jamin isn't the only one run down and feeling the mid-summer slump. the staff here at camp is right there with him. camp asks a lot of us: long stretches of time in the sun, enthusiasm all the live long day, late nights and early mornings, not a whole lot of downtime at all. and we're all piled on top of each other which makes sharing germs far too easy. luckily we seem to have gotten sick in waves here at quinipet this summer, and while wave one is bouncing back and getting into the swing of things again, wave two is just starting to stumble through camp with a slightly glazed look and a tickle in the throat. let's hope there is no wave three.
we only have one week left of overnight camp and then just one more week of day camp after that. I feel like there is so much to do, so much I still need to accomplish to make this summer count, so much of the staff I still don't know well enough. it is easy for me to be resentful of these days home with jamin, feeling like I am not "doing" anything. and then as I am here trying to figure out what it is I am usually doing that makes me feel like I am "doing" something, like my job here is important, like I am contributing to the summer in a meaningful way, I can't come up with a whole heck of a lot.
on normal days, days when jamin and cora are both in day camp and I am scurrying around camp "doing" things, every once and a while eric will zoom up in a golf cart and try to persuade me to take a ride with him (one of eric's jobs this summer is to keep all the camp watercoolers filled, an assignment that comes with golf cart privileges, much to his delight). one of the days I took him up on the offer he took me down to the far end of camp and stopped right in the middle of the road. "look at that tree," he said, pointing. the tree is a oak, an old one, with one limb that is disproportionately long, growing horizontal to the ground.
"wow," I said, both because it is a truly amazing tree, but also because it seems like the proper thing to say when you've been whisked away by a cute guy in a golf cart who wants to show you something cool.
"sometimes I come down here to look at it, just to remind myself that if that tree is capable of much more than it appears to be able to handle, then I probably am, too."
(and when one is whisked away in a golf cart by a cute guy who shows you natural wonders and then says profound things about said wonders, swooning is really the only appropriate response. that and thanking your lucky stars he decided to marry you all those years ago.)
that tree didn't set out to become a wonder. it didn't question whether it was capable of growing in the way in which the light led it to grow. in fact, all that is holding that limb up is that constant reach towards the light. all I can do is keep growing towards the light. sometimes that means bustling around and feeling accomplished and connected to my community. sometimes it means playing six games of double solitaire in a row with a seven-year-old with a fever. both matter. both count.
the reason I am here this summer has nothing to do with a check list of responsibilities or how quickly and purposefully I walk through camp. I am here to live big and love bigger. that big love includes camp staff and my own family. it includes taking care of myself. it includes making sacrifices for the good of someone else, even when it doesn't fit into my own agenda. and it certainly includes breaks in the middle of the day to be inspired by the world around us and eric's take on it all.
I feel certain jamin will be feeling better and we'll be back in the regular rhythm by the start of next week. but I hope this downtime will stick with me, reminding me of what I'm really here to do. and when I see that tree down at the far end of camp, I hope I'll remember that all I'm really called to is just reaching toward the light. that's where the wonder is. that's where the growing happens.
