Summer Camp

Summer is almost over.

Those of us with school-age children are preparing for a major transition. The extended dance remix of bedtime is winding down. Our alarm clock will revert to its mercilessly timeworn 5:45 AM setting. All of our clocks will lock into the tightly scheduled structure of the School Year.

Our summer of anarchy sheds new light on my mother’s choice to send me to sleep-away camp the summer I turned six. I liked the idea of going to camp, and spending the night(s) there. She didn’t have to work hard to convince me that camp would be more fun than hanging out at home all summer. It was a classic, “old school” co-ed camp in the country, with swimming, arts and crafts, tennis, campfires and sing-alongs. And Shabbat service every Friday night. In clean white shirts. Four weeks of Fridays, with their completely unfamiliar rituals of challah bread and candles and prayers to God in foreign tongues. At 5-and-11/12ths, I had been raised an atheist, among  people of many faiths, none of whom behaved as observant Jews in my presence. We had friends and relatives who celebrated Hanukah instead of Christmas, but I had no sense of any Jewish traditions or rituals, or bible references, or Hebrew.

I guess my mother thought it would be good for me to have some exposure to our Jewish heritage. She had read the brochure. But I had no idea what I was in for. We packed “nice white shirts”, along with all the shorts, halter tops and tennis peds with our nametags sewn in, and shipped them ahead in a steamer trunk purchased at the local Army & Navy store. Those white shirts got hangers in our bunk closet, while everything else was shoved into cubbies. My shirts were not as plain as everyone else’s. My idea of “nice” was “fancy”, with lace bits and pearly buttons. So my shirts stood out. Along with the rest of me.

I was one of the youngest kids at camp. And one of the darkest. There were a couple of very dark-skinned girls in much older bunks. Too old for me to connect with in any way. They appeared to be well liked by other girls their age, and fell right in line with the Shabbat exercise. In amongst a few hundred savvy New York kids, I was the new little girl who isn’t even Jewish. I didn’t look the part. I didn’t act the part. I mumbled along with the prayers, and hoped no one would single me out for any candle lighting or bread breaking. Fridays were torture. In truth, they’re all I remember about that camp.  I don’t remember any of the kids being unkind, or the counselors mistreating me in any way. And I don’t remember having made any friends there either. It’s a blur, except for that sea of white shirts, in the soft glow of candlelight, mumbling and praying to God over shiny, puffy, braided loaves of bread.

Mom and I spent the following summer together in a bungalow in the Catskills. And after that, we found an amazing, small, artsy, back-to-nature summer camp up in Maine, where I finally found the ideal respite from the city, and the structured school year, and the hot, sticky doldrums of the Bronx in summertime. And my mother, confident that I was happy and secure, was able to spend her summers traveling, and teaching part-time if she felt like it, and doing whatever single parents do when they find themselves able to focus on themselves for a change.

As a married mother of two pretty easy-going kids, with a husband who helps a lot with the child-rearing, I feel guilty paying a babysitter to watch the girls for a few hours at the pool, so that I may sit here in solitude and get this post done. But it’s late August, and I’ve been up to my eyeballs in kid-friendly activities most days, for weeks now. And my girls say they aren’t ready for sleep-away camp just yet. "Maybe next year, Mommy."

Maybe I should start researching now.

Still Talkin' 'Bout Race

Lately I notice a lot of comments from people who are tired of everyone talking about race. “Can’t we just get past the race thing?” they ask. “Are we really still talking about race?”

Uh, yes we are, and no we can’t, to answer in reverse order.

It’s comfy and convenient to not talk about race. But the race topic is cleverly disguised as the racism topic. And that monster isn’t going anywhere unless it is consciously and deliberately addressed. It’s a national topic, a global topic, a neighborhood topic, and a schoolyard topic.

The schoolyard is what got my family talking about race. I know from my future-star-reporter daughter that she and her peers compare skin tones and genealogy during recess. A social studies unit on slavery, and another on The Settlers vs. The Indians, got the ball rolling. Suddenly they were talking about race, and who’s darker than whom. She loyally reported her findings – what everyone said, verbatim – as if she and her friends were the first bunch of kids to ever go down that path.

So I wonder if the people who don’t feel the need to talk about race perhaps don’t have children. My own super-liberal pre-children life had very little need for the mention of race. People I hung out with were accustomed to the company of a multi-culti crowd. Living in New York and San Francisco, I was comfortably positioned in the broadest race spectra on the planet. Most of my friends from that era registered fashion and music as labeling identifiers, more than anyone’s racial background. So race didn’t come up, and it didn’t seem to matter. But now that I have children, who have endless questions as well as delicate little egos, I feel the need to talk with them as frankly as I can about race, and about who they are.

For those of us whose families are multiracial, race is always a topic. For most of us, it’s been out in the open since we can remember, either as a quiet constant or a blazing flare, or something in between. What amazes me is how different every multiracial upbringing is. The parents each bring their own histories and attitudes to the mix, and the grandparents and extended families have enormous influence on who we relate to, and who we’re most comfortable with, both inside the family and out in the world. Contemporary memoirs and novels, as well as those going back to the early 1800's, document the diversity of our lives, and are invaluable learning tools for all of us.

As a multiracial person raising curious, inquisitive children, I don’t have the luxury to not talk about race. I’m not feeling the need to stand on a soapbox and shout about it, but the talking and the writing are not going away.

If we’re not talking about race, and a racially motivated incident occurs, we react with shock and horror. But if we’re consciously living with racial awareness, then we’re better equipped to confront and combat racist acts. The end goal is to live peacefully and respectfully, with ourselves and with each other. Right?