All Work And No Play Makes Sarah A Dull Girl

My job here at camp for the summer is very challenging and requires boundless creativity. It is similar, in those two ways at least, to teaching Third Grade now that I actually think about it. I am the Jewish Program Director, which means I am in charge of creating a camp-wide learning theme for each Shabbat based on that week's Torah portion and then preparing each unit of about fifty campers to lead their own Kabbalat Shabbat (Friday night) service based on that theme and their own interpretations of various traditional blessings, prayers, and related texts.

In addition, I also design and teach programs related to the week's theme in various subject areas (Arts and Crafts, the Garden) to individual bunks of about twelve campers.

Plus I tell bedtime stories a few nights a week—Jewish folktales at the fire circle with milk and cookies or sometimes s'mores.

And I take groups of girls and women to the mikveh, or Jewish ritual bath, in the Tuolumne River a few times each week.

Really, none of this takes much time at all as you can imagine so I have plenty of free time to a) chill out b) enjoy camp c) do my own thing d) tie up loose ends of the life I am leaving behind for now e) plan my next great post-camp adventure e) all of the above…

Or, not so much.

For the first time since I arrived four weeks ago, I walked down to the Tuolumne River yesterday to do an art project. We hear the sound of the river every night from our camp house once the roar of the day has ended and the quiet of the evening has fallen, so I was very excited to actually see the river itself. I felt brave and slid right into the cool rushing water but as soon as I felt the school of rainbow trout swim past my legs I jumped, reminded in a very real way that everything around me here is alive. After catching my breath I spread out my materials, a large unbleached cotton bedsheet and a fistful of rubber bands, on one of the large flat mid-river grain-grinding stones left behind by the Miwok who long ago used to live in this area and set out to find the rest of my supplies.

Two hours and three dozen smooth river stones later, I had transformed my formerly-flat sheet into a huge heavy wrinkled tapestry. Laying out the stones on top of the fabric I had bound them into place, the outlines of the rocks mirrored by the shapes of the rubber bands, and was now ready for the tie-dye station at an upcoming Staff Night in Arts and Crafts. Climbing back up the hill from the riverbank to my camp house, I felt a sense of accomplishment at not only having done a very hands-on nature-based art project for the first time since the Baker Beach Seder at Pesach but also at having actually taken time off for myself. Amazing how hard it can be but how good it can feel. I think that might be one of the lessons I am meant to learn this year: how to spend time doing what I want to do. Hmm.