The Present Moment

I'm almost two weeks away from leaving for Italy! But I am REALLY going to miss camp and living here and growing alongside the wonderful people I work with. I've decided that if it is at all possible I want a career that is mostly relational--not working nine to five behind a desk and a computer. I find complete peace and satisfaction in having mandatory mud pit time as a part of my job description and leading hikes and skipping stones on rivers. I've considered working here at Tall Timber next summer but it's hard to say now--I have no clue where I'll end up or where I'm headed in life and I'm completely content with that.

It seems as though right now I'm at the prime of my life. I feel like one of the luckiest people in the world. I'm currently typing this while looking out the window at one of the most gorgeous sights I know of: the Cascade mountain range and the remoteness of Tall Timber. I'm living here in a community of incredible people who I've gotten to know this summer and love a whole lot. The work here has been a blessing in every way. I love waking up in the morning and walking from my cabin and to the lodge as the sun is rising over the mountains. I love watching kids scream for joy as they're covered head to toe in mud. I love cooking over an open fire on a river and having dirty feet constantly. I love being suspended sixty feet in the trees on a ropes course and helping kids conquer their fears. I love laughing with people until my side aches and the how all my clothes smell after campfires. And just when I thought my summer couldn't be any better, I'm going to be living in Italy for seventeen weeks. What!?! Is this really my life!?! And then when I get back to Whitworth, I'll be living in a house with six incredible friends who I love dearly. And who knows after that. But no matter where I am, my thoughts go out to other places. I'm alwasy wondering what my friends and family are doing in the Bay Area, what friends are doing on the East Coast, in Vancouver BC, in Uganda, India, Spokane, Seattle, Austin, Tacoma, SoCal, Reno, Berkeley, San Francisco, Portland....but I feel so incredibly blessed to have all these amazing people in my life even if they are spread out all accross the world. I wouldn't expect anything less from my friends! Saying goodbye to camp is going to be incredibly hard, but I need to keep reminding myself that my life is going to be one adventure after the next for the next year or so--I should at least embrace it for all it's worth.

Last week after Primary camp myself and five others road tripped to Spokane and it was fantastic all around. It was weird to visit campus knowing I wasn't going to be there for so long, but it was so worthwhile to visit, even just briefly, with people there. We also went to Manito which is beautiful in the summer time and had lunch at camp Spalding (yes we left camp to visit, yes that's right, camp) and it was super fun. Watching Across the Universe while laying on Lizzie's trampoline in her backyard under the stars on a Spokane summer evening was jsut perfect, not to mention the food her parents made for us. Though the drive along highway 2 from Spokane to camp is dull and lame, I immensly enjoyed talking the entire way back with Lizzie and Dan. This is what summer should be all about: being outside and dirty, long conversations, long car rides, and laughter. That's good enough for me.

Next week I am counseling for Senior High camp (so weird, I feel super old) and it should be epic. We have an all-camp square dance, beach day, banquet night, and loads of classic camp good times. Then I fly home and I hope to see as many friends there as I can. A semester is going to be a freaking long time to be away but it'll fly by I'm sure. Everything goes by too fast it seems.

Parades & Good Old Fashioned Country Livin'

My second week of working at camp has been completed, junior high adventure camp. The week had its ups and its downs from working in a mosquito infested craft shed during the afternoons, to driving golf carts everywhere, to playing intense games of Can-Can, playing in a mud pit with approximately 60 campers plus staff, and putting on one fabulous impromptu 4th of July parade and making hundreds of " 'MERICA!! " jokes in a single day. A solid week overall. Tiring, but solid. Next week I counsel for Junior camp (3rd to 6th graders) and I'm concerned about my energy levels being on the low side. But regardless, I can't think of a better way to spend my summer that being in the mountains. I star gaze almost every night and it never gets old. Going to Italy seems so far away but in reality it happens in a matter of weeks and I'm afraid I won't have much time to process all that went on and all that I experienced here at camp before I leave for an even bigger adventure. I'm now at the stage where I'm realizing that I am going to be gone from Whitworth and not see Whitworth people for a significantly long time and that it'll be harder on me emotionally than I thought. To quote an Explosions in the Sky album title, "all of a sudden, I miss everyone" --no matter where I am.