Tales from camp

We got this submission for last week's "tales from camp" issue after we published, but still wanted to share this note and lovely photo with you. Sender-inner Jennie Condon works year-round for Cody Camps in Freedom.

It's late, and finally in bed for the night, I'm listening to the sailboat rigging making music outside my window. For 13 years now the sailboats have played my favorite lullaby: the sound of the night breeze, the sound of day's end, the sound of summer. Long days are a given here, with a pace that would make most people cry for mercy. Camp staff are a breed apart, though, and for eight weeks we not only survive but outright thrive on 15-hour days complete with sunburns, bug bites and voices hoarse from belting out camp songs.

You never know what might be waiting around the corner: a homesick camper, a hungry raccoon who just learned how to get the lid off the trash or an issue that means now, at midnight, you have to rearrange the entire day's staffing for tomorrow.

Sometimes it takes a lot out of us. Most nights at least one of us says to another, "You look awful; go to bed!" But there's a feeling of accomplishment knowing that even though you're exhausted and wish the world would stop spinning for just a few minutes, you've pushed past it and done what needed to be done.

I've worked in different fields and never had that feeling anywhere else. I've never been happy to work right up to the breaking point and then keep on going, for I've never been part of a team as close-knit, determined, capable and effective. If it needs doing, we do it. If it needs fixing, we fix it. If it needs solving, we solve it. And at the end of the day, very few know the effort, ingenuity, stress, laughter and even sometimes tears that go into it - which is as it should be. Because of that work, the kids have the time of their lives. Just this week, I've seen more triumphs than I can count.

Campers went SCUBA diving for the first time, friendships formed between the unlikeliest of pairs and campers from abroad - who just two weeks ago spoke almost no English - conversed easily with their counselors. I went sailing with a camper I taught last summer and heard my own words echoed back a year later as he explained the process. At the archery range I watched the shy, awkward girl hit a perfect bullseye. Campers who'd won the privilege of sleeping in decided they'd rather get up and not miss the fun of the morning's activities. The smiles, the enthusiasm and the thrill of exploration: those are the things we live for here.

So, as the sailboats sing me to sleep, I can't help but think that, even though I'll surely be grateful for the time to relax once the season ends, I still can't wait till next summer.