“Camp is an easy place to grow up but a hard place to grow
old.” I have been to 45 Final Campfires at Camp Seneca Lake and this quote from
Nate Federman from August, 2004 easily stands out the most of everything I have
heard. That was his final night at CSL and I remember hearing that, two years
younger than him, and thinking for the first time that I was on the clock, that
my time was drawing to a close. Coincidentally, I also knew I would be taking
over his position of Mohawk Unit head. I never would have guessed at the time
that I still had ten more summers and twenty more final campfires in me.
Regardless, it is safe to say that I have grown old at Camp Seneca Lake. Or at
least that I have grown here.
Even though the campers left for good on Wednesday (August
20th), camp still operates in a variety of capacities after. Today
is the last day of Family Camp. Friday night during the Shabbat service, I
spoke to an audience/congregation of probably 75 people, spanning backgrounds
and ages. I honestly hadn’t put much thought into what I was going to say and
as I looked around, I was able to identify representatives from the last 25
Tusc groups sitting in the Fire Circle. I went through the names as I saw them
and then remarked that camp was big. Big because everything feels so important
when here. The stakes feel so high. Because we feel that we are growing.
Because that growth feels so genuine and so legitimate. Because it is real.
That evening I also remarked that it was the two-month
anniversary of the summer officially starting with the entire staff in that
very space of the Fire Circle, getting ready for the unprecedented summer kick
off called “The Staff Armada” when we assigned each person to a boat and they
had to work together and get across the lake to Lodi Park.
Camp isn’t easy. Maybe in January people think of the sunny
days when everything goes right but when we go through it together, it isn’t
quite like that. I always say that if people are coming here just to have fun,
then we are all wasting our time, energy, and money because you can stay home
and have fun with much more ease. And while it has become well documented that
camp has changed a lot, I can say with confidence that we are still limited in
the same ways. I am an Economics teacher during the year and one of the first
lessons is about the availability of resources being the ceiling for what any
society or organization can produce – land, labor, capital, entrepreneurship.
While those things undoubtedly apply to camp in some form, our truly limiting
resource is time. We just don’t have very much of it. Tough to believe in
November or June or ten years after your last summer here, but we still have just
50 24-hour days each year to make camp happen.
What does it mean to grow up in the shadow of the sun
setting? All of the Programming Staff who work with me write multiple page
retrospectives at the end of the summer and one of them put it very well – at
camp, you feel something you just don’t feel in most other settings; you feel a
sense of urgency. Not the same as urgency to complete an assignment at school or
to get bills paid on time, but rather a desperation of sorts to perform, to
execute in the small shadow of time provided. Because ironically the short
amount of time can feed one forever. That intensive commitment to deliver in
the short window is what makes us grow, as individuals and as a community.
I have been on staff at camp for 14 years now, four of which
I was a Tusc staff member (not including the last five that I have supervised
the Tusc program). My last campers were the Senior Campers of 2007 and 2008.
This year I felt a different sense of urgency because a significant amount of
those 2007 campers returned. They had just graduated from college and were back
for what was likely their final summers. It just so happened that several of
them were Tusc staff this summer, sort of completing that cycle. I never got
into the mentality of ‘it’s the last night so we have to stay up or we have to
mass monkey everyone’ because I just felt like it was inconsistent with the atmospheric
core of camp – to savor every minute of every day. Yet for some reason this
summer sometimes felt like the proverbial last night. Because apparently camp
is a hard place to grow old.
While it may be the natural thing to say “thanks for coming”
to any guest who comes back to camp, my thought is always “thanks for not
leaving”. For the sense of urgency I speak to is not just designed for two
months of the year. Camp Seneca Lake is meant to be a place where people come
to learn and grow. It is safe place to learn what it means to try very hard and
care very much; it is a place where one learns to operate with that urgency and
not waste time waiting.
Camp has gotten very full, perhaps at a point where we have
maximized our existing resources, perhaps leading to a diminishing return at
times. But when the campers left on Wednesday and the remaining staff leave
today, we all feel a sense of completeness, meaning we all feel as if we left
as different people than how we arrived. Not because we then feel young or old,
but because we feel enough to put forth everything we have to push against
whatever the ceiling of our capacity is. That is why so many cry on the last
day. That is why so many stay warm during the winter with their experiences
from Camp Seneca Lake.
So with respect to my old friend, Nate Federman, I have not
found it difficult to grow old at Camp Seneca Lake. As long as I am growing, I
find solace in it. And as long as others here feel as if they are growing, then
we are spending our time and resources here effectively. For camp is a place to
grow and do so healthily. While here in the summer and when home in November
and after your physical time has come to an end. Camp is a place where we grow,
where we understand what it means to care and put forth intensive thought,
effort, and love into all that we do. And truly, this is how I am no different
now than 20 years ago and no different than the other staff or the campers of
all ages and experience. We all grow here. Young and old. Physically at 200
Camp Road or not. We all grow here.
See You Soon,
Ari Baum, Associate
Director
