Lucy and I had a magical Saturday and Sunday in Wimberley.
Our first stop was Camp. Yes, Camp with a capital C: Rocky River Ranch, the place where I spent two weeks to two months every summer of my adolescent life. I started going when I was nine years old, perhaps the zenith of my dorkiness. My mom dropped me off on one Sunday, leaving me in the care of a bunch of young women, and I didn't even have the sense to be afraid. I marched into the fray, chose some activities, made some friends and was...cool.
It's true, Camp is the only place in my life where I have ever been cool (maybe because everyone gets to be cool). And I can only think it's because Camp is like life in concentrate, a hyper-real place where it's impossible to be fake. There's no room for posturing or pretending. You're too busy swimming, canoeing, riding horses, laughing, singing bad songs and, if there's any time or energy left before you collapse into your bunk, making the fastest, most intimate friends of your whole life (ones who even accept collect calls from jail). I learned to be a person at Camp.
Being in the Grubstake Saturday afternoon, listening to the post-lunch singing, had me brimming with nostalgia. And to see Liz, my friend and former counselor, as Camp Director...the perfection of the plot line is as pat and sappy as a Lifetime movie.
At first, Lu clung to me, terrified of all the noise, but later she stood in the doorway of the Red Wagon, slack-jawed in her worship of the seven-year-olds who SLEEP in the wagons. Without their PARENTS. And she has been singing "What'll They Do to Her" (this very catchy camp song about a man on deathrow) ever since. I can't wait for her to go.