On Camp: I Hold Camp In My Heart

“On Camp” Month:

1. Introducing Camp Autostraddle, by Riese
2. “On Camp” Call For Submissions, by the team
3. 10 Super-Cool Movies About Summer Camp, by Riese
4. I Hold Camp in My Heart, by Robin
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the knife’s edge

It was getting late and from our vantage point at 5,000 feet up, you could easily see menacing storm clouds rolling in through the fog. We had only a few minutes to make a decision. Who let us — four women in our early twenties — take these sixteen teenagers up this mountain and who the hell was going to save us now? The choices were simple: we could go back — hike down the way we’d came, try to find shelter in the dark with flashlights and lose a day in our mission, or we could continue on to Mount Katahdin’s Knife Edge, the infamously narrow path along the highest mountain in Maine.

There are certain times in your life when you’re in a position that you feel you’re just not ready for. Whether it’s a big move or your first day at work, you feel suddenly that you’re too small and whatever’s in front of you is too big and surmounting it seems impossible.

We climbed carefully over the slippery rocks as the wind whipped around us and the rain poured down. I watched these girls — who’d come to us as strangers, seeming so young and naive — stretch their hands out toward one another, and help each other up and over the rocks.

The next day, which was the last of our six-day trip, we canoed through torrential rain, stopping only because the lightning had started hitting close by. We pulled up under a bridge, docked and sat in a huddle, exhausted, mud up to our thighs, muscles sore, watching our canoes fill up with water. I would’ve cried if someone hadn’t started singing, and then someone else joined in. We sang and laughed until the sun came out! That was a decade ago and I still remember each of their faces. Those girls, that one trip, I will never forget.

From the time I was 9 years old until mid-way through college, I spent my summers at a sleep-away camp for girls in Maine. The camp was situated on a peninsula that jutted out into a beautiful lake, about an hour north of Portland. Every night I would fall asleep to the sounds of waves lapping at the shore and loons calling to each other from their sanctuaries along the water’s edge. We spent rainy days writing letters from our bunk beds, under the near-deafening clatter of the tin roofs, occasionally taking the time to add our names to the graffitied walls. “Robin Wuz Here, 89”.. “90”, “91”…

My first summer at camp, I signed up for a two-mile swim across the lake that began at sunrise. At 9 years old, I was the youngest to ever sign up and, because I was so young, the swim’s organizers forgot to wake me up until the swim had already started. By the time I’d thrown on my bathing suit and ran into the freezing water, I’d forgotten to put my towel and sweats in the van that would meet us on the other side. I finished my two-mile swim hours later and had no towel or shoes waiting for me. I vividly remember crying into my hot chocolate in a parking lot, utterly exhausted from the swim and embarrassed for having forgotten my towel, which is a weird reaction for a kid who’d just swum across a two-mile lake without stopping for a break or even touching the bottom. But it wasn’t long before I had about 10 towels and sweatshirts on top of my tiny shivering frame. All of these girls I’d never met sat around me and talked about how proud they were of me, the tiniest, smallest swimmer. I don’t remember feeling more loved as a kid, outside of my own family, as I did in that moment. That was camp: a family.

Our counselors were strong women, very much comfortable with who they were, and fearless. Not getting along with each other wasn’t an option, and our counselors made that clear. They played guitar for us at night and talked to us about things our parents couldn’t or wouldn’t, making camp the place where I could escape the stresses of school bullies and mean girls, learn about real friendship, and have strong feminist role models. After high school, I went back to work at camp, wanting the responsibility and opportunity of being a role model and helping younger women not just survive their adolescence, but thrive in it. Camp made me feel like I was part of something bigger than myself.

One summer I was chosen to be a counselor for the littlest campers. I wasn’t excited about this, as I’d never thought of myself as a “little kid person” and these girls were super young — six and seven-year-olds who wake up at 3am with wet sheets and tears in their eyes. But I found myself singing Disney songs to them at night so they would fall asleep. One night, after this tiny girl fell from her top bunk and we put bandages on her little knees, she crawled onto my bed, where I read stories to her until she fell asleep. I’ve never felt as important as I did that night.

Camp was also where I first started having crushes on girls, although I didn’t really understand them in that sense at the time. At ten, my friends and I would make out with hands covering our mouths and at 12, I was horrified when a gorgeous blonde counselor walked in on me with my shirt off. That was the one drawback to the camp — it was conservatively religious and discussions of sexuality outside of the home were not a part of maturing into adulthood. If those conversations could’ve happened at camp, it would’ve been heaven on earth.

For the past decade, I’ve lived near or in New York City. Hiking is no longer a word in my vocabulary. I take daily showers and very rarely forget to put on my mascara. I spend my days either behind a computer or a camera. I cram myself on to subway cars with a hundred other people and my dog has his choice of about 10 trees to pee on on our daily neighborhood walks.

These days, on top of being a city girl, I’m also an out and proud gay woman, and I probably couldn’t land a job at my old camp if I wanted to. That’s so sad to me, because while camp is totally about being outside and sleeping in cabins and sing-alongs and campfires and eating meals together, it’s also about a community of people building each other up. Camp is about loving all the parts of ourselves because they are all perfectly lovable. It’s about creating and having new experiences that we may not have a chance to have back home.

Being out and gay at camp has always been a dream of mine, and that’s part of why I was so excited to make A-Camp happen —  place where you can meet each other and revel in your awesomeness while knowing that being queer is part of your awesomeness. You want to talk about sex or activism together? Great! You wanna do some crafts with Laneia or write some stories with Riese? DONE. Even though sometimes I barely recognize that girl on top of Katahdin — thigh-deep in mud and singing around a campfire — I know she’s there, and ready to do it all over again.


Special Note: Autostraddle’s “First Person” personal essays do not necessarily reflect the ideals of Autostraddle or its editors, nor do any First Person writers intend to speak on behalf of anyone other than themselves. First Person writers are simply speaking honestly from their own hearts.

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Robin

Robin specializes in entertainment, lifestyle and portrait photography. She's also a Creative Producer, Director of Photography and co-owner of Scheme Machine Studios LLC, her production company based in Los Angeles. Robin loves shooting for TV and film and has worked with media companies like Legendary Pictures and Viacom. She shot and directed the Pride campaign for Google called #ThisIsFamily. Robin has had the pleasure of working on national campaigns for companies like Dove and Levis, and had the unique opportunity to shoot for non-profits and initiatives such as The Black List, Save the Children, Move to End Violence, Have a Hart Day, and The Clinton Global Initiative. She is most proud of the work she has done with organizations such as The Ad Council and RAINN working on national impact campaigns. Her celebrity roster includes Cyndi Lauper, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, The B-52s, Keri Hilson, JB Smoove, Tegan and Sara, Margaret Cho, The B-52’s, Andreja Pejic, and many more. She was there for Autostraddle’s birth and proudly served as A-Camp co-director for many years.

Robin has written 82 articles for us.

28 Comments

  1. “…while camp is totally about being outside and sleeping in cabins and sing-alongs and campfires and eating meals together, it’s also about a community of people building each other up. Camp is about loving all the parts of ourselves because they are all perfectly lovable. It’s about creating and having new experiences that we may not have a chance to have back home.”

    Yes, yes, yes.

  2. These are all of my feelings about camp. Except I am out at camp. I will be returning this summer after taking off, and there’s been a change in leadership. I’m terrified that it will no longer feel at home there because of my sexual orientation.

  3. :) Love this. I never got the opportunity to go to camp, and I wish I could’ve had an experience like that growing up! Hope I can make the next A-Camp!!!!! (x 1,000,000)

  4. This article made me even more excited about A-Camp. I seriously can’t wait!!! Which is especially meaningful coming from a shy, introvert who spends 99% of her time in front of a computer, lol.

  5. This is great! I always wanted to go to camp as a kid, which is why i went as a counselor when i was older. I loved it. I’m excited to go to gay camp, instead of being the only gay at camp.

  6. This makes me think I would actually enjoy a-camp, and I hated going to summer camps when I was a kid (shy + introvert + knowing no one at the camp = miserable little kid me)

  7. This was great. I too loved camp. It was one of the few places I felt free to be me. And it’s where I really started to understand that I was “different” than the other girls because we practiced kissing too..But we didn’t use our hands to cover our mouths. And this gave me many, many feelings. Thanks Robin!

  8. This was a great read. It makes me wish my mom had sent me off to camp as a kid. I am a city girl through and through so it would be nice to go into the wilderness one day. Next A-Camp maybe? (Hopefully.)

  9. This article kinda makes me cry (in a good way.) Working at camp was the BEST SUMMER OF MY LIFE because I got to give all those girls the same experiences that I was gifted while growing up.

  10. This article brought tears to my eyes. My memories of camp are my favorite memories of all and I miss it so much. My camp is one of my favorite places on Earth.

  11. Your camp sounds pretty amazing. The only summer camp I ever went to was blatantly about God, and I remember a lot of “you’re having doubts about Christianity? Well, we’re going to bully you until you believe again” type things going on. It wasn’t quite Jesus Camp and there was a lot of playing in the woods, but shit was kind of terrifying.

  12. This so perfectly sums up my life! Especially the feeling of “This is bad, where are the adults?! Oh crap… that would be me… who let that happen?!” and how camp is a family.

  13. This really touched me; I miss the highschool campings, especially now that I’m the big city, as well.
    Beautiful reading ♥

  14. I love this! Thanks for sharing, Robin. So many feelings about camp…and about having a huge crush on my best friend from camp. Since I can’t be there this year, I’m hoping for many more A camps to attend in the future!!

  15. This started good, and then you said Katahdin and it got great. Yay! Maine for the win! I was born and grew up in Maine. I went to college there. I went to camp there (and spent three quarters of this piece trying to figure out which camp you went to, but I can think of about five within the hour north of Portland radius you’ve given). I went to church camp, too, but thankfully mine was an open and accepting community.
    If I ever got hit by a de-aging ray, I’d totally go to camp again.

  16. Hell yes Mt. Katahdin!!!!!
    I go to Maine (near Boothbay) every summer to live with my grandparents, but never went to any camps. This kind of makes me wish I had.

    • Wait, where near Boothbay? Because I live in Wiscasset when I’m not living on the other side of the planet in China.

    • WHAAAT I go to maine (in Boothbay) every summer to live with my grandparents. They always sent me to this christian camp on a lake when i was a child.

  17. …that isn’t Camp Newfound, is it? Because it looks and sounds an awful lot like it? And here I thought I was the only person on Autostraddle likely to be a Newfound alum…

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