By Erica Hoffman
During a recent, late-night emotional moment sparked by summer camp pictures and hearing “The Circle Game” by Joni Mitchell for the first time in 25 years (which, if you have any emotions going on at all, those lyrics should come with a warning label), I remembered what it was like to have that feeling of home.
I lived for summer camp. It’s when my weirdness wasn’t so weird. Camp is where I would go and be accepted. I had friends, boyfriends, secrets, arts and crafts, pierogies, bug juice, and song sessions. I realize now how important that time of self-exploration was for me.
I would wait all year, write letters back and forth with my friends, and even got to visit them sometimes. I will tell you what, seeing a camp friend in the middle of the year was pretty much as close to perfect as it got for 14-year-old me.
I tried to think of how I would have reacted at 14 years old after a bad day at school where no one talked to me, and I got made fun of to come home and find out CAMP IS CANCELED THIS YEAR.
My heart goes out to everyone affected. From the people who run the camp and work at it to make a living, to the parents who thought their summer break was almost upon them, too. I have little advice or words of wisdom for this situation. I’m lost other than that, so I’ll leave it to Joni Mitchell to take us home:
Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like, when you’re older, must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams
Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels through the town
And they tell him,
Take your time, it won’t be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down
Erica Hoffman was born in Atlantic City and is proud to be writing for Shore Local. She lives in South Jersey and enjoys finding and sharing the lighter side of life.
