chapter/ Camp

Here it is, late July. My girls did not feel ready to try sleep-away camp this summer. Some of their friends have already begun to return home with tales of great camp adventures. So I sit around, fretting about how my children are spending their time this summer, and I catch myself comparing their "now" to my "then". 

For this week's post, I looked to my memoir manuscript and pulled out the chapter titled "Camp", thinking I'd tighten it up and post it. Then I remembered that I had already posted an old version of it, long ago. Turns out it was back in August, 2011: titled "Summer Camp". 

Indisputable proof that my writing life has taken on a scary spiral form, in which essays become posts, and posts become chapters, and chapters become posts. 

The good news is that this new version is better than the old one.  

I hope you'll pardon the indulgence... 

chapter/ CAMP

“You’ll love sleep-away camp. I promise,” my mother said. “There’s not enough to do around here once school’s over. I’ll be teaching the first month of summer session. You’ll have a much better time in the country. Trust me. It’ll be fine.” 

I don’t recall the anxiety I must have had, knowing I would be separated from my mother for four weeks. I don’t remember feeling unloved or rejected. But at five years old, I’m sure I had some serious reservations about going to sleep-away camp.

My mother grew up in the country, on an anarchist commune outside of Peekskill, New York. Raised among radical intellectuals, artists, and activists in a rustic atmosphere, the natural world was the backdrop of her rich childhood memories. It was important to her that she get her urban child “up to nature” whenever possible. So it was decided: the summer I was to turn six, I would be spared a month of babysitter days stuck in our Bronx apartment. Up to nature I went.

My mother chose a Jewish Y camp for my first sleep-away adventure. Which didn’t strike me as strange, because I knew that we were technically Jewish. My mother’s mother was a Russian Jew, and after she died, my mother had been raised by a Jewish family. According to Jewish law, we were absolutely Jewish. But I didn’t think of us as really Jewish. My parents were atheists. At home and at school, I was taught to respect all religious traditions with equal weight, without having to subscribe to any. It didn’t occur to me that camp would be any different. I trusted my mother’s plan. But she had read the brochure. The one that described the weekly Shabbat services.

As instructed, we packed “four nice white shirts” along with the shorts, halter tops, bathing suits and towels, underpants, and ankle socks with my name tags sewn in, and shipped them ahead in an old trunk. At camp, everything got shoved into cubbies except the white shirts, which were hung on hangers in the bunk closet. And everyone noticed: my shirts were too fancy. Not plain, like the shirts the other girls brought. The lace bits and pearly buttons stood out, along with the rest of me.

I was one of the youngest kids at camp. And one of the very few black ones. A couple of dark-skinned girls stayed in much older bunks, way out of my reach. Surrounded by friends their own age, they seemed unaffected by the fact that their beaded braids and dark complexions made them different. On that first Friday night, they knew what to do for Shabbat. They seemed right at home. I watched and wondered, while I fumbled through the pre-dinner service in my nice white shirt. Four weeks of Fridays, with the unfamiliar rituals of challah bread and candles, and prayers to God in a foreign tongue. I mumbled along, hoping no one would single me out to light the candles or break the bread. I was sure they all noticed: I was that new little girl who isn’t even Jewish. 

I don’t recall any specific unkindness, or mistreatment. And I don’t remember having made any friends there, either. What I remember is my lost, brown self, in a sea of white shirts, in the soft glow of candlelight, praying over shiny, puffy, braided loaves of bread. And that lonely feeling of wanting to fit in, not knowing how to shed the Outsider skin. 

Although I withheld the details of my lonely Y Camp summer from my mother, she must have recognized my ambivalence about the place. The next year, we rented a bungalow in the Catskills and spent a solid month together. The following summer, we discovered Blueberry Cove, a small, artsy, back-to-nature summer camp in Maine. It was the ideal respite from the noise of the city and the structured school year. Blueberry Cove Camp became my summertime home away from home, filled with friends from all over the country, who came back, year after year, like I did. We ran around barefoot, embraced our mandatory farm chores, and swam in the frigid waters of the Atlantic. We connected with the earth, and the animals, and developed a common empathy for the natural world and each other. My mother, confident that I was happy and secure, was able to spend her summers traveling, or teaching part-time if she so chose. Summertime offered her a break from the single-parent pace of our lives. 

And I got Maine. Shoeless, godless, and free.

The Ease of Blending In

I recently had the strange experience of traveling to a far-away island and being mistaken for a native.

It’s much more usual for me to be mistaken for a “foreigner,” with my light brown skin, black eyes, and unruly, curly hair.

Growing up in New York City, I was regularly presumed to be of Latin American descent. Which made sense, since my mixed heritage includes African, Spanish (from Spain), Russian, and Native American. I look like the product of multi-generational miscegenation. Because that’s what I am.

But my high school Spanish classes didn’t prepare me to respond capably to the rapid-fire queries of all those pretty brown people, lost in the city subways, expecting me to help them find their way. I tried: “No comprendo. Habla usted inglés? (I don’t understand. Do you speak English?)” Which would meet with a dejected “No.”

Did they think I was trying to pass? Disavowing my native tongue?

Late last month, my family and I traveled to Puerto Rico.

In preparation, my husband tried to scrape together some key Spanish phrases. His favorite: “Pregunta mi esposa. (Ask my wife.)” Our daughters claimed to not know any conversational Spanish, in spite of five years of elementary school study. So I tried to brush off the buried remnants of the Spanish I once knew, the native language of my beloved Grandpa Juan. We figured we might be mistaken for Puertorriqueños, and I wanted to be prepared.

In the taxi to the airport, I practiced my Spanish with our Ecuadorian driver.

My family was shocked, never having heard me converse in anything but English before. The driver and I discussed our children, their relative ages, and how they would each be spending the summer break. It was hard work, but I did all right.

Landing in San Juan, we were no longer tourists.

We blended seamlessly into the sea of brown faces. Nearly everyone we encountered addressed us in Spanish. Not text book Spanish, but the fast Puerto Rican flavor, with lots of dropped vowels and English slang. By the end of our week, our ears were well tuned to it, though we were grateful for the ease with which most of our contacts could switch to our native tongue.

The big thrill for me was how well we fit in.

The people of Puerto Rico come in all shades of brown. And for this brown girl, it was the first time I have traveled anywhere and not felt “other”. I’ve been to every state in the Union, except Hawaii, and have often felt like an obvious outsider; in a quiet, clear way, like a visitor from somewhere else. Not white. Not black. Possibly not American. I’ve been called “exotic” a few too many times.

In Puerto Rico, I found an unexpected comfort, for myself and my children.  It was the ease of blending in.

Which must be hard to fathom, for those who’ve always known it.

Browngirl Returns!

I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while.

A lot has happened in the world, and in my little life, since my last entry, dated January 28, 2014. I have a long list of topics, craving exposition. But like I told you before, I decided to finally hunker down and finish the manuscript project that has been occupying the better part of my brain for the past let’s–just-call-it-fifteen years. Since last October, when I stole five days in a tiny cottage in Woodstock, swearing I would come back with real progress made, I stayed the course. The shit is done. And let me tell you it was one giant effort.

When I realized I was really finished, I gleefully alerted “my agent,” who signed me to a representation deal ten years ago. She shopped an older version of the book back then; no one bit, but several publishers offered encouraging feedback. So I thought that if I worked hard at the revisions, it would sell this time. I was stunned to discover that said agent is just not that into me anymore. She’s a rock star agent, corralling a pretty fancy herd of rock star writers. The fact that she ever took interest in my writing was a blessed surprise. I let myself think that she would stay interested forever. 

So I’ve been mourning the loss, in my own quiet way.

I might decide to self-publish, if only to get the giant beast off of my plate and out into the world. I swore I wouldn’t go that route. I’d really like to hand it over to a publishing house and gain that seal of approval. I think the book is pretty damn good. My ex-agent only read twenty pages before she passed on it. I probably sent her the wrong twenty pages. I’ll show her.

Meanwhile, it occurred to me yesterday, when I decided I was done feeling depressed about this latest rejection, that my next move is obvious: it's time to get back to this here blog. Honestly, this is more fun that shaking out 400+ pages of memoir that I’ve read and re-read too many times.

On to freshness!

Expect to hear from me more often.

I’m back :)

Pete Seeger lost...

I've managed to accidentally delete my post of January 28. It was a dedication to Pete Seeger, National Hero. If anyone out there has a version of it, please let me know. Blogger offers no recovery methods at this time.