What I Learned In Summer Camp

When I was a young, smart aleck kid, I was shipped off one summer against my will to an outdoor cesspool of a camp in the Central Florida woods. Snakes were regular campers there too. Mosquitos attacked each morning and evening with a bloody thirst. And I once witnessed a scorpion emerge from a friend's shoe just as she was about to put it on. The trees were so dense that we rarely saw the sun. And lunches were comprised of economical peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, where the 2 ingredients had been efficiently processed together into a brown goo so as to make serving 200 campers fast and easy.

Those were the good memories.

One typical hot and muggy afternoon, I attended an art class where I was told to slap white concrete-like mush onto a 9 by 11 inch piece of plywood. I was then instructed to rummage through piles of tiles, shattered and assorted with different colors, sizes and textures. Here I was supposed to create an image formed of these tiles and pressed gently into the white mush - a mosaic. I completed the task, finding that the process of sifting carefully through the sharp tiles was rather enjoyable. I began getting lost in the hunt for the right colored piece of just the right size to place next in the series of a random pattern. I lost myself happily, working away carefully, forgetting mosquitos and the sticky humidity and the rush of other campers leaving me to get to our afternoon swim. I eventually finished and left my creation to dry, joining my friends back at the cabins to change and head to the pool.

In the days that followed, I completely forgot the mosaic.

On the final day of camp, the counselors and administrators held an art exhibit to showcase all of the campers' work throughout that week - there were woven baskets, paintings, pottery pieces and other beautifully designed kids' art displayed on rows of portable tables on grass. We'd been asked to collect our art to pack in our things for the long trip home. What I didn't realize was the exhibit was in fact a contest. And colorful ribbons had been placed on the best items. Table after table I looked at all the art, thinking of the hidden talent evident there by kids who were as seemingly un-unique as the mosquitos that surrounded us. And then I saw my mosaic, the art I resisted attempting, and then lost myself in. It proudly displayed a large blue ribbon in one corner.

My heart swelled. I hadn't given even a moment's thought that I might place, let alone win! I was in awe, staring at that piece imagining they'd placed the ribbon on the wrong one, or else another camper created that mosaic which simply resembled mine. But no, it was mine. I was elated. It was the singular most memorable part of that camp. At least until the next most memorable part.

I held my mosaic lovingly, looking at it in the manner a new mother looks at her infant. And I walked away from the art tables excited, now imagining showing it to my mom back at home. On my third step away from the tables, still staring at the blue ribbon, my foot hit the edge of the concrete sidewalk, and I tripped. In slow motion, I watched my beautiful mosaic, the blue and yellow tiles I'd so deliberately selected and carefully placed, hit the sidewalk, shattering and scattering like fireworks all around me.

I stood dumbfounded. How could I have been so careless? How could this have happened? What would I have to show my mom and to keep for a memory of one of my greatest achievements? Why did this happen? There was nothing left to do, but sort through the tiles, this time to pick up and dust off the blue ribbon to pack away in my things for the long ride home.

Now, nearly 30 years later I know why it happened. I was shown what I was capable of accomplishing, when I enjoy doing something so immensely that I forget myself while doing it. I needed that event to reveal to me later in life, not the sadness over the loss, but my possibility. It woke me up to the revelation that if I did that once, I have it in me to do again. If I go back to those activities which consume me, enrapture and enliven me, then blue ribbons will sit patiently in the corners of those achievements waiting for me to discover them.