Grace

Camp is tremendously valuable for both boys and girls

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Sunset at the beach at our camp, August, 2014

Camp was a very important part of my life.  I went to the same camp, on Cape Cod, for many summers, including four years of a junior counselor training program and two years as a counselor.  It’s a profound joy for me to watch both of my children attend and love the same camp now.  I couldn’t possibly be more of a believer in what camps offer children.

Camp is a place that kids can be away from their parents, a place they can be joyfully rambunctious and experiment with new activities, skills, and experiences, a place they can meet and get to know friends who are different from their friends at home.  I place tremendous value in the out-of-their-regular-life aspect of camp, and in both of our childrens’ cases they went without a friend from home.

I learned recently that our camp, which is coed, is full for girls but not yet for boys.  Apparently all-boys camps are also less full than all-girls camps.  I find this phenomenon fascinating.  What is it about?  Do boys want to go away less?  This is hard for me to believe.  Do parents feel camp is less vital or valuable for boys?  Again, this surprises me, but maybe it’s true.  Is there increased competition for sports-specific camps when it comes to boys?  This, there may be some truth to.

For us, and I speak for both Matt and me here, we feel that camp is equally as important for a girl as for a boy.  We didn’t hesitate to send Whit, as I had Grace, the very first summer he was old enough (8 years old).  Both of our children were excited about going away that first summer (and every summer since).  I didn’t feel different at all about sending my children to camp.  In both cases I felt some trepidation and sorrow about saying goodbye (not really about missing them, but more about the recognition that I’m already here in my life).  But more than anything, I felt excited for them, and downright delighted to watch them fly.

There’s also such huge value, in my opinion, in the relationships that develop between children and their counselors.  Where else in their lives do kids get to form close, loving bonds with young adults, particularly ones who are in aggregate such terrific role models? In my view this is equally as important for boys and for girls.

I did have one boy-specific moment when I observed Whit with his counselors, at pick-up, certainly, but even at drop-off.  I watched the boys play Gaga Ball and felt like I was watching puppies: they were freed to be physical and rowdy, to be joyful and affectionate, to run and jump and yell.  So much of modern life seems to tell boys to be quieter and softer and I distinctly remember watching Whit and thinking: oh, wow, at last, a place he can just be a boy (I realize this a stereotype even as I write it, but it is one that holds true in our family and thus I share it).

This reflection made me more convinced at the power of camp for my son, not less.  Both of our children are looking forward to the summer ahead, and so are we.

Are you a summer camp family?  Do you feel differently about camp for boys as you do about camp for girls? 

 

 

State championships

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warming up

On Saturday, Grace ran in the Massachusetts middle school invitational championships.  It was a beautiful, bluebird day, the cloudless sky arcing, crystalline blue, overhead.  As we drove out to the race, she fretted.  “I just want it to be over,” she said.  “I know,” I told her.  “This is the worst part.”

“Well, no,” she corrected me.  “The worst part is standing on the starting line waiting for the gun.”  I nodded.

We found her coach and two teammates who were running in their respective age-group races.  Not for the first time, I thought about how dissonant it is that running, the most solitary of sports, can require dealing with a huge crowd when you’re racing.  Grace’s age group (5th and 6th grade girls) numbered 193.  As her start time grew nearer her face grew tighter, her demeanor more anxious.  Her coach and I both urged her to go take some short jogs and she did.

Matt, Whit and I all stood on the starting line to hold her spot as she jogged somewhat listlessly around.  She’d just come back, Friday afternoon, from a four-day, three-night field trip in Vermont with her class.  It is a wonderful trip renowned most of all for how exhausted it leaves the kids.  Every single one of them apparently falls asleep on the bus home.  She had slept a solid 12 hours on Friday night but still, I could tell, she wasn’t dealing with a full deck.  She had also missed practice all week, as well as two races, which she was aware of.

Matt gave Grace a hug and a kiss and took off with the camera to find a spot on the course.  I stood behind her and wrapped my arms around her shoulders.  She murmured that she felt like she was going to throw up and asked me why she did this at all.  She was trembling with nerves.  I leaned my cheek in against hers and just hugged her tighter.  “Are you cold?” I asked.  She had peeled off her warmup pants and was wearing shorts.  She shook her head.

An official with a megaphone walked across the course and instructed all parents and coaches to leave the starting line area.  It was time for our children to be on their own.  Grace turned to me, a stricken look on her face, and I gave her one more hug and our secret sign for “I love you” before falling back several feet.  I stood behind her, blinking back tears, watching.  I could see her wings fluttering under her shirt as her narrow shoulders shivered, some combination of fear and cold.  She glanced over her shoulder and mouthed to me, “This is the worst part.”  I laughed and wiped at my wet cheeks.  Once again, the metaphors write themselves.  I let go and I stood back.

And the gun went off.

I stood still, quickly losing her in the enormous, pounding throng.  Whit and I watched until we saw her white sleeves in the front pack, heading up the first hill (or “incline,” as they call it in cross-country).  And then we headed to the finish line, because I didn’t think I could bear watching her as she went.  I could feel my heart beat all the way up and down my arms and blinked fast to keep the tears from spilling down my cheeks.

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As I waited for her to come back into sight, I couldn’t help thinking, she’s in the woods.

I stood there, squinting, trying to see the first girls as they emerged into the home stretch.  Finally I saw someone coming.  It was not Grace.  A few more girls thundered by.  They were all pretty close together.  I saw her white long-sleeve shirt and began hollering.  She looked good but, truthfully, she looked tired.  I saw someone fly past her and almost laughed out loud at her startled expression on her face. She glared at the finish line and sprinted towards it.

She finished seventh.

We took a team picture, she began to catch her breath, and then we drove home.  Once we were in the car she admitted that she was disappointed and she cried a bit.  The litany of regrets began.  She had beaten the third place finisher in a race just ten days ago. She wondered what would have happened if she didn’t go to on the field trip.  She had had a cramp while running. If she hadn’t wondered what if she wouldn’t be my daughter, I realized as I drove, staring forward, my heart aching.

Still: seventh.  In the state.  I am immensely proud of her.  I think she’s proud of herself, though I think she wanted to do better.  Had circumstance been different, maybe she would have.  Who knows.  She has already told me she has a goal for next year, which is to do better than seventh.

The moment I’ll remember from the day isn’t the panting child with a medal around her neck or the glimpse of her coming out of the woods, heading towards the finish.  What I’ll most vividly recall is “Parents, please back away from your children.”  And the look on her face when I did.  And then watching her run away from me.

 

Twelve years old

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Dear Grace,

Yesterday you turned twelve. It seems incomprehensible that you’re this old, and at the same time I can’t imagine you not being the right-now you. That day that you arrived on your due date, in a driving rainstorm after a long, long labor, seems like a lifetime ago. Many lifetimes.

For a few years I’ve been describing you as liminal, and maybe, in fact, all children are. Childhood is, after all, evanescent, and as I’ve said before every single day holds both new vistas and losses both big and small. It’s all an endless halleluia and a constant farewell. This moment feels particularly precarious, more on-the-edge than ever, though, as though we’re teetering on a fulcrum, about to plunge into a new world. And I’ll be honest: there’s a lot I fear about what’s to come. I worry our closeness will fray and never recover. I am trying to trust the red thread, even as I let it out, knowing that letting you go is my primary task right now.   But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I feel fears about your impending teenagerhood and sorrow about already being here in this moment of parenthood.

This was your fourth year at sleepaway camp but the first time you were homesick.  I can’t help thinking this was the last gasp of attachment before you push off for the other shore, for adolescence and young adulthood, for good.

You are already a young woman in so many ways. You are over 5 feet tall and I can wear your flip-flops. The physical changes of adolescence loom ever closer, and I’m watching puberty sweep through your peers. You are still all angles and planes, your body a symphony of sharp edges and long limbs. You have long, long legs that I like to joke you inherited from your godmother. You have thick brown hair and olive skin that tans on contact with the sun. The only features you inherited from me are your deep mahogany eyes and your cleft chin.

You have a wary, cautious demeanor and are always extremely aware of the world around you. You are sensitive and thoughtful and prone to take things too personally (I have no idea where you get this trait from). Despite my desire to focus on what your body can do, not what it looks like, and to protect you from society’s emphasis on female appearance, I can see in you a newfound understanding of how the world evaluates you by how you look, and it stirs panic in me.

This fall you started running cross-country for the first time. I wrote about your first race and someone wise commented that watching a cross country race is a good metaphor for parenting. I get to watch the start from an intimate distance, watch you run away, and then you disappear for a big chunk of the race. And then I stand there, vigilant, eager, proud, my heart fluttering as I wait for your return.  You are very fast; when we run together, which we occasionally do now, I can’t keep up with you.  Another metaphor: I trail you, watching as you take flight.

You are a true introvert. A few weeks ago a friend who is also on your soccer team came over after school to do homework, have dinner, and I took you together to practice. As I tucked you in that night you burst into tears and admitted that you were exhausted from the day. I asked what you meant and you explained that while you’d really enjoyed the visit, you realized you really needed the downtime alone between school and practice. Oh, how I relate to this need, this preference, and this tendency.

These are complicated social years, and I know you worry about friendship, loyalty, and what it really means to be popular. Though my goal isn’t to be your “best friend,” I’m deeply grateful that you still talk to me. I can’t protect you from the world., but I can make sure that home is your safe place.

You wear camouflage leggings and gold ballet flats, an orange down coat, jeans with flowers printed all over them, and dark brown Uggs. Your bed is your haven, as mine is for me, and you sleep on sheets printed with peace signs and clutching the two teddy bears you’ve slept with since birth. You need a lot of sleep and are quickly reduced to tears and frustration when you’re tired.  You  make your bed every single morning with a dedication that reminds me of, well, me.  I asked you recently if it made you feel like your life was under control and you nodded knowingly.  “I just have to make it,” you said.  Me too.

You sometimes leave me notes on my bedside table, on April Fools’ Day you and Whit short-sheeted our bed, and I have framed the painting of two people sitting by a lighthouse watching a sunset that you made for me while at camp this summer. You love to read though I’ll admit to disappointment that certain classics that I have eagerly foisted on you have failed to capture your imagination.  Some of my very favorite times are when we sit in my bed together, reading side by side.  We just finished Harry Potter #7, reading aloud together, and I felt a wave of real sorrow that it was over.  We started reading #1 together when you were in first grade.  Something big is over.

Every year of your life I have loved you more. It just keeps getting better and better. The reason I exist in a thick fog of loss and mourning about time’s passage is precisely because I love these years so much. The consolation prize for this sadness is, of course, that I get to be your mother always, even as the particulars of and landscape within which that relationship takes place change.

On Saturday night, as I put you to bed, you were sad.  You didn’t want to turn 12, you said, you didn’t want to inch closer to being a teenager, it’s all going to fast, you want life to slow down, you don’t want to grow up.  I ached as I listened to you, something deep inside me of course recognizing this sensibility, this sensitivity.  I wish you could just feel pure joy and simply rejoice at what comes next every day.  But I know I can’t, and I know now that you can’t either.  So I’ll just say that I swear, with every bone in my body, that as life gets more complex it also gets deeper, more rewarding, and more joyful.  I can’t tell you not to feel that sorrow that’s so inextricably wound around every transition, but I can tell you that there’s just as much breathtaking beauty and head-spinning happiness.  I promise.

I love you, Gracie girl, I always have, and I always will. Happy 12th birthday. It’s been a breathtaking, glorious, sometimes dizzying ride so far, and I’m looking forward to what lies ahead. I just hope you will keep holding my hand.

To the girl who made me a mother, my first baby, my only daughter, I love you.

Mum

Another year, another camp drop off

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Leaving home, early Thursday morning

Last week we took Grace and Whit to camp.  This is Grace’s fourth summer, and Whit’s second.  The drop-off doesn’t get easier.  I’m realizing that’s because the experience forces me to confront where we are right now, and in so doing to reckon with all that is already past.  It is impossible to drop them off without realizing in a visceral way that the path forward holds ever-more dropoffs, ever more farewells, that the distance between them and me continues to stretch as we move forward.

Yes, yes, I trust in the red cord that ties our hearts.  I do.  But it’s still hard.

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Beloved, Bear, and Beloved’s Brother lined up on Whit’s pillow at camp.  He ran to join his cabinmates in a game so fast I didn’t even get a picture of him, so I took a photo of these much-loved faces instead.

For some reason, dropping them off and leaving without them – and, maybe most of all, coming back into a house that feels echoingly empty – brings me face to face with many emotions.

I am reminded that my everyday life is full of magic, a truth that Grace saw, and told me, before I ever did myself.  That happened the night before I took her to camp the very first time, and I still think of that conversation all the time.

I think of my dearest lifetime friend, who I met at this very camp many years ago.  When I walk through the familiar camp grounds it feels as though the ghosts of the girls we were swirl around me like dust.  I fall into the black hole of memory where individual moments flash and glint: when I first met Jess, the moment she pulled up to be my co-counselor in cabin 18 after we hadn’t spoken in several years, her gorgeous, sun-drenched wedding, the morning I called her in a whisper to say I’d seen a second, shadowy line on a pregnancy test.  There are a million other memories that drift over me like snowflakes, together forming a bank that is one of the essential bulwarks of my life.

When I think of it I fall into the black hole of memory where individual moments flash and glint: when I first met Jess, the moment she pulled up to be my co-counselor in cabin 18 after we hadn’t spoken in several years, her gorgeous, sun-drenched wedding, the morning I called her in a whisper to say I’d seen a second, shadowy line on a pregnancy test.  There are a million other memories that drift over me like snowflakes, together forming a bank that is one of the essential bulwarks of my life. – See more at: https://adesignsovast.com/2012/08/these-girls-our-girls-this-next-generation/#sthash.CTX137uz.dpuf
When I think of it I fall into the black hole of memory where individual moments flash and glint: when I first met Jess, the moment she pulled up to be my co-counselor in cabin 18 after we hadn’t spoken in several years, her gorgeous, sun-drenched wedding, the morning I called her in a whisper to say I’d seen a second, shadowy line on a pregnancy test.  There are a million other memories that drift over me like snowflakes, together forming a bank that is one of the essential bulwarks of my life. – See more at: https://adesignsovast.com/2012/08/these-girls-our-girls-this-next-generation/#sthash.CTX137uz.dpuf

Most of all, dropping Grace and Whit off presents me with blinding evidence of how much I love my own life.  Right now, this, this mess, this beauty, this noise, this holiness.  This.  These moments, which seem to run through my fingers ever more quickly.  I think of the glorious good fortune that my children will stand in the same outdoor theater that I did, their arms looped around their friends’ shoulders, singing Taps, and also of the keenly painful reality that the years in between those two events have evaporated so quickly I can’t catch my breath.  Then and now, past and present swirl together in a burst of rainbow memory, lit by flashes of lightning, and I swallow, and try to hold back my tears as I hug my children goodbye.

I thought of Churchill’s quote about how “this is not the end.  This is not even the beginning of the end.  But it is perhaps the end of the beginning.”  We left the end of the beginning back a while ago already.  And here we are, in the thick of it, life itself, teeming with both laughter and loss, joy and love and sorrow, every single day a tapestry of experience and memory.  Often this crazy quilt overwhelms me, and it did last week as we drove home from camp.

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Grace standing on the way to the beach.  I have walked through this passage hundreds of times.  Last summer Jess and I took photographs at sunset on this beach, and I treasure them.