by Sarah Kurtz
All journalism students at my university work at an internship during
our junior year. We're required to submit applications, so I went
to our career services office for advice. While the advisor was scanning
my résumé, she asked me what I was going to do over the
summer. I told her I was going to go back to camp. Exasperated, she blurted, “Well,
what do you want to do the rest of your life? Be a camp counselor?” She
assumed my answer was going to be a clear no, but she was wrong. I think
I just might.
After summers of teaching tennis lessons and working at
a newspaper, I decided last winter, at age twenty, that I wanted to be
a counselor. My pre-professional friends thought I was crazy — they
were worried about working at a senator's office or taking organic
chemistry. And if not, they were at least planning to pocket as much
money as possible. Going to camp wasn't going to pad my journalism
résumé, and certainly wasn't going to make me rich.
But it was probably one of the best decisions I have ever made.
When
we're at camp, we lose our outside worries. The cell phones are
off, the Internet is another land, and we live life by the bell — not
by our watches. We have other preoccupations, but they're about
the important things. What matters the most? The kids. They might not
know it, but they're our teachers, our inspiration, and our joy.
Maybe it's singing ridiculous songs at a high volume at 9:00 a.m.
or wading into the “mud pit” with a cabin of shrieking ten-year-olds.
Perhaps it's getting the ugliest arts-and-crafts bracelet ever,
but wearing it for the rest of the session because you know how much
it means to the camper. It could be staying up with a homesick kid until
they know everything's OK or running through the woods (dressed
like a sloth) with a herd of sixth-grade boys on your tail. But in between
polar bear and taps, something magical happens. While we're trying
to make the kids' days, they make ours.
My friends didn't
make poor choices by pursuing high-powered internships over summer break,
but I learned more at camp than I could have anywhere else. In a world
of distractions, camp let me discover what really is important. My mom
says it's a lesson in parenting. But it's also a lesson in
compromise, in respect, in leadership, and in compassion. And the campers
help teach it. I returned home at the end of last August with a new outlook
and a new spirit. Essentially, I was a kid again. And you know what?
There's nothing wrong with that.
Originally published in the 2008 March/April
issue of Camping Magazine. |
