November 21, 2005
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The Daily News
Camp Anytown
'05!!!
1 I just flew in from Camp Anytown, and boy...
2 If I said this was the best camp I've yet been to, I may just be
exaggerating because it JUST happened.
3 But in my four experiences so far, I don't recall a more spiritual go than this one. You would think someone would get numb to that beautiful experience, but I felt more soulful and spiritual than ever.
4 Maybe it's because they officially changed the name to "Camp Everytown", which of course, doesn't work in the least, and only served to bond us all closer. And maybe it was just Rocha, Wolcott, and Richard, all of whom have turned this into a masterpiece. That's what this year was, a masterpiece, touched by the masters and painted with the stars and the moon.
5 Maybe it's because we had Kilduff, Haggerty, Jackson, and former '05'ers Justine and Evelyn as facilitators. Suddenly, there was magic in the air and everywhere!!!
6 At our first singing session, the SECOND song got nearly every person in the camp up and standing at the fireplace, singing their hearts out! Talkin' bout My Girl.
7 Whatever it was, the stars, the planets, the full moon, Camp Anytown just swirled, amazed, and captivated all of us. To be honest, I was taken completely by surprise! I just thought I was the old pro, and that I was just going to go through the motions.
8 I couldn't have been more wrong. I learned more, and learned to move forward bravely as a teacher, honing skills I thought I had already mastered, and I now feel I've reached new levels in both teaching and in learning.
9 Maybe it was, simply, the maturity and sensitivity of this year's delegates. Maybe it was personal. Maybe I needed to move myself spiritually, so that I could reach others.
10 Or maybe it was just the food...
11 I'm proud to say that we just moved the experience up around twenty notches. The teaching and the learning seemed almost mythical this year, as though Socrates and Plato were smiling down, because they stole our bacon and watched over us to see what we would do...
12 There was wisdom. There was poetry. There were walls broken down. There was laughter. There were tears. And there were two things you can't really measure: soul and spirit.
13 There was my entire cabin fast asleep in the morning when they were supposed to lead the community circle to breakfast. Richard called Cabin 9, and I stood alone in the center of the circle, while visions of sugar plums danced in my cabin members' heads. I had gone on the morning hike, and had forgotten to awaken them! Cabin 9 slept soundly through the clanging of the clarion bell, and everyone laughed when my cabin was announced, and I was the only guy in the middle of the circle!
14 Yes, synchronicity people, my cabin was Cabin 9.
15 Maybe it was my small group, which met in the Turquoise Crackhouse, the wall of which contained this beautiful piece of graffiti:
16 Maybe it was the campfires, which had EVERYBODY singing and hugging.
17 Or maybe it was just that we were allowed to cry.
18 And cry we did. And for very real reasons.
19 The grand irony of it all is that I knew I needed to remain stalwart and strong through all the tears. I chiseled a very solid exterior, because I felt the camp needed that strength. I refused to cry, not because real men don't cry, because clearly they do.
20 But because this time, I just felt they all needed that strength, that bravery, and so no, I didn't cry.
21 I stood tall, because maybe I just needed to.
22 And then we lit candles, and shared poetry, thoughts, quotes, and all the rest.
23 And maybe, in the end, some things are better off left unsaid.
24 Tacit, you know? I'll just say that I was proud of everyone.
25 And anyone.
25 I'll go now.
26 Peace.
~h~
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