Every Zosna Camp is special, but this one was especially so.
That’s in part because it was the apex, building on 20 years of camps.
And it’s in part because it was the last, ending 20 years of camps.
And it’s in part because it was the last, ending 20 years of camps.
At the beginning of the camp, I decided that my question for the week would be “How do I finish well?” I knew that this was likely the swan song for this particular iteration of the camp, and that this would, in all likelihood, be the last time that Zosna Camp as I’d come to know and love it, would be held.
How does one finish well?
I don’t know. But I feel like I - like we - did. And that’s an incredibly satisfying feeling.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever been more exhausted than I was at the end of the camp. I was wearing too many hats for too long, getting too little sleep and caring for too many people and programs during the day. By the end of camp, I was so spent that I was literally staggering around, barely enough energy left in my weary bones to drag my legs across the ground.
But it’s all worth it. Why? The smiles and tears.
The smiles are easy to fall in love with. Kids having fun, feeling loved, throwing water balloons and eating sausages and talking with friends and basking in the warm glow of the fire late into the night. Adults having fun, feeling loved, getting hit by water balloons and eating sausages and talking with friends and basking in the warm glow of the fire (not-quite-so) late into the night. The smiles take some time to warm up, but once they start, they’re hard to stop.
The tears are harder to appreciate.
The boy with developmental delays who wakes you up at 4am, crying, because people have been making fun of him around the campfire and he feels alone and left out and wants someone to walk and talk with.
The girl who can’t bear to leave camp, to say goodbye to the friends she’s made and the place she loves. Leaving a place of warmth and safety for the cold, uncertain world which she comes from and returns to. Tears running down her face as she says goodbye.
The student, from another country and here to help for the week, so overwhelmed by their experience here that they don’t know how to express the potpourri of emotions coursing through them - love, joy, exhaustion, confusion, anger, relief, disappointment, elation, longing, etc. - except through tears.
Me, as I say goodbye to this place and these people, to this camp. Eight summers I’ve been here. Eight out of twenty: not a majority, but still a large sample for a big kid from America who never lost his love of summer camp.
The rest of July has been a blur. In one sense, I feel like I’m still recovering from that single week of output. The team has been a blessing to have, but now that they’ve left I feel slightly guilty to admit that I’m glad they’re gone.
Everything has a good time to end. Summer trips, naps, movies, even relationships are sometimes meant to come to an end. Nothing is designed to go on forever, and neither should we expect it to. Life itself has to end, in order that it may continue.
It was sad to say goodbye to the summer team - Than, Michelle, Sarah and Erynn. But the sorrow was largely balanced out by the joy I felt in the time we had together, the places we went, people we met, and things that we did. Our time was full, we used it well, and it came to an end.
I feel the same about Zosna. Twenty years, eight years, one year: the time was full, we used it well, and it’s come to an end.
And I feel that, as much as I was enabled to do so, I finished well.
