Thursday, September 4, 2014

Summer Love at Summer Camp




Well, not that kind of summer love, though I do have stories from summers past at YMCA Camp Takodah, but we’ll save those for another time.  Maybe.  This love is for the camp itself.  I started working as a counselor at Camp Takodah many years ago when I was fresh out of high school.  It became my solid summer refuge during my wild college years, and it's been extremely awesome to get to go back – since my teens were babies – to Takodah’s fabulous Family Camp.  This summer was especially fantastic:

One night, after dinner, I stood up in the dining hall and waved around a copy of Don’t Tell. I announced its recent publication and that I would be selling and signing books.  Which I did.   They sold out quickly and I gave the money to the staff so they could all go out for ice-cream, my treat.  They were quite grateful, but I assure you I was more grateful for all that they did for my kids, for me, for everyone at camp.  Ropes course, overnight canoe trips, candle making, swimming, boating, laughing our butts off day after day; the young, enthusiastic, clever, beautiful staff is why I know that this world is a good place and that we don’t need to worry that our teens and young adults are rotting their brains out with their cell phones and video games.  But that’s another topic, my strong faith in young people.  Camp was a blast.

But here’s where the real blast happened:  for the rest of the week everyone was walking around with Don’t Tell in their hands.  They’d stop me on the path down to the lake, “OMG, Lava, I can’t put it down!  You’re killing me!”  They would find me in the Arts and Crafts shop, “I’m freaking out about Brad.  I hate him!”  “I hate him too,” I’d say. They'd peek their head into my cabin, “Lava, wow, I didn’t realize you could . . . you know . . . write like that.”  I’d wink, knowing what they were referring to.  I think my favorite moment was late one night in the dining hall.  I was playing Settlers of Catan with my family.  We shared the long table with a group who was working on a jigsaw puzzle.  Sarah, who was nearly finished with the book (and the puzzle) held a puzzle piece tight while she read a certain chapter.  Suddenly she dropped the puzzle piece on the floor, clutched my arm (hard!), and shouted, “WHAT???”  She pointed to a certain line in the book, and I smiled.  She was shocked.  She never saw it coming. 

No spoilers here, but can you imagine how it felt to witness a reader discovering a really juicy tidbit, right in front of my own eyes! 

Felt good.

Still feels good.

Camp is love.

Young people rock the world!

Check out my new Don't Tell facebook page give it a like and read the news about my upcoming reading at the Brattleboro Literary Festival

Save the date!  Don't Tell reading and book signing: Sunday, Oct. 5th.  1:30, Brattleboro, VT at the River Garden on Main St. in downtown Brattleboro.




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