Unplugging At Camp
It’s that moment right when you wake up ‑ just before you open your eyes. You think you might still be in your bed at home, dreaming of waking up at camp. But that chill in the air and those few grains of sand in your bed don’t lie. You’re at camp.
Even though it’s been over 20 years since I was at CWP, I still dream about it. And to this day, this bird’s song always makes me wonder what’s for nosh today.
I remember feeling really lucky to be at camp, something I am incessantly telling my own kids. You’re lucky, I tell them, to be going to such a special place, where you can be outside with your friends almost all day long. It’s a place where you don’t have to tell your mommy where you’re going for second morning, how many times you’ve showered this week, or how many mini powdered donuts you ate before bed. At camp, you get a break— not just from parents and school, but from TV and technology, and all the status updates, iChats, fruit slicing, and bird launching that go along with it.*
It’s this escape that’s the real the beauty of camp. It’s the reason that after every summer, almost the moment I got home, I did the same thing: I counted the days until I’d be back at camp with my friends, unpacked duffel bags stowed safely on the rafters, heading to the dining hall for that noisy first dinner.
-Ilana Schwartz
*For information on the new NO-SCREEN policy that we’ll be enforcing this summer, please see our parent guide.
