a half hour. A trolley horse had pooped, and we watched everyone react. It was hilarious. Mothers dramatically pulled their children away. Teens pointed at it like it was a science project gone wrong. For a while, a pile of poop was the star of Main Street. Humans are fascinating.
4. Shows. Fireworks set to cheesy inspirational music! Movies projected onto walls of water! Neon monkeys dancing on boats! Snow (okay, soap suds that only kind of look like snow) in Southern California! 3D Michael Jackson saving the world from scary Anjelica Huston through the power of music, dance, and a rainbow shirt! Billy, Billy, Billy, and Billy! 

Billys!

5. Exercise. Okay, I pretty much covered everything in the last four points, but I hate even numbered lists, with the exception of a solid top ten. Therefore, my ridiculous number five is that you get a lot of exercise walking around Disneyland without really feeling like you're exercising. Cool, right? Yeah.


In conclusion, Disneyland is awesome and you should go to there.