Camp Forever

Or how I found myself crying in a hot tub in Ontario.

I have been to two camps as an adult. Strangely enough, both have been hosted in the Cottage Country region of Canada.

The first was a camp where I was hired to speak, lead a workshop about failure, and take headshots of campers. I was nervous, but optimistic, but as soon as we got to the lakeside in Haliburton, ON my nerves melted. There was no cell phone reception whatsoever, and I spent 3 days in the wild at a traditional camp with bunks. Since I was speaking and working I got to sleep in a camp counselor house which was delightful.  

One of the camp activities was a wall of letters. Pinned on a board in the cafeteria was an envelope with every camper's name on it. Throughout the weekend you could write notes to people about something you observed about them, something you found exciting or interesting, or just a general letter of encouragement. My envelope was filled with some of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me and is now one of my prized possessions. When I need to return to myself, I return to these letters. 

There’s a moment from this camp that I return to often in memory meditation. I lay on the dock, fall foliage surrounding me. I take big deep breaths. The sun warms me on an otherwise chilly day. I keep breathing. I lay in awe of the life I built that has led me to being hired to come to Canada to speak, and to photograph beautiful people in their element. I begin to ideate what I can continue to build, and where I might be in the next 5, 10, 15 years. I feel completely at peace, despite months of feeling unmoored in my career. Nothing is solved, but I realize that I am in control.I can create pockets of stillness, I can shape my life to include more stillness. For the first time, I understand that I do not always have to be busy. I can just be. 

Later I will tell my therapist this, and she will look at me with a face that says both “I am proud.” and “Fucking finally.”

This moment on the dock set me on a trajectory to where I am today.

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At the end of the retreat, everyone was logistically figuring out how to get to Toronto. The bus I came in on was heading to the airport, but I didn’t need to go to the airport, so I floated the idea of catching a ride with someone else. Earlier in the retreat, I met someone named Jamie because we were wearing matching gray sweatshirts emblazoned with the word “FEELINGS. Jamie generously offered to give me a ride. 

She made a three hour car ride with a stranger into something magical. We fell into easy conversations about life and what we wanted out of our careers, and she introduced me to Webers—a charcoal burger place Ontario residents frequent on the way to their summer lake houses.

We fell into easy conversation about life, and what we wanted out of our careers. Over the day I spent with her, she shared her plan to create a body-positive and gender-inclusive massage and bodywork studio. She was in the early stages and we talked through what that might look like to open what would later become Eastwood Wellness. It only took a little over 24 hours to cement us as friends. 

Jamie is now one of my nearest and dearest, and I am writing from the second annual Camp Eastwood. I spent the past couple of days doing gentle yoga, bubbling away in a heated spa, making friendship bracelets, getting scalp massages, and eating spectacular Greek-inspired food with some of the loveliest people. 

In the spirit of camp, despite having pristine wifi, I mostly left my phone in the room. I wandered around, got bored, and got sucked into making even more friendship bracelets more than once. 

I spent countless hours steeped in deep conversations about grief, friendship, how our mothers talked about periods, getting stuck, moving on, and why I should relocate to Canada. Our most frequent topic of conversation was about timing our next trip to the hot tub around meal times, something that required more logistics than you’d think given our busy schedules of relaxation, gentle stretching, and sunbathing outside at picnic tables.  

It’s easy to make peace with yourself at camp. On the last day, I swam in a very cold lake, surrounded by fall leaves, then lounged in the sun on the dock until I felt myself beginning to burn. Unlike my first Canadian Camp, instead of being alone, I was surrounded by new friends. For a while we lay in silence, listening to jet skis roll past blasting George Michael’s Freedom. Eventually, though, we found ourselves slowly talking about topics with depth. Without hesitation I found myself opening up about some particularly difficult things I’ve been experiencing lately. I said things out loud that I’ve rarely spoken, and I got some clarity from women older than me who had been through similar experiences. 

When I walked the steep hill back up to the retreat center, sweaty and alone, I felt like a fever was breaking.

In the throes of everything, I found myself writing in a goodie-bag-notebook about why camp is so deeply good. From the scribblings I was able to parse out that camp exists as a microcosm of the real world, while also allowing an escape from it entirely.

It is a functional ecosystem, representative of life in the non-camp world, but shrunk down to a bite-size version. Problems are easy to identify, and helping is easily achieved. Everyone makes sport out of inclusion and assisting; pitching in to make it the best it can be because, for a few brief days, you’re suspended in time. Generally everyone joins in, and everyone partakes.

Leaving camp is like moving away from friends, except you’ve all just met and you’re actually returning to wherever it is that you came from. There are always tears. In the weeks after, you wear your friendship bracelets, and you crave the depth you were able to achieve in the liminal space of the reality/non reality that camp offers. You return home, to your own ecosystems and your own lives and you bring it with you, whatever it is– whatever it means to you. Space away from the noise and distraction of the real world allows you to come back a fuller, and sometimes better version of who you already are.

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Some souvenirs from the week:

• I had my first Kinder Surprise while in Canada and found out they are incredibly illegal to bring back to the United States due to a choking hazard. Like TSA checks for them in your luggage and fines you for being illegal. I thankfully didn’t try and bring any of these back, but I kind of wanted to. 

• I met several people doing incredibly impressive things: Dana makes a beautiful preservation cookbook called Batch. Melissa owns an apothecary called Sunday’s Company that makes body balms, lotions and oils that are divine. Chef Sonja kept us well fed all weekend, and the food was so nourishing and delicious! You can find her at Nurture Retreats. Plus, everything Jamie is doing with Eastwood Wellness is magic.

• I don’t know if you heard, but also it’s Christmas. 

• And last but not least and possibly best, my good pal Bruce Layman just started a delightful newsletter called A Well Worn Dispatch — about dressing well and giving a damn. It’s aimed towards the fellas, but Bruce is an exquisite writer and I firmly believe anyone would enjoy it.

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