Dear CSL Community:
Our hearts are full.
Mine certainly is. Even at
my age and years of experience at camp, it still feels new and it still feels
special. Part of that reason is
because while in some ways camp never changes, it is still changing radically. I have never experienced Camp Seneca
Lake as I did in 2013 and I think that is the case for most no matter their
capacity/role. Of course, true to
the nature of camp, what it was like and how it was different is difficult to
articulate. However, a big part of
what changed this summer is that for the very first time, camp was able to see
camp.
I spent quite a bit of time during the past ‘off season’
thinking about how it is very hard while at camp to fully appreciate its
uniqueness as a community. It all
started on a cold January night when I could not sleep. I went to my computer and came across
old camp photos on the Facebook page of Kate Berry Tompkins. These photos were “old” in that they
were mostly from the 90’s during my younger camper years. There were many images from Tusc 93 and
Tusc 97 – I couldn’t believe my eyes.
I thought to myself: ‘I have never seen people look like this. I have never seen people look so happy
and so incredibly at peace.’ Yes,
very corny and not exactly my way of thinking of things but the faces in the
photos were just so striking. I
didn’t even know who a lot of the people were yet I still recognized them. And then it came to me.
Fast forward to June 29th and a presentation I
started thinking about that night in January came to life. It was not exactly as I initially
envisioned for a variety of reasons.
As Program Director and Assistant Director, I give many talks and
presentations during the course of the summer and a lot during the course of
Staff Orientation. But never
before had I gone into something with the goal of showing camp…camp. I gleaned dozens of photos collected
from over the decades at camp, some recent with many familiar faces to the 2013
staff including shots of nearly every one of them as campers, but many not at
all recent with not one familiar face.
Not familiar but still recognizable. And that was the point.
Sure, nothing particularly earth shattering on the
surface. Camp pictures from over
the years and shots from a few years ago when the majority of the staff were
campers. We have heard this before
about how special camp is in that most of the staff were campers and how the
traditions stay alive, etc. But
this was different. It was more
than just that. I went into my
favorite camp story from the alumni bulletin a few years back written by Reggie
Adler about her daughters and camp specific to her Tusc experience with John
Aiken having a deeply profound impact on her daughter’s life. And again, the pivot was, “you don’t
know John Aiken…but you do. Because
in essence, the soul of camp is deeply, richly timeless”. I kept showing more and more
pictures, some from my own camper years, and then finally said something
totally crazy: “Camp is not about the people”. Wait wait wait – camp isn’t about the people? I have felt and said it so many times
over the years and have heard it continuously but this year, I changed my
mind.
On that January night, after looking through photos from the
90’s, I started going through my own from the 90’s and 00’s and 10’s – I
observed that my friends were long gone.
Or at least all the friends I grew up with at camp were long gone. Being here for 22 years makes that a cinch
but camp has remained special, and in fact gained each and every year despite
the constant revolving door of people.
Only two people physically at camp in 2013 were here in my first summer
of 1992 (Jilly Lederman and Bil Disbrow), which should not be that surprising
but no more than a couple dozen are here from 2003 when I was first a Tusc
counselor. Camp turns over a lot
faster than we realize. Campers
grow up, people move on, new staff come and over a 5-6 year period, it turns
over probably like 75%. So maybe
camp isn’t about the people. Maybe
there isn’t something special in the water of Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo,
Binghamton, and Ithaca. Maybe there
isn’t even anything special in the water in Penn Yan. Maybe camp isn’t magic after all.
Perhaps this is coming off as a bit cynical like telling a
child there is no Santa Clause (pardon the reference). But think about it and ask yourself – do
the people make camp or does camp make the people? Yeah, getting a little philosophical but for me, when I look
at those pictures spanning four decades and having had the privilege of growing
up here and seeing hundreds of others grow up, I came to the radical conclusion
that camp is not about the people after all. And as Program Director, this was an incredibly exciting
feeling that became the focal point of not just that evening (the eve of the
camper arrival), but of the entire summer at CSL. Camp is about camp and the campers and staff feed off of
that (or not) based on the method, thought, care, and love the staff and
campers put into everything they do.
And this is where the presentation went. You don’t have to know the Senior Campers of 1993 to know
them and vice versa because camp is camp based upon what we make of it and then
the people of camp are directly impacted and molded based upon what the
community is able to build and incubate.
Yes, very complex and still too philosophical but stay with me.
My part of the presentation ended and there were definitely
some positive vibes in the room on top of the obvious excitement at the
prospect of the campers arriving the next day. Then something else came on the screen in the Dining
Hall. It was camp. But it was camp in a way never seen
before – in its purest, rawest form through the eyes and the camera lens of an
outsider (at least at that point given that videographer Sam Piggott was in
just his first week at camp). There
were no campers in it because the short video was depicting the week of Staff
Orientation (https://vimeo.com/69397576). The lights were off in the Dining Hall and it was late at
night so it was hard for anyone to tell what anyone else was thinking or
feeling when watching the video.
After five minutes and thirty-two seconds, the movie ended and the
lights came on. What transpired
next kicked off the most extraordinary and special summer in Camp Seneca Lake
history.
The lights came on and the staff erupted in a thunderous
standing ovation for about three minutes, screaming and yelling. Then everyone sat down and I tried to
gather myself, not knowing what to say or do. Clearly I was speechless, which does not happen often. After ten seconds of standing there,
the staff rose back to their feet and it got louder with the applause even more
thunderous. And we went through
that cycle a few more times over the next twenty minutes. No words. Just noise and pure excitement. After several standing ovations of a couple of minutes, the
village staffs spontaneously gathered across the Dining Hall and shook it off
its foundation to their respective cheers. It was midnight and the Programming Staff and various major
planning committees went into meetings – and major portions of the July Mass
Program and Color War 7 were birthed out of that unprecedented energy. Absolutely the best night I have ever
had at camp (at least until Color War 7).
Camp had finally seen camp.
It is very easy and very common to get lost in camp. The days are long and a lot of work,
though incredibly fun and rewarding, it is still grueling and arduous. When you get into the middle days and
weeks, things blend together and you often hear about how fast camp goes. This summer, the vibe was different largely
because of what the staff saw on June 29th but also many days
thereafter in the form of other videos of…camp. Not to take away anything from my dear friend and colleague
Sam Piggott, who is absolutely the most talented person ever to grace Camp
Seneca Lake, but the massive majority of his videos are not manipulated. He is filming (and editing) camp. And when we see ourselves, we cannot
believe our eyes. For the same
reasons I could not comprehend what I saw back in January, when we see
ourselves in action, it is something truly to behold.
As the videos continued through the summer, showing us being
us, the vibes continued to grow and live inside each person but also on each
person’s face every single day. I
had never seen the camp community look the way it did and feel the way it did
this summer. And the people are
great for sure. I have never been
so honored to work with a group of people as I was the 2013 Staff, most
especially the tremendous Programming Staff (Rachel Rosenbaum, Alex Pelta, Jack
Teitel, Sam Piggott, Neil Pickus, Jake Massa, Sarah Kaufman, Justin Cuddeback,
Carrie Evans). But as much as I
loved everyone and working with everyone, I realized that seeing camp in its
purest form furthered my belief that we are not just impacted by camp, but
formulated by the camp that the campers and staff create rather than the other
way around. Perhaps still confusing
and philosophical but the bottom line is that clearly everyone at camp is
replaceable but as long as camp in its truest form is here, its campers and
staff will be eternally impacted by it no matter who they are upon their first
trip down Camp Road.
This long diatribe is coming to a close but I stand by all of
my thoughts, comments, and observations about CSL 2013 – it stands alone as the
very best our community has ever been.
The examples are everywhere: on video, photos on bunk1.com, facebook,
and instagram, twitter, and of course this blog (www.cslsummerblog.com). See camp.
In my final announcements this morning at breakfast, I asked
the campers to please not be short with their parents upon return, to tell them
what they did at camp this summer.
For as we now say a lot, camp does not need to end when you physically
leave; in fact, we need camp to never end because what happens here, how we
feel here, how we love here, must be taken out of the gates and spread across
all of our lives and spread across the world.
Thank you all for your attention to and care for Camp Seneca
Lake. May you never ever leave.
Sincerely,
Ari Baum, Program Director
1992-Present
