ice water summer camp

Before last Tuesday, my limited interaction with northern California involved two inland drive-bys on the 5 freeway with my freshman roommate en route to San Francisco. Both trips (each as impromptu as humanly possible) combined probably amounted to a grand total of about 47 hours spent between San Fran and Berkeley, so northern wonders like redwood trees and banana slugs were essentially fairy tales for me until this week. But now I’ve been to the mountaintop and can attest that both are real and very cool.

For the next 50-something days (which run scary close into depart-for-China time), I’m a counselor at Camp Hammer in Boulder Creek in the Santa Cruz mountains, and even though I don’t know where anything is up here yet, I’m in love with it.

Because I really love camp. Lame sentence. I love trees, I love sunshine, I love KP duty, I love running around in the forest, I love singing, I love yelling, I love games, I love campers. I love that all of these things mixed up with summer sky and breeze are always warm and familiar. And even though I’d never been here before, I can tell you that this is a wonderful place, very different from what I’ve done before, and wonderful, warm familiar things go on here.

It’s so different up here from anywhere I’ve been or camped before. Redwoods and cedars are so different from Jeffrey pines and manzanita, and moss grows on everything. Everything! I would show you pictures, but I have yet to take any, and it would take a million years to upload them here with mountain-internet. But at some point you’ll be able to see mossy sunshine trees and lots of smiling faces, because I’m pretty sure it will be impossible to take an uninteresting picture in this place.

Le sigh. This post is not at all verbally representative of the calm and happiness of being here. Sometime soon I’ll sneak away into the forest, find a large-ass tree and curl up underneath it with journal or something, and then the next time you read this it will be way prettier. In any case, I’m blessed that this summer I get that warmth and familiarity right up until I run away to China. So the last ‘thing’ I’m doing in the States is one of my favorite things in the world. Cool.

In other news, part two of my childhood life story will be on its way soon . And so will invitation papers from my future-university in Harbin! It feels so good to have another wave of certainty on the way. Peace and blessings.