A Paper for My Grandmother May 11, 2010

Summer 1951, Hackensack, Minnesota

The sun was just going down far off on the horizon. An activity was going on in each cabin, though she cannot recall just what it was. At sunset, the counselors gather their cabins together to be sure their six girls are ready to go. Each cabin processes down the hill from different places, one by one, led by one camper of the cabin. As they go, they are singing the Counsel Fire song. The sixty girls from Junior Hill and the eighty girls from Senior Hill have once again come together around the Counsel Fire to mark the ending of another summer. This year, the handymen have built a rearing horse in honor of the riding activity. The horse is twenty feet tall, high above her head, made completely of wood inside the counsel fire ring. As they come to the Fire, the wood at the base of the horse is lit, and slowly as the evening wears on, the horse is engulfed in flames.

While the fire grows, the counselors award the girls with certificates for canoeing or Red Cross swimming or any number of other activities. Crying, hugging, and cheering go on throughout the course of the night. The first realization that this really is their last night at Camp Holiday is taking hold of her as she and each of her friends are acknowledged.

For about an hour these proceedings go on and then it is time to go back to her cabin. The walk back from Counsel Fire is a very quiet one. Only the sounds of the crackling fire behind her, the crinkle of the pine needles beneath her feet, and the rustling of the slight breeze that touches her face as it brushes past the pines overhead fill her ears. This is tradition, a time for each girl to reflect on her summer. She thinks of the laughs she shared with her cabin mates and counselor, the trip she went on, Sunday night saunas followed by a dip in the lake and a story read by Miss Kim, and countless other little moments that made up her sixth summer at camp.

After climbing into her jammies, she sat on her bed with her counselor and other cabin mates sprawled around her. In the distance they heard the first verse of the hymn start with the first cabin, then the second cabin with the second verse, and so on until it reached their cabin. By this time the girls were peering out the door of the cabin waiting their turn to sing. When it was their time, they sang the hymn they had sang every other night that summer. The verse that was special to their cabin and one that, in this moment, was theirs to share. So she sang out, with a slight wobble in her voice as tears threatened to fall, until the verse was over and the cabin next door took their turn. She turned to her counselor and joined her cabin mates in a group hug full of emotion, both happy and sad.

After few hours of sleep, parents began to arrive, taking their daughters home. Nothing else is like those moments getting on the bus to go from camp home to family home. With the last round of hugs to fellow campers and loving counselors, she boarded her bus with 15 other campers headed for downtown Minneapolis. All the way down the dirt driveway leading to Camp Holiday, the girls all sat turned around waving out the back of the bus, leaving behind the home they had created in Hackensack.

Though she drove away knowing it was the end of the summer, she knew in her heart that she would be back for her seventh summer next year. Next summer would be special; she would be in Cabin 1 and be able to lead her cabin to the Counsel Fire once more, but it would be more meaningful than all the rest. She would be the “Best Camper,” she was sure of it. She had received countless awards and had led her cabin to Counsel Fire in all the previous years. So next year, summer 1952, she would be the “Best Camper” to lead Cabin 1 down to the Counsel Fire.

——-

Christmas 1951, Edina, Minnesota

Just as the past six Christmases, she woke up Christmas morning expecting her telegram. As she ran downstairs, she pictured just what it would say, “To make your day especially gay, your gift next summer is Camp Holiday.” It was the present she waited all year to receive, the assurance that she would return to her camp home for another summer.

But Christmas came and went without a telegram arriving.

——-

Summer 1952, Edina, Minnesota

Summer was upon her and she was not at Camp Holiday as she had for so long envisioned herself to be. Instead, she was at home with her family. Only her family was not complete any longer for her mother had just passed away. Now it was only her father, her two sisters, and she.

Thinking back, she realized it was probably her mother’s doing that she was not at camp that summer. Her mother knew she was sick and could not be sure that she would still be there when her daughter came back from Camp Holiday in August. It all was understandable, but the feelings of missing out and not finishing what she started have stayed with her even so.

——-

Summer 2008, Denmark, Maine

“Will the girls who are receiving their fifth year paddle please come to the front?” Carol said.

I rose from my seat on the steps of the Ginny Lodge and walked toward the water to then turn around and face all of the girls and counselors I knew and loved. The group of twenty or so that was receiving their paddles stood in a line, saying our names and stating what year we started at camp.

“I’m Wallis,” I said, “and I started in Upper Inty.”

Carol then addressed the fact that a paddle for us is more than just a paddle. A paddle at camp signifies that we have spent five of the most formative summers of our lives at a place and with people we hold onto very tightly. I stood there smiling as Carol spoke, simply enjoying the moment I was living in.

The next day, I walked down to the Office to pick up my own paddle. She handed it to me saying; “Congratulations!” with a huge smile on her face. As I walked back to my tent to join my fellow Counselors In Training for lifeguard training, I thought about my grandmother. I had seen her face light up each time she came to visit my sister and me at camp and I knew how much it meant to her to have that special bond with us. Except now I felt as though I had done something for her, I had finished her cycle. I had received my paddle from Wyonegonic. Despite the differences in time and place, I had somehow finished the circle that she was never given the chance to finish fifty-seven years before at Camp Holiday.

Molly Venter “Shaky Ground” December 13, 2009

Molly Venter is a Mountain School grad who came and sang to us while we were there last fall. I thought it was fitting to put something TMS-related up today because one year ago today we were saying our goodbyes.

A Walk November 1, 2009

We walk

In flip flops

Down the path

Of potholes,

She almost trips.

Talk

About our day,

Of lessons learned.

She is quiet.

Fade

We three walk,

She falls behind,

Disappearing into dust.

We wander

In the woods now,

Three turns to two.

The next is dust.

Gone

Just two of us,

Across the green, we keep

Talking but she too is fading.

Now,

Just me,

Silent on the green expanse.

 

The spacing on this is supposed to be different, but here’s the poem I wrote.

The Happy Thursday Story from Winnie the Pooh November 1, 2009

This is from camp, a little story that we all loved. Take from it what you will…

Now one autumn morning when the wind had blown all the leaves off the trees in the night, and was trying to blow the branches off, Pooh and Piglet were sitting in  the  Thoughtful Spot and wondering.

“What I think,” said Pooh, “is I think we’ll go to Pooh Corner and see Eeyore, because perhaps his house has been blown down, and perhaps he’d like us to build it again.”

“What I think,” said Piglet, “is I think we’ll go and see Christopher Robin, only he won’t be there, so we can’t.”

“Let’s go and see everybody,” said Pooh. “Because when you’ve been walking in the wind for miles, and you suddenly go into somebody’s house, and he says, ‘Hallo, Pooh, you’re just in time for a little smackerel of something,’ and you are, then it’s what I call a Friendly Day.”

Piglet thought that they ought to have a Reason for going to see everybody, like Looking for Small or Organizing an Expotition, if Pooh could think of something Pooh could.

“We’ll go because it’s Thursday,” he said,  ”and we’ll go to wish everybody a Very Happy Thursday. Come on, Piglet.”

“He Starts Laughing”: My Return to Nobles and Rad Smith’s Mud Season October 22, 2009

“Wallis doesn’t want to be here. I can just tell,” said Aby to a couple friends at church.

I didn’t know how to respond to this statement. I could not say yes because I loved being back with my family and seeing my friends again after being away for so long. At the same time, I could not say no because I missed The Mountain School and my life there so much. I missed the world I had created up there. My friends knew me like the back of their hand, who could tell when I was upset or happy or whatever my mood. My teachers, by the end, had become friends who also happened to be my teachers. The smells from the kitchen and the wood fire; the constant hugs passed around between everyone; the chores, I would have even volunteered to clean the bathrooms or clean the smelly chicken house if it meant going back; dance parties in the kitchen after finishing dish crew; walks to Garden Hill; and long talks wherever they happened to turn up. After such a community and self-discovery oriented experience with my best friends, the last place I wanted to be back at was Nobles.

I had left Nobles for The Mountain School because I lacked the strong friendships I cherished at camp and with my family. I never felt that I had personal ties with this place other than my family’s history with the school and the fact that I take my classes and live here throughout the week. After finding a reason to leave, and having the opportunity to do so, I was not at all thrilled about coming back. I knew I would miss my home at The Mountain School, but most importantly, I would miss the ties that I had made by myself, to the place and my friends. But I didn’t have a choice, so back to Nobles I went in January.

When school started again in January, my friends at Nobles never really took the time to see that I was upset and missing The Mountain School. I was rarely asked questions about my experience and when I tried to tell stories, people would seem annoyed at the fact that I was telling about something they had never done. They saw others who had just come back and criticized them for being upset, so I never felt as though I could show I was feeling the same way.

One Sunday night, around mid-January, I was studying for a math test alone in my dorm room. I was working myself up over the material because I just did not understand the math. The next hour or so turned into an hour of me just sobbing to myself sitting at my desk because I was frustrated about math, but more so than that, I missed The Mountain School. I think that night was the bursting of the dam. I had been holding all my emotions about coming back inside for so long, I just needed to start it off with something small and it skyrocketed on its own from there.

That night it finally hit me that I was really back at Nobles for good, and there wasn’t any hope of going back to Mountain School, despite how much I wanted it. After that realization, I actually had my best semester at Nobles thus far. Mountain School is still too recent for me to know exactly what I gained from the experience, but I think I brought back a new-found comfort and confidence in myself. I learned how important strong friendships are to me, and that I was able to create much stronger friendships at Nobles. Nobles would never be what The Mountain School was for me, but in its own way, school was better than it was before I left. Honestly, I don’t think I can answer the question of what The Mountain School meant to me, but I know I changed while I was away. I wish I could have found a quicker way to love Nobles, but this is the way it worked out for me and I’m happier now that I have accepted that.

In the first month after coming back from The Mountain School, I found myself stuck in a rut. At first I thought of only the negatives of being back at Nobles, but after my breakdown, I started to look at the positives as well. Rad Smith’s poem Mud Season (pg. 35) also speaks to this idea of looking at the positive side of things over the negative. The truck driver started to laugh at his unfortunate circumstance whereas a great number of people would have become angry over being stuck in the mud. After spending the time trying to get his truck out of the mud, most people would simply become frustrated and angry. This truck driver, however, looked at the bright side, how silly it was that such a simple thing as mud could cause such a problem.

Right from the beginning Smith brings the reader into the poem by starting with the line, “Our road a trough of mud.” The narrator sets the scene so the reader is able to form a picture about what is happening; the narrator “helplessly throwing sticks under the tires” and the driver “pounds the horn, the steering wheel and/ floors it.” An image of the narrator standing on the side of the road with sticks in hand, while the wheels spin mud out in torrents, but not moving forward, even an inch, comes to mind. If the truck were free of the mud, it would be traveling at ungodly speeds, but because it is stuck, it only digs itself deeper, “the windows shake the trees reflected in them,/ and the miles on the dashboard/ advance so fast he could be halfway/ to the moon.” The truck should be shooting forward, going places, escaping from this muddy road, but instead, it has sunk into the mud, which will not loosen its hold on the truck in the least.

During this episode, most anybody would get frustrated and angry, possibly even on the verge of throwing a fit. After so much time without making any progress moving forward, it seems reasonable to be at least a little angry. However, despite these circumstances, the truck driver “starts/ laughing,” followed by the narrator beginning to laugh, and “soon/the truck’s laughing.” Instead of perceiving this situation negatively, the truck driver starts to laugh. He is able to see beyond this frustrating moment in order to put it in perspective with everything else, seeing that this moment could have always been worse. “Even as the wheel rims churn deep/ and deeper.” Smith ends this poem with the ominous sensation that no matter how hard the truck driver tries to get out of the mud, it is virtually a lost cause without being pulled out by another truck or large piece of machinery. Even though the prospect of freeing the truck is slim, the driver is still in good spirits.

This truck driver literally has his truck stuck in a rut. Although it does not seem probable that it will be freed anytime soon, the truck driver still remains positive and laughing throughout. The truck driver was able to jump right in and see the positive side of his situation whereas I took a good deal of time to be able to look at the positive side of returning to Nobles. Smith was able to present an unfavorable situation, but still allow his characters to laugh and lighten the atmosphere. Even though I went through a phase of negativity, I learned to accept my situation and beyond that, be happy where I was. Both of these instances are illustrations of the two different sides of an experience and the happiness that comes from being positive.

“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost September 28, 2009

The photo with this poem is one from The Mountain School. On the day we read this poem, my teacher took us out to a wall in the middle of the woods and started reciting “Mending Wall” for us. After he finished, we all sat down on and around the crumbling wall discussing the poem and it’s relationship to where we were. Enjoy!

“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

September 28 New Yorker September 28, 2009

When I was flipping through my New Yorker, I almost immediately stopped on the article “The It Bird” by Susan Orlean. What first caught my eye was the colorful drawing of the chickens starting halfway on the left page and then traveling all the way across to the edge of the right page. From there I was curious as to why there was a color drawing (when most of the drawings are in black and white) in the middle of the page, so I looked up at the title and then started to read. The first paragraph is all about how she watched this documentary about chickens and from there she became a ‘chicken person’ where as before she had liked furry animals but had never wanted a bird. It made me think of the documentaries I have seen recently about food and the food industry and  how those have influenced (along with TMS) my outlook on food.

Book Talk September 18, 2009

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver is the story of Missy, a teenage girl who leaves home after finishing high school, simply to get away from her town. Her motto after leaving is that she will drive until her car simply dies. Starting in Kentucky, she drives toward Arizona. In her stop in Oklahoma, she is simply handed a small girl she later names Turtle. WIth nothing else she can do, she drives with Turtle to Arizona. From there, the story unfolds into a story of different cultures, the dependence people have on each other, and the struggle to have the life that Missy wants to have.

My mom was the one to recommend this book to me a few summers ago when I wanted a book to read. I loved how simply and easily the story moved along. How Missy and the other characters deal with the struggles and tough decisions that have to be made in order to keep their families together. Missy is just around our age now, which when I re-read the book again this summer, made it a little more relatable even though we live very different lives.