“Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened.” Dr. Seuss
My daughter left for camp yesterday. This will be her 11thsummer at Heart O’ the Hills Camp. We did the usual last minute shopping for the requisite white shorts for Sundays, brushed the cobwebs off her trunk, aired it out on the back porch, and then filled it with everything she’d need for the next four weeks – at least everything she could think of at the time. Inevitably, one of us forgets to pack something. In the old days, that meant a letter home with a request and up to a week of waiting for said item to arrive via the US Mail. Now, it’s only a quick few clicks on the keyboard to order the item from Amazon or a 20 minute drive into town for a Walmart run on her afternoon off.
I’m always sad and happy at the same time when my daughter leaves for camp. I have so many happy memories of Heart O’ the Hills. It is a very special place. I went every summer for five years: 1974 to 1979. I spent a few years away and then, like the boy in Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, I returned to Heart O’ the Hills during a time in my life when I needed to be in a place that had always nurtured and welcomed me. I had just completed the first year of the many it would take to earn my Ph.D. I needed a break from the bleakness of the ivory tower. I needed, as one song the campers still sing at camp, “to be still, to take it in a while, to feel the sunshine warm upon [my] face.” I missed the feel of the cool, clear waters of the south fork of the Guadalupe River; the light of the fireflies that I have only seen one place in my entire life; the smell of the mesquite campfires at Opening Ceremony; the sound of Taps right before bed, and the camaraderie and fellowship of those blessed with the opportunity to spend time at that very special place on a quiet, two lane road “deep in the heart of Texas.”
I’m sad because, like every single Heart girl I have ever known, I’m “camp sick.” It’s hard to explain to someone who has never experienced it; it’s not a siren’s call, exactly – that word has such negative connotations – but it is a call. Camp calls to me this time of year: “Come, come girl – come swim in my river and ride my horses. Come climb up to the top of Pawnee Hill and sit around the fire with the other members of your tribe – your Heart sisters who know you like no one else ever will – and share the deepest secrets of your heart. Lay on the Front Lawn and feel the grass under your limbs while you gaze up into the night sky at the millions of stars that you can no longer see under the glare of the big city lights at night.”
Then I remember the wise words of Dr. Seuss: “Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened. And I tell myself to smile because “it” – the wonder of camp – continues to happen every summer, just as it is happening right now for my daughter and the girls she is teaching to love this place as much as we do.