by Tilda Shalof
He frowned. “Don’t even think about it. This is Harry’s space.”
I slunk away, apologizing. “What can I do?” I said, helplessly. “He’s my son.”
“Yeah, but at camp, he’s mine,” the counsellor said, closing the door.
But later when I saw the counsellor, he tossed me a few crumbs. “Harry loves snakes. It takes a big heart to love a snake. He’s friends with everyone. He knows right from wrong. What more do you need to know?”
What a comfort these connections give when we relinquish the illusion of control and learn to trust. I’ve heard there are now camps where the whole family can come along. “Have fun with your kids,” the brochures say. But doesn’t that defeat the purpose? The point of camp is to take those steps away and out into the world on your own.
At lunch, I looked around. Seth wasn’t there and I missed him. Alice and Louise were back, Rudy, too, of course, but without Ringo. He’d been an old dog back when I’d first met him four summers ago and this winter he’d become unable to walk or even wag his tail. Rudy had done the kind, hard thing and taken him to the vet to have a comfortable death. He planned to get a puppy soon but had other things on his mind. He had a girlfriend now, a companion who shared his love of camp.
The first night we celebrated Alon’s return to camp and his full recovery to good health. He was now head tripper, excited about implementing new “green” initiatives, such as reducing the camp’s water and electricity usage and running a contest to reward the cabin that conserved the most energy.
I continued my own green awakening with Alice. One morning she stopped in her tracks, knelt down, and placed her hands gently around a large bug. She scooped it up and brought it close to show me: a shiny black beetle with long antennae and pincers that made it look like an alien from Mars.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked and now, at last, I could see that it was.
Most afternoons, we still managed to steal away for a swim in the lake. As I eased myself in, I commented on how cold the water was.
“Don’t forget,” she said, “a few months ago this lake was pure snow.” I breathed in the clean smell of the air and water. “Thousands of years before that, it was a glacier.”
Returning to camp was a homecoming for me. Even the noise and commotion were a familiar comfort. When I entered the dining hall, the roar engulfed me as I was immediately plunged into the midst of ecstatic, dancing bodies and a cacophony of voices, all whooping and hollering, cheering, chattering, and singing at the top of their lungs. I even joined in on one song and got up and waved my arms upward. “Oooh … ahh …” I said, swinging them back down in a swoop.
“Hey, man, you’re really into it,” Rudy said appreciatively, sitting down beside me on the bench.
Yes, their noisy exuberance was catchy. Why should we “sit still” or “be quiet”? It’s time to move!
Alice and I looked at each other. How well we knew them, her smile seemed to say. Inside and out, their bodies and their souls, we knew every scrape, bump, bruise, and rash, as well as their worries, fears, and secrets, and dreams. As nurses, we are so privileged to have this opportunity to get to know people on such an intimate level.
At camp I learned how to care for healthy children. One malady I became skilled at treating was homesickness, especially after I understood that it’s not always about missing home and doesn’t only occur at camp: one can have a bad bout sitting at home.* At its core, homesickness is a yearning to be at home within ourselves. In fact, the cure for homesickness is camp itself, because at camp you can learn everything you need to know about finding your way home.
One afternoon, I had a surprise: Seth came to visit. He said he was feeling better. “I had to come back and see everyone, especially you, Tilda.” He still looked wistful about camp but more hopeful about his future. “You know, I loved being a camper, but being a counsellor was the best time of my life. I’m looking into becoming a camp director.”
We shared a chuckle about Eddie being a counsellor now and, from what we could tell, doing a great job. “Eddie’s the best!” Max had run over to tell me – though that’s what he says every summer about all of his counsellors.
Seth gave me a quick hug before leaving. “It’s time for me to move on.”
“You seem ready.”
We hear so much bad news these days about young people in trouble, involved in delinquency, drugs, and violence. As parents we worry about the dangers and so many bad influences that are out there. Sometimes, we have doubts that the upcoming generation has the proper values or the right work ethic or sufficient motivation. Camp made me think otherwise. I met so many energetic and idealistic young people who want to do good work and give back to the community. One way they start is by being counsellors, giving the kids in their care all that camp has given them.
At the end of my last week at camp that summer, at the Friday evening service, Rudy started off by mentioning achievements, not only of individuals, but group ones, too: a cabin that had returned from their first canoe trip; another in which everyone had passed the swim test; a successful Colour War. Then, a tall, beautiful counsellor named Dani got up to speak:
This is my ninth summer at camp. There are so many things I love about camp: cabin bonding; stargazing; being with friends I don’t see all year round (you know who you are); dancing in the rain; Sabbath cake; my summer as a CIT; meeting my cabin of girls as a counsellor for the first time; techno parties in the staff lounge; long, meaningful conversations that I would not have in the city; and seeing all of you, summer after summer. I will always and forever cherish the memories of our times together.
That says it all.
Yes, I’d probably come back next summer.
To be a camp nurse you don’t have to be young, but you do have to be young at heart. At nearly fifty, I didn’t feel old, but camp has made me aware of the passage of time – especially, its rush. So much happens here. A day at camp is a week anywhere else. A week at camp is like a year, Alice and I always said to each other.
When it was time to leave, I went up to the microphone to say goodbye to everyone at once. As I stepped down from the podium, they all rushed at me and swarmed me in hugs. Then I said goodbye to my sons and began the long, leisurely drive homeward. As I drove along that quiet, country road, I had an urge to turn around and go back, stay there forever, so camp would never end, not that summer, not ever.
* And let’s not forget late-summer campsickness, too!
Copyright © 2009 by Tilda Shalof
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Shalof, Tilda
Camp nurse / Tilda Shalof.
eISBN: 978-0-7710-7987-0
1. Shalof, Tilda. 2. Camp nursing. 3. Nurses – Canada – Biography. I. Title.
RT120.C3S44 2010 610.73′092 C2009-906495-2
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