I am 27 years old and spent the day as a kid. I woke up, laced up my sneakers, ate in a dining hall with indulgent foods my diet doesn’t typically allow, played basketball, gaga, tennis, and swam in the lake. I spent rest hour lying on the quad with friends, having long conversations with friends whom have known me almost my entire life. We met when I was nine and spent more than a decade coming back to Camp Robin Hood for two months. In the face of break ups, make ups, engagements, marriages, love, loss, and similar changes and events most individuals in their 20s endure, it’s camp that’s remained a constant in not just mine, but my core group of friends’ lives.
I haven’t spent my summers in Freedom, New Hampshire since 2008. I reside in New York City, have a consuming job that I enjoy, and spend my summer weekends wrought with plans. Yet for one weekend, my fellow Scribes of 2005 and I leave everything behind and devote a weekend to each other and the place that brought us together. Campers we watched after have mostly moved on or are leading groups themselves; the people who I mainly associated with the location for my tenure there are all consumed with their own plans and careers; yet it’s the pine needles, the waterfront, fresh air, and — what campers and alumni call the magic in the trees — that draw me, and the women who I’ve known since girlhood, back every single year.
As Tumblers, Squires, Lancers, Bards, and more have approached my four friends and I throughout the weekend, I hope that when they’re office drones too, they’ll have two days of escape from “real life” to revisit Robin Hood, where they’ll be able to leave iPhones, social media, and troubles behind, to remember what’s really important.
