"My new thing is gonna be wearing men's pajamas."

As most of you know, I am enthralled with camp. I've been smitten since the age of 10. Last weekend I had the opportunity to be the "work crew boss" for Faceplant. Essentially, I got to hang out with 30-odd high school and college kids while we ran the kitchen and dining room for 400 middle schoolers. Yup, these amazing kids sacrificed their weekends to wake up before sunrise to serve little people. Humbling and fascinating.

So...camp. A chance to stop, to change, to rest, to retreat. The anomaly of camp is that it changes time--both compressing and expanding it. What seems like a day is a week, and vice versa. The relationships and experiences one has at camp are enduring and, usually, life-changing. There isn't so much pressure to be, to do, to achieve....blah blah blah. If you've been, you know. If you haven't, you should try it. Take it from this 34-year old: Life is too short to spend it hanging out with adults.

(I've listened to this a few times....so true.)
This American Life #109: Notes on Camp

As for Faceplant specifically, I've been going since 2004. Whether I'm slathering kids' faces with butter, sliding down icy sidewalks (or making them so with giant bowls of water), rocking out to the obnoxious "Party in the USA", or listening to 400 voices sing as one....it's always a good time. This year was a veritable cornocopia of quotables. Nicely done.

"We're just breezingg through naptime." -sophie

"It smells like butthole." -bkainz

"That was a pretty good Andy-girl laugh." -jill

"I'm crewin' all the time" -sarah jonathan zoolz

"It's not really inappropriate if you look at her face." -jill

"Can I see that? Because it's actually a scrub brush, not a broom. ...Hey, I found the scrub brush." -sarah jane

"Are you sure? Because it seems like you're laughing at me." -cameron

"So you would be familiar with the firmness, then." -nikita (insert a jill and sophie knowing glance)

"There's not even music for all the sound I'm producing right now!" -zane

"I don't know if anyone else has my same ding-dong." -sophie

"Well, I guess you're gonna have to get new friends." -bkainz

"Are you sure you're a Christian, man? You might want to send some missionaries to your face, because apparently it doesn't know." -zane

"I would say that I really like broccoli, but I don't." -tate

"Oh, so there's actually a book." -steve the video guy

"SAFARI PLANET!! That's the only thing I could think of to say." -tate

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!!"..."What's a tornado!?"

After what seems like a blink of an eye, but has actually been 6 months in the making, I am sitting in an office at Covenant Harbor Bible Camp...that's right, the very same camp where I spent 8 years' worth of summers and winters as a camper. The last time I was here was circa January 1994. Yikes.

As I spent Monday evening walking around this place I both know so well and am at once completely unfamiliar with, I was struck by the brick walkway leading around and up to the boathouse. BA-zing! These bricks I know. This walk I remember. (No, not in the Shane West/Mandy Moore kind of way..."Now you're in two places at once!") These are the same Purington Paver-type bricks that were in front of my grandparent's house on Academy Street in Galesburg. I always loved coloring the circular designs and parallel lines with my Crayola crayons.

While overwhelmed by my OCD brain swirls of things to do, things that have yet to be done, the anticipation of the season to come, the privilege of experiencing and witnessing grace again and again....mostly I just wanted to cop a squat and color; to escape the adult sense of fear and reality that has become my truth. Since when am I the old-lady teacher consumed with responsibility and obligation? My adventuresome side is still here, it's just accompanied by an unrecognizable white-knuckling that I'm just beginning to wave hello to...as I said to Keller last night, "The thing I fear most is also the thing I'm most hopeful for and excited about..." That applies to so many areas of my being and on multiple levels. Seriously. Sidewalk chalk; stat.

I had a similar rush of memories when looking out the windows on the second floor of the Carriage House, another when passing the steps leading up to the "big field" near what is now called Kishwauketo. Those stairs where nearly a quarter of a mile long when I was ten...

If you've ever been to summer camp, humor me and post your memories here.