Red, white, and the blues

I surprised myself the other day by asking my dad if we could have a "real" 4th of July this year.

I'm not sure what I meant by that.

What I'm confused about is that the comment came out sounding like an impatient American child with immigrant parents. Could we save the hummus/chopsticks/beans and rice for another day? Can't we act like an American family just this once?

I suppose that I have been a stranger to July 4ths in a conventional sense. Up until last year, I spent most Independence Days at Jew Camp-- a dreamy bastion of foreignness in the middle of Confederate Flag-waving Maryland. Not that Jew Camp didn't celebrate the holiday. Far from it. That particular days was swarming with campers wearing redwhiteandblue, patriotic sing-alongs after a barbeque lunch (kosher, of course), and the invariable Americana kids show in the evenings. But beneath of all this star spangled fervor ran a faint sense of desperation, the sweaty scent of someone trying too hard. The lengths we went to celebrate the 4th the "correct" way made the celebration awkward in itself.*

After I left Jew Camp, I spent the next 4th in summer school in an effort to graduate college on time (you see how that worked out). Aside from a mountain of American-themed cupcakes in the dining hall, it was like the national holiday didn't exist.

All of this brings me up to this year and that squeezing feeling in my chest that I wasn't doing this "American" thing right. No fireworks, no party, and no thought of a barbeque until I practically begged my father to grill some hot dogs for me. Circumstances didn't help, either. My parents are self-employed, so even though it was a Friday, there was no sense of a long weekend. The sky remained stubbornly overcast and weather steamy, punctuated by occasional rain. My father insisted I make Israeli salad for our barbeque, which ruined the American theme I had been going for, and then promptly forgot to grill the hot dogs I had asked for.

It's stupid and ridiculous for me to complain about this. There are people in this country who legitimately have a right to feel left out of America and carry the air of "foreigner" around with them, no matter how hard they try to assimilate. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, unaccented me-- I can do pretty much anything in this country without being hassled or questioned. I have no right to feel like the 4th passed me by without me feeling that surge of warmth and belonging. Do I?

K.

*There was this one time (before I spent 4ths there as a camper) that things got a little weird. The director at the time, a gentile, was a Confederate Civil War re-enactor along with her husband. For some reason, they decided that July 4th would be a great time to have a "Confederate Day." A lot of weird things happened at Jew Camp, but that was one that only happened once.

A Loss of Innocence With a Spider Bite

Last night, I sat up thinking about a girl I had in my bunk during my first year as a camp counselor. She was what we at camp refer to as "awkward"-- quiet, prone to odd conversations when she did open her mouth, and habits rather different from a typical 10-year old girl. She had a connection with bugs that none of us could understand. Spiders, daddy longlegs, and moths-- all would sneak into our bunk and swarm on the walls and bed legs. While the rest of us would end up stomping and swatting, she would shout at us to stop. She would then go about rescuing the insects and arachnids, cradling them in her palms as she carried them back into the great out doors.

I never really understood her. After all, I'm the girl with green bug splatters on the walls of her apartment. I don't handle bugs well. But I tried to work around her sensibilities, calling her into my counselor room whenever a spider dared to step foot on my walls. The way she cared for such insignificant lives made me feel guilty for all of the ants I squashed when I was younger, the centipedes that I directed my father to kill, and the spiders I smashed with blobs of tissues.

On the last day of the session, we were scrubbing down the bunk and packing all of our belongings. This is traditionally when the insects are flushed into the open. Well, our bug quota was met by a single gigantic spider. It looked like a bristle brush with eight hairy legs. Screams of 10 frantic girls echoed off the walls, the springs of the beds screeched as they all jumped up out of the way from the multi-eyed menace.

But not this girl. With her typical calmness and almost vacant smile, she advanced on the spider, bending down and reaching out her hand. The next thing I knew, she was screaming as loud as the rest of them, holding her hand tightly to her chest. The spider had bitten her. Hard.

As I raced her down to the infirmary, she told me tearily that it didn't hurt her so much as surprise her. I suppose she was feeling a little betrayed by an animal that she always tried to help.

I don't know why I still remember that-- it was four years ago. But whenever I watch those daytime trashy TV shows about child abuse and wild, out of control teens, I think of her. I suppose it's the loss of innocence that gets to me, how one event could change a child's outlook, even something very small.

I wish I could have smashed the spider before she had gotten to it, just so she could have avoided the disappointment.

K.

Tales from Jew Camp: I Can't Keep My Promises

No doubt somebody on this vast World Wide Web has noticed that I have been a little late in posting. Nine weeks late, to be exact.

Long ago, I subscribed to the fantasy that, after working 24 hours a day for a week straight, I would have enough energy to write a lucid account of my experiences at Jew Camp. Just as foolishly, I promised that I would spend a half an hour of my precious time off sharing my stories when I wanted to be as far away from camp as possible, both physically and mentally. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

And it's sad that I didn't have the fortitude because this summer yielded tons of interesting tales. A short list:

• Suicidal campers
• My first encounter with Workman's Comp
• Severe ankle injuries
• Writing sermons
• Budding rockstars in my bunk
• Insights from a girls' camp
• Tears, tears, tears
• Harmonica jam sessions
• Battles with the Red Cross
• Israeli sob stories

It goes on.

Should I kick myself over this? Probably not. It's not like I can't write these entries at a later date when I invariably run out of ideas. Stories aren't like the milk that my brother leaves sitting out in the basement; they don't spoil. If anything, they get better. Entertaining embellishments cultivated from numerous tellings don't hurt in the least... might even yield some deep insights. Or not. Whatever.

So while I wasn't able to keep this promise, I'll venture another one: I will one day share all of my stories under the title "Tales from Jew Camp." I mean, eventually my friends are going to tire of my constant camp chatter and the Internet can't lock you in your closet to get away from your stories.

Thank goodness.

K.

Tales from Jew Camp: An Introduction

I had planned to write this a week ago, started several times, scribbled on a sheet of paper. But I sat in front of this laptop and this blank Blogger screen... and nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.

Normally I can let my fingers go on autopilot and cede control of all creative functions to the right side of my brain. Call it talent, call it subconscious, call it whatever you want. It just happens. But this week has produced only a series of words, a jumble of meaningless phrases that don't matter to me in the least.

I guess when you try to write about something that is so very close to your heart, no matter how silly it is, it's hard to be blithe about it. Trust me, I've tried. I'm a firm believer that sarcasm and self-deprecating humor can be applied to distance to a situation, whatever that happens to be. Any regular reader of this blog can attest that many of my entries are rife with that sort of writing style. This, however, cannot, will not, be translated into a light article.

As I write this, I can guarantee that I will be blushing. I suppose I get embarrassed over how juvenile it is (or seems to be). Okay, I'll just say it.

Camp.

A Jewish girls camp, to be specific.

For the last ten years, I have been attending the same camp, either as a camper, trainee, or a counselor. Same camp, same activities, same people.

See? Blushing.

Oh, how I wish I could just sit here and make fun of the whole thing, the whole concept! Like how Jewish parents send their girls to this camp specifically to meet Jewish boys at the neighboring camp and how, ironically, more lesbians come out of the camp than marriages. But then I think about how many camp marriages do last and how many points your cool factor goes up if you are a lesbian at camp... and I can't make fun of it anymore.

Know why? Because that is part of the charm of camp. At camp, I am brave enough to smash gigantic spiders while issuing my shrillest war cry. I can wear the same dirty old hat everyday. I can give a sermon or two at Shabbat morning services. Camp did more for me as a woman than any Spice Girl ever could. And I couldn't be more grateful.

On Tuesday, I leave to begin my tenth and final year at my dear, sweet camp. After three years as a counselor, I need to begin planning for real life, taking internships, travel. I must leave my mountains behind to enter a world where the only mountains I will climb are metaphorical in nature. But I still have one last year. One last fling at childhood before entering a new life.

So, I invite you to join me in my final journey. Though I will not be able to write everyday, I hope to share my stories with you at least once a week. Perhaps I will finally be able to convey my feelings for this place in my own idiom, instead of stilted flowery prose.

Until then, goodbye!

K.

PS. Please feel free to leave comments if you so wish. I hope to be able to check my e-mail while at camp (if their sporadic internet cooperates). I'll definitely respond if I have the chance. :)