the weekend i realized life is beautiful

7/9/07

This weekend sure started and ended with a bang.

Friday after camp we went to eat at Frodos, then Cory and I met up with one of his friends and we went out for a night on the town in Greer... my first experience with oysters. It was amazing. I learned a few things about Greer... everyone knows EVERYONE. And I'm pretty sure that the girl standing by us at the bar was pregnant and having a beer. And we ran into the mayor's son, Cory's senior prom date, his second cousin... all in the same place.

Small town life, anyone?

Saturday was fun... ran errands and helped cut down a tree (okay, so I hung out with the dog while the guys cut down the tree...) and ate out and just had fun.

Sunday night Mass felt so good... it was like a breath of fresh air, a reaffirmation of my identitiy... it was lovely. I just get in the camp zone during the week, so church is my little taste of home, of something that's the same everywhere, that can cary me through anything.

Afer church we had homemade peanutbutter icecream on the back porch with the fam, follwoed by a night out with camp people at Blueridge and Barleys.

A few interesting things at Barleys... found out Molly had her baby (congrats!!), and a friends' family had a tragic car accident.. all in the span of 5 minutes. Insane... how life cycles through, how people are being born and dying and growing and hurting. I talked to the friend about the accident last night... and while it's tragic, there's a beauty in the pain.. the husband and wife had a beautiful marriage, and while the grief is almost overbearing, there's a joy in the fact that they brought each other to heaven. That's the whole point of relationships, anyway.

This week of camp is going well... our cabin is full but vibrant, so no time for boredom, for sure. We have some returning campers.... 9 campers total, and three need semi-one-on-one care. It will be challenging.

I'm exhausted, but in that "yeah--I think I'm accomplishing something" way, which is great.

I ended up spending most of the day crafting with our campers... and we had a blast. I got one of our less expressive campers to tear it up in finger painting... you never know what these women can do. They're always filled with surprises.

One of our nonverbal/deaf campers and I are really starting to connect. She looks for me and smiles and messes with my hair... we have fun. It's hard though -- she doesn't talk or move very easily, so figuring out what she wants (without asking her -- she's deaf, too) can be hard. She loves, though -- boy, does she love. She lights up when the camp director is around, too. Absolutely lights up.

Had an amazing conversation with one of the counselors I hadn't gotten to know very well yet. He's incredible -- gentle spirit, soft spoken, but deeply passionate about the things he loves. I hope he comes by to hang out more. I'm tired of counselor drama, so I'm all about one-on-one friendships with people.

And these people --- campers AND counselors --- are incredible.