Camp Week 4: Pecos River Valley

Have you ever seen a father so tired that as he half-sleeps, he allows the resident toddlers use his body as a jungle-gym? That's oddly enough how I feel about the flies here at Glorieta. Do what you will fly-children, but biting comes with consequences. For what it's worth, Glorieta gets too cold at night and doesn't have enough water to support mosquitoes. Seems like a fair trade to me.

This week began with a scenic drive through the Pecos River Valley in Casey's truck, yielding some fantastic shots. Casey was apparently eyeing the drive for a potential date. After I reminded him that I am a chaste damsel who does not take kindly to such forward advances, Casey clarified his plans involved someone else. While this came as a relief, I couldn't help but feel cheated. ... "Was I know good enough?" I wondered as we wound up the valley walls. The beauty of the place took my mind off of my betrayal...

This is a Mule Deer. It does not care about you.

Now, I want to tell you a story.
Once upon a time, Kitchen Crew was all "yo, Day Camp, ya got any spare staff?", and Day Camp was all "awww yiss, I gotcha back", because Day Camp was mad flush with workers.
The End.
And that, children, is how I came to work on Kitchen Crew this week.

The Kitchen at camp is a magical place where you can prep cook to house techno music, and clean up to pre-teen club music. The tween pop music playlist was owned by Rod, a middle aged black man with a really legit scar across his left eye. He has around 40 stories that he cycles between to explain how he got the scar. My personal favourite is the gang fight with a maul of grizzly bears. "You should have seen the bear".

It was very familiar to me since I worked in the kitchen at Degage for two years, but cooking for a couple hundred is very different from cooking for almost 2,000. Some of the different include using three flat top grills at the same time [which were named: R2D2, Katy Perry, and Shadowfax].

One of the challenges this week, however, was working with some of Kitchen Staff. It wasn't the full-time staff, but some of the part-time staff and volunteers who I had some trouble working with. In particular there were a couple staff wives and mothers who were bossy at times. I have an unfortunate problem where I do not like being told what to do in most situations, which is especially true if you are snappy and condescending while doing so.

All in all though, I really enjoyed the Kitchen Crew, but am ready to return to be among my people. Day Camp!

Here's to stories behind scars that are better than the truth.
-Patrick

Camp Week 3.5: Intermission: A sincere and studied triviality

My brother informed me that the reason he wasn't much of a "reader" for most of his life was because he was reading the wrong things. Unlike his wife, who probably has a copy of the Sorcerers Stone signed by Dumbledore himself, my brother seeks out non-fiction. When I look back, I see that my brother and I are similar in this way [also the baldness]. When it comes to story-telling, I enjoy the medium of film, theatre, or even video games. I'm a visual person with a leg that falls asleep quickly, making books sometimes difficult for me. So when it comes to reading, I prefer books about people and ideas.

Recently, I have been reading a lot of David Sedaris. Most of his writings are short, which means its easier to read a story without important body parts being deprived of bloodflow. More importantly his stories are funny: The "ha-ha" funny, not the "wearing a belt and suspenders at the same time" kind. The majority of the books I read fall into two categories: 'Faith' and 'Humour'. I'd like to think that these topics need each other in order to survive. Writers on the topic of Faith such as Muller, Piper, Chandler, Lewis, McManus, and Tozer present powerful and probing ideas on God and the universe, but don't always speak my language. These authors are theologians, teachers, scholars, or perhaps they just loved hunting and playing paintball [I would like to think C.S. Lewis could liken his medieval "discarded image" of the cosmos to a paintball in a hopper]. It was authors like Terry Pratchett, David Sedaris, Dave Barry, Douglas Adam, Tina Fey, and Bill Watterson who were able to look at life and the world and say "Huh. Isn't that a funny thing?". Though they usually scratch the surface of deeper meaning, their use of humour seems to speak to a deeper truth that I feel theologians might have otherwise missed.

It was Oscar Wilde who said that "we should treat all trivial things in life very seriously, and all serious things with a sincere and studied triviality". A younger me would have clung fast to this notion. Heck, I may have made it my mantra for the time being. During those earlier years, my favourite band to listen to was a 90s Post-Ska Christian Rock band by the name of Five Iron Frenzy. While they certainly weren't the most talented musicians, I thought they were hilarious. To this day, Five Iron Frenzy remains my favourite band of all time, but the reasons aged along with me. Five Iron Frenzy is serious about their faith, and absolutely nothing else, which creates a sort of emphasis.

Though told through the character of Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde seems to clarify his earlier quote by writing "one must be serious about something if one is to have any amusement in life". I would like to think this rings truer for me. My faith is very dear and serious to me, but also allows me to find the humour in it, and everything else in life.

My hope is to continue writing, even past this season, in a way that speaks to my experience. This is to say, with a seriousness that allows me to appreciate the amusements in life.

So, here's to the serious things and the sincere and studied trivialities.
-Patrick

PHOTO DUMP FROM PAST WEEKS!

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!

A picture drawn by one of the campers on the day I was running arts and crafts. By her description, the unicorn farts glitter. With all the campers position, I took pictures of everyone's work so they felt appreciated, but I really just wanted this one for my archives.

Thought you might like it. I know I did.

Camp Week 3: Airport Thoughts and Gallup

*80s cartoon narration*
"LAST TIME, WE LEFT OUR HERO..."

...At the airport.
So, though the majority of my week was spent back at camp, Sunday was spent in the Dallas airport - for 9 hours. While I wasn't initially enthused, I ended up enjoying my time in the airport. The delays, cancellations, and hydraulic malfunctions before take off [no, really, take your time with that one Mr. Pilot. I will be patient] allowed me to write, finish two books, and ruminate on wonderfully pointless things.

After a long, emotional week returning to camp felt a bit like returning home.

It week with campers went well, but was not without its surprises. This week was the first time I had to take a camper aside and talk with him about behavior. After a long time, this camper admitted to having a rough week with his mother, and missed his father. It breaks my heart to hear such stories. I made sure he understood the consequences of continued bad behavior, but spent much more time just listening. His life already had so much pain in it, and I hope he can stay and have camp be a positive influence in his life.

Also, this week, I had to rescue a kid while I was life-guarding. While I can't actually discuss the incident, I can say that I got to practice back-boarding at some point during that day, presumably unrelated to this incident ... which may or may not have happened. [Psst! We're in parenthesis now, so we're totally safe. It happened and the camper is fine].

Following the week of camp, a small team was going to run a mobile day camp experience at a local bike race for the racers kids. I volunteered for this all-day event, which proved to be enjoyable in its own way. During the 3.5 hour drive there, late Friday night, we told ghost stories in the van and slept on the seats at the campground where the race began and finished. Gallup, NM was much more of the desert experience with dusty roads and sunny sun sun. The mobile camp went well, and many families expressed interest in sending them to Glorieta later this summer. Either way, after another 3.5 hour drive back to camp, I'm ready for upcoming week.

I am beginning to wonder what everything will be like when I return home. While I imagine there will be some familiar situations to return to... I have a feeling that things have changed - and thank God for that.

Here's to backboards, and the campers they allegedly can hold.

-Patrick

Camp Week 2: Jemez mountains and Detroit

It is a little known truth that all foxtail balls wish to spend their lives blissfully in the branches of trees. Imagine their disappointment when camp staff collectively barrage them with soccer balls in order to break them free for the campers. All this to say... I had to order about 6 more of these.

Sunday, before the campers arrived, was spent in the Jemez Mountains and in their natural hot springs. I found one pool in particular without anyone else in it, AND didn't reek of sulfur, so... You know, girl power, and such.

Early morning Wednesday, I boarded a plane at the adorable little adobe airport in Sante Fe to make my way back to Detroit. On the plane back to Michigan there was skinny gent on his way back home from seasonal work drinking an orange Faygo. This made me smile and helped me mentally prepare for the funeral in Michigan. ...the guy on the other side of me spitting chewing tobacco into a coke bottle was less helpful.

"Ooo, something smells minty! ....oh no..."

My grandma Joan was a wonderful woman and it was a challenging week to get through. Seeing my parents, and extended family shaken up didn't help, but they were also a source of support and laughter. Our time surrounding the service was spent eating, joking, and playing euchre. Grandma would have been proud.

The service was beautiful with a touching eulogy collectively written by the family and was read by my uncle Dan. The sermon was given by Father Joe, who was a soft-spoken, yet poignant man of the cloth. It had been my first Catholic mass in a while, so I was a little rusty, but I was asked to read the passage from 1 Cor 13 "the greatest of these is love...". It was a good thing I had the passage mostly memorized, because my pocket bible isn't really designed to be read from the pulpit. It wasn't the tiny print that made it difficult to do the reading, but instead it was the reminder of who I was reading this in memory of. 

My grandmother knew and loved God, so my prayers this week were not for her spirit, but those still who are still waiting for glory, and will have to without her loving example.

Here's to those who taught us to wait and love.

- Patrick

The little events like hanging out with nieces and nephews at a junior soccer game was oddly cathartic.

Camp Week 1: The First Week of Campers and News from Home

The children arrived Monday morning to begin our first week of camp. As they were unloading from their parents cars and signing in at the registration tent, there was one camper in particular who was latched onto his mother's leg and on the verge of tears. I quickly went over to my bag and searched for one of the many sport balls I brought with me in hopes to get him playing. Before I even located the toy in my over packed bag, I spotted one of the counselors kneeling down and asking the young boy his name and what his favorite sport was. I was once again reminded at just how great our staff was, and would continue to be reminded all through-out the week.

The first week of campers was wonderfully exhausting. Before the week started, our team went on a group hike that I would like to think helped us better function as a team, even if it meant for a late bedtime Sunday night. We hiked the Slot Canyons around Tent Rocks, just a 45 minute drive from Sante Fe. The view was beautiful, and so were we [see attached].

"Paint me like one of your french plateaus."

This week, however, was also filled with two unfortunate happenings back home. The first was finding out about a friend's divorce. While I cannot give details at this time, hearing this news was heartbreaking and I wish I could be there for him.

The second came from an unexpected call from my father. In the usual jesting manner, when he called and asked 'where I was right now' I replied ".... ...in New Mexico". My sister confirmed that when our father called her, she also answered with a joke. It's our love language. However, the reason he was calling was most likely the furthest thing from light-hearted or fun. Our grandmother, my father's mother, passed away unexpectedly while on medication for treating a heart irregularity. Joan Sundt was the only grandmother I had the pleasure of knowing in my later life, and it saddens me deeply to think she is no longer with us. My grandmother was a wonderful person full of charm, whit, and compassion. She was intelligent, daring, and baked the greatest pumpkin pie known to science. It was only a few weeks ago, immediately following my masters graduation, that I was able to talk to her last. I remember her sharing how proud she was, and happy that I would finally be able to take some time to not be so busy. She said that, above all, she admired my patience. She went on to share that in her experience with health professionals and social workers [which were many in her later years], that she appreciated the most the ones who demonstrated patience.

Grandma, in the upcoming weeks and in my coming career, I hope to put it into practice.

Here's to patience.

-Patrick