In Kevin's Ab.Ed. course, we have to write responses to assigned readings and multi-media presentations. Sometimes, those multi-media presentations are real people talking to us. Barb said those are the best kind - interactive, and 3D without funny glasses.
Last week, our section visited another one to hear Dr. Brian Rice speak. In the online responses, someone posted this line that I really liked:
"Another aspect of Aboriginal culture that I appreciate is the belief in a family that is not defined by blood but by common goals."
I had to think to myself how much that line has described the last few years of camp for me. My family proper is pretty close, but there's this whole other space of life and work on the island that has been so formative. You know stuff about each other. Rhythms, how to read moods and read minds, how to beat each other at Rock Paper Scissors, looking out for and loving the little kids, and eating every meal together, day in and day out, for four months. And you do it again, year after year. Last year was 8 seasons for me, including 6 times on 4-month. For the last three of those, I have stayed in operations/OT the whole time, not making the switches back and forth to the cabin line. It means that every night, after dinner, you're out on the steps at the side of the dining hall, watching the kidlets explore, and talking with the same people who you've been talking with all day, all week, for the last four months, for the last 8 years, but with whom you never run out of things to say.
If that's not family, I don't know what is.
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