All good things....
So I'm in the middle of writing an expose on the Camp 40th reunion when Riff Raff sends me this message:
Hey all,
For many years, I thought that the Kawabi grapevine was a wonderful thing. I always got great news through it. Unfortunately, this time the grapevine is sending terrible news for those of you who have not already heard:Last week, Skip and Nish sent out letters to current campers and staff relaying the news that after 40 years, they have decided to close Kawabi.
Heavy, man! To be honest, my first reaction was my shock at not being more shocked. This does make sense, and as Brad said, 40 years is a long time to run a camp; hell, 40 years is a long time to be doing anything. Change was in the wind. And on my long way home from the 40th, with nothing but my extensive music library to keep me company, I had plenty of time to reflect on camp and my time there, what its meant to me, and questions of a more metaphysical nature (a beach bonfire has that effect on me still). The amount of time which Camp Kawabi operated was driven home to me during the fire on the beach, as staff from different eras reflected upon their Kawabi, and read the letters from their times, which I always enjoyed as literary (and I use that word liberally) snapshots of a particular point in time. The representatives of Kawabi past ranged from people who were old enough to be my parents to youngsters who could be my children (if I had gotten busy at an earlier age). Despite the different use of language, cultural reference points and passage of time, all the letters spoke to an almost indescribable commonality of the camp experience that can bring a smile to another person's face by just uttering the words, drip and dry, tuck, free period, etc. It was this intangible wonder that brought back a goodly sized crowd to the 40th reunion, and for six hours bathed us all in a wave of memories and nostalgia over a place that was permanently planted in our hearts. I realized that the thought of future campers and staff not having the wondrous opportunity to go on their first outsupper, to dance with an actual girl in Squamish while someone screamed 'snowball' behind them, to make their first gimp bracelet, to play the best game ever invented --buckets and squares, and to make some of the closest and dearest friends they'll ever know for the rest of their lives makes me very sad. The idea that the world will not have a Camp Kawabi in it makes it a smaller, colder place.
On a more personal level, its a little more complex. My camp experience is long over. The pillow cases with my name stitched into them are long gone. Camp Kawabi was my childhood and teenaged years, but it was the foundation upon which my adulthood was built. What struck me at the reunion was both how familiar and surreal going back to camp was. As I walked up the camp road, I was struck by how natural strolling up that road was, as though I had just walked it the day before. And yet, with a couple of exceptions I hadn't walked along it in years, and it seemed to be like wandering through a waking dream about a place that had long ago receded into memory, and only exists as a template of a veritable lifetime ago, before the more immediate existence of adulthood. I spent the entire day strolling around with a dumb-ass smile on my face as the smells, sights and sounds transported my brain back in time and emphasized how much of an impact it had on how I viewed the prism of my life.
As I've often mention to friends, I'm able to go to a place in my mind's eye that brings me a kind of inner serenity when I think about it, and that place (don't laugh) is actually the dew line. When I was at camp last month I took a chance to amble along it once again admiring its northern growth, the way the sun poked through the forest canopy like a golden ribbon, the sound of quiet russeling leaves and branches, along a classic country road. It was quiet, it was beautiful and it was all mine. For all I know, even if Camp Kawabi never closed down, I may not have ever seen the dew line again for one reason or another. But may have, is much different than will not. And I'm not just speaking about the dew line here. Although my camp days are long over, the news that camp is closing brings a sad finality to a part of my life, while being from long ago, still is deeply ingrained with who I am, and where I've come from. I've been fortunate over the last several years to meet and get to know some fairly important people both here and in Washington; ambassadors, generals, ministers, etc., but the hold they've had one me is a pale one compared to those people whom I continue to want to share my time with; those people whom I shared the summers of my youth with, and have a common and deep bond with that's hard to convey to anyone. I've never wanted to 'relive' camp (was way too awkward a kid to want to do that), but I wanted to continue to respect a place and a time in my life that has deep roots within me, and my chosen friends.
So the truly sad part about the closing of camp for me is not that as a physical place it ceases to exist; we all had an inkling that was going to happen regardless. But instead it consignes away forever a central part of my life so far to merely memory, because soon that's all that will be left of camp Kawabi. And perhaps this may be more of a statement of how I approach mortality, since it is hard to come to grips with acknowledging the finality of aging. In the end I guess camp is, or now was, a chapel song; the kind I used to grimace at as cliched and hokey, acting as a mental reminder of the cruelty of getting older and leaving things behind, and the blessing of knowing and experiencing a real gift, that while will only now exist in my head and stories told with friends, will continue to be an important part of who I am for the rest of my days.
Cue the two hundred kids singing a mangled version of Cats in the Cradle out of tune...
Hey all,
For many years, I thought that the Kawabi grapevine was a wonderful thing. I always got great news through it. Unfortunately, this time the grapevine is sending terrible news for those of you who have not already heard:Last week, Skip and Nish sent out letters to current campers and staff relaying the news that after 40 years, they have decided to close Kawabi.
Heavy, man! To be honest, my first reaction was my shock at not being more shocked. This does make sense, and as Brad said, 40 years is a long time to run a camp; hell, 40 years is a long time to be doing anything. Change was in the wind. And on my long way home from the 40th, with nothing but my extensive music library to keep me company, I had plenty of time to reflect on camp and my time there, what its meant to me, and questions of a more metaphysical nature (a beach bonfire has that effect on me still). The amount of time which Camp Kawabi operated was driven home to me during the fire on the beach, as staff from different eras reflected upon their Kawabi, and read the letters from their times, which I always enjoyed as literary (and I use that word liberally) snapshots of a particular point in time. The representatives of Kawabi past ranged from people who were old enough to be my parents to youngsters who could be my children (if I had gotten busy at an earlier age). Despite the different use of language, cultural reference points and passage of time, all the letters spoke to an almost indescribable commonality of the camp experience that can bring a smile to another person's face by just uttering the words, drip and dry, tuck, free period, etc. It was this intangible wonder that brought back a goodly sized crowd to the 40th reunion, and for six hours bathed us all in a wave of memories and nostalgia over a place that was permanently planted in our hearts. I realized that the thought of future campers and staff not having the wondrous opportunity to go on their first outsupper, to dance with an actual girl in Squamish while someone screamed 'snowball' behind them, to make their first gimp bracelet, to play the best game ever invented --buckets and squares, and to make some of the closest and dearest friends they'll ever know for the rest of their lives makes me very sad. The idea that the world will not have a Camp Kawabi in it makes it a smaller, colder place.
On a more personal level, its a little more complex. My camp experience is long over. The pillow cases with my name stitched into them are long gone. Camp Kawabi was my childhood and teenaged years, but it was the foundation upon which my adulthood was built. What struck me at the reunion was both how familiar and surreal going back to camp was. As I walked up the camp road, I was struck by how natural strolling up that road was, as though I had just walked it the day before. And yet, with a couple of exceptions I hadn't walked along it in years, and it seemed to be like wandering through a waking dream about a place that had long ago receded into memory, and only exists as a template of a veritable lifetime ago, before the more immediate existence of adulthood. I spent the entire day strolling around with a dumb-ass smile on my face as the smells, sights and sounds transported my brain back in time and emphasized how much of an impact it had on how I viewed the prism of my life.
As I've often mention to friends, I'm able to go to a place in my mind's eye that brings me a kind of inner serenity when I think about it, and that place (don't laugh) is actually the dew line. When I was at camp last month I took a chance to amble along it once again admiring its northern growth, the way the sun poked through the forest canopy like a golden ribbon, the sound of quiet russeling leaves and branches, along a classic country road. It was quiet, it was beautiful and it was all mine. For all I know, even if Camp Kawabi never closed down, I may not have ever seen the dew line again for one reason or another. But may have, is much different than will not. And I'm not just speaking about the dew line here. Although my camp days are long over, the news that camp is closing brings a sad finality to a part of my life, while being from long ago, still is deeply ingrained with who I am, and where I've come from. I've been fortunate over the last several years to meet and get to know some fairly important people both here and in Washington; ambassadors, generals, ministers, etc., but the hold they've had one me is a pale one compared to those people whom I continue to want to share my time with; those people whom I shared the summers of my youth with, and have a common and deep bond with that's hard to convey to anyone. I've never wanted to 'relive' camp (was way too awkward a kid to want to do that), but I wanted to continue to respect a place and a time in my life that has deep roots within me, and my chosen friends.
So the truly sad part about the closing of camp for me is not that as a physical place it ceases to exist; we all had an inkling that was going to happen regardless. But instead it consignes away forever a central part of my life so far to merely memory, because soon that's all that will be left of camp Kawabi. And perhaps this may be more of a statement of how I approach mortality, since it is hard to come to grips with acknowledging the finality of aging. In the end I guess camp is, or now was, a chapel song; the kind I used to grimace at as cliched and hokey, acting as a mental reminder of the cruelty of getting older and leaving things behind, and the blessing of knowing and experiencing a real gift, that while will only now exist in my head and stories told with friends, will continue to be an important part of who I am for the rest of my days.
Cue the two hundred kids singing a mangled version of Cats in the Cradle out of tune...
posted by Nick | 9/13/2005 09:25:00 a.m.
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3 comments
