L
ing gym. It was probably obvious to
anyone who saw me that I wasn’t
a born camper: pale, skinny and
shy around people I didn’t know,
I took every chance I had to seek
shelter in the arts and crafts cabin,
where I could make yarn God’s eyes
or SpinArt paintings or lopsided
lanyard keychains for hours with
absolutely no physical exertion or
contact with anyone else.
But even though I like to joke
that I “failed” at camp — which,
spoiler alert, you can’t really do,
unless you set fire to a building or
pull a Lord of the Flies — the experience taught me many lessons
that I continue to apply to my
adult life. To wit:
Carrie is Actually
a Documentary
I’m guessing prison-style showers
are awkward for anyone, but being a hormone-riddled adolescent
during my first exposure to group
nudity wasn’t doing me any favors.
Neither was the fact that one of
my chest nubs (I cannot fairly call
them breasts, as they were more
like an amoebic version, lurching
out of the primordial ooze of puberty) decided to sprout before the
other, giving my pale, sporadically
UNA LaMARCHE
BEST
SUMMER
EVER
HUFFINGTON
05.26.13
LIFESTYLE
TRAVEL
hairy body the look of a tiny fronthunchback. It also did not help
that the older and more genetically
blessed counselors were shaving
their legs all around me. Picture
the opening scene from Carrie and
you get the picture. Just replace
the telekinesis with a unibrow.
Nothing Says I Love You
Like a Handwritten Letter
Granted, in my camp days the cutting edge of cellular technology was
a car phone, and the internet was
basically just a clip art file of an
Camp songs run the gamut
from completely nonsensical
to soberingly self-reflective, but
my personal favorite ditty was
a cheerful celebration, in rhyme,
of the sinking of the Titanic.”
anthropomorphic cursor, but mail
call was the most joyous time of
each day. There was no sign of familial love greater than a care package stuffed with Tiger Beats and
Blow Pops, but running a very close
second was a handwritten letter on
folded notebook paper, which still
to this day makes my heart skip a