2001:September:7
2001
It occurs to me. It comes to mind. I reckon I ain't never told you about when I was a little girl in girl scout camp - the spendthenight for two weeks kind. I went in fifth, sixth, and seventh. Oh such pivotal years. In fact, this is one of those anomoly moments in me life.
I was reminded of telling you this story after I was walking and enjoying tilting my head to one side while I was walking. This reminded me of that counselor in camp who did the same thing. She was a stunning, healthy blond... more the camping type than the really beautiful type. Her name was something like Summer, Autumn or Amber. All the camp counselors had nicknames. The big game was learning what they're real names. (with all my persuasive powers of three years of these same counselors, I never found out any of there names, AND you will see that I got very close to them). It spanned over three years, so I'll try to tell you the whole thing by just listing fragmented memories.
- It was in macon, ga, the hottest town in georgia. Swimming was the big thing, and although my sister outshined me in my family by being the swim champ,,, in this camp I was in the second tier from the top. It was sort of the equivelent of belts in karate. Black was highest and only the oldest girls, best swimmers got these.... green was the second. It was a very rare band as well. Blue was average. Most people either had blue or yellow. The beginners had red. These were elastic necklaces that you wore throughout camp. They were sort of choker length (which may explain why I like chokers and scarves). It was awesome. I was the equvalent of wearing a Colonel's stripes the whole time. I met my biggest friend crush in the swimming pool.
- Her name was Edie. She was amazing. She was a black her first year of camp. She was smart, funny, older, and unatainable. Every nugget of attention she gave me, made me feel like an general in line for another star. One would think this would be a lesbian tendency of mine. I would wonder, but myself - feeling it - it was more like a superhuman, fairy elf was amoung us. She was very arty and beautiful and distant but profound. I more worshipped her than wanted to get close to her at all costs.
- We had a great system that promoted no shyness. This is why I thrived in this environment. You picked a cabin, and went to it. No one usually would know anyone except the older girls and there usually weren't enough of them to fill a cabin. So, you got the cabin, and became fiercely connected with these girls. A stratified, well-defined environment developed in fierce instants. You ate meals at the same table as your cabin. There were also different camps. Each camp had three cabins and a counselors cabins. These cabins were huge screened porches with iron bunkbeds. The counselor's cabin was always beautiful - like Hotlips Houlihan's. We adored our counselor usually.
- You grew very attached to the counselors. Usually you would have two or three favorites. One very favorite and the others you just didn't know that well. We talked about the counselors like they were amazing soap opera characters. My favorites were Summer, Skipper, Autumn, Scooby, and Willow.
- I loved women then. It was soooooo amazing to see women stripped of parents, clothes (we all had uniforms), beauty products, boys, siblings.... It was just an environment where we had tennis sessions, craft sessions, horseback riding, gymnastics, swimming, canoeing, adventure training, etc. We also had inter camp cookouts, bonfires, and singalongs, and group dancing. Soo oooo amazing.
- I'm shocked that I haven't REALLY thought about camp in years.
