At the Beach! Books Read and Eyes Up

The yearly Rice/Hodgkins/Thompson gathering at the beach has arrived! The family has gathered in its many multitudes at the Oak Island (formerly Long Island) beach, and we are all soaking in each other with ridiculous amounts of love exclamations during our ever-brief time together. What a wonderful way to close the summer! The water is warm and the weather fairly clear. Turtle nests line the beach and the shore is relatively empty at the end of August, due to school starting so early in the South. The Uncle K's have taken their family's back to the Raleigh suburbs for the start of school - the big K for sweet Charlotte, 5th for Colty, and David's entering 8th as quite the king; Drew's heading into his senior year, and John, returning from a remarkable year in Germany, is also closing school with his senior year at Davidson College.

So many of my dear friends are entering college right now... I am struggling with two-fold jealousy - they are having all sorts of adventures for one, and secondly, making all sorts of new buddies. But at the same time, I am extremely excited for them! Bruce is at UVa already (a topic that was brought up over tonight's crab/flounder dinner and made me very self-conscious and confused again about whether I made the right choice for, as Uncle Robert, my super-Southern uncle, put it, "unhappy people in Connecticut." Sigh... cest la vie!), Nana at Duke, Raj at UVa, Alice at Davidson, and so on and on it goes.

Spending time with children is one of the most rewarding things about the beach. I am (notoriously) way to serious, and so my friendships with people like Nana and Sarah Thomas are so valuable because they make me free again when it's time. They help me let go. Playing with Aunt Charley's 9 month old Claire these last few days has been so amazing. 4-year-old Cecelia and her counterpart Charlotte (5 yrs) cover me with sand and hold hands in the waves. We often say simple pleasures for simple minds, but after all these high school years of wanting complexity and then being held slave by it, I am given great pleasure by their simplicity. A diaper change or meal for Claire, a game of jumping and house for the girls... life's daily turns take on a timeless feel around family. It feels like so long since I've been here. Lawrenceville was really an eternity I realize more and more. I slept for 9 hours last night and dealt with such exhaustion that I took a three-hour nap! Ridiculous. Sweet pleasure for a worn girl. There is no goal of the diaper change or dishwashing here. It just has to be done and is done without much glory or hoohah. And I know all these things, I knew all this... but it so important to place yourself back inside a functioning family unit for a time, leaving behind my own (appropriately so) self-centered world of approaching adulthood and figuring out my place in this enormous earth of opportunity.

I have been reading a great deal lately. On Janos' recommendation, I am just starting "Catch-22" , and have finished L'ville's summer reading book "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." I seriously give this book eighteen thumbs up. It was short, sweet, and inspiring. "Elle" magazine's French ed-in-chief suffered a massive stroke at age 43 (ah, so young!), and dealt, for an incredible year and a half with "Locked-In Syndrome." He was completely paralyzed, but could blink his left eyelid. He wrote an entire book. Just one of those mind-blowing, poignant accounts of what we are really capable of - extreme patience, sincere joy, and true victory of the human spirit. I will probably forget about the book in time, but it was not at all a waste of time. Of course LV would assign a great book after I graduated. I was sincerely disappointed with many of the reads from second to fifth forms.

Donald Miller's "Blue Like Jazz," a post-modern compilation of about 15 essays/vignettes on the author's relationship with faith, culture, and people, was recommended to me by Bama (very passionately) and her father, by Alice Grant and Gwyn Pohl. What a READ. What a gorgeous, simple, human dictation of one man's extremely honest world. I read it quickly, wondering what the heck he was going to do as he struggled with balancing the OBVIOUS principles of Christianity with hypocritical Christianity and a world of sin. I agreed with him on many, many points. Christ was not political!! He is not some way to hold onto power, nor is he the opposite of the spectrum, dancing inside promiscuity and some world that does not define values. The "Live in Love" commandment Miller refers indirectly to the whole book is fascinating, and something I definitely have a hard time with. He approached the Bible and the teachings of Christ with an awesome free-spirit approach - taking things for what they were, and exposing broken behavior on the part of all hateful Americans. Thinking about "loving your neighbor" in a new way - Miller brings up the point that all people learn whether or not they are lovable from other humans, and it is so crucial to love all people around us because through friends and family, people come to know that they are valued. A lot of times God works through us this way - letting us know that He loves us through other people. Pretty simple, but when you feel a personal revelation, you feel it hard. I believe so much in the principle of love, believe so strongly that that is the real cornerstone of my faith period. I was raised this way, and I hold onto religion this way. For many people, grace, salvation, resurrection, mercy, self-knowledge, joy, and worship are the cornerstones... I think that these are all just synonyms for each-other, for in what I know about my relation to the universe, I know that these things are all symptoms of love. Paul is right, ever right when he transcribed the Spirit to say, "God is Love." Anyway, I really enjoyed the book. I felt like I could have written it. I think a lot of people - Bama, Alice, Dr. Z - felt that way too, and that's why it's doing so well - because it's real and honest in a youth and adult culture of fronts and power games. What a relief to know that someone out there is worrying and dealing and praising along the same lines as me. What a relief to know that my favorite people are enjoying the same words! What a burden lifted... true friends are present in my life.

I love to read because at Lawrenceville all of the reading felt compulsory after a while, after the summer or vacation rest wore off. I love to learn, don't get me wrong, but when you're dancing between clubs and running and late early mornings every day, not to mention AP's and academic standards, loving learning takes on a bit of a different form. Lawrenceville could work on being healthy in a major way. I got a lot out of it, a hell of a lot, but sometimes it was shoved down my throat a bit (this commentary is, I acknowledge, mostly the fault of my own absurd levels of expectation... but that isn't to say that most LV kids don't suffer from it, so the place could do a bit to handle the issue of sanity at the school). I got headaches my senior year when I read, so I took to reading many fairy tales before I went to bed. All kinds - Native American, Indian, Russian (my favorites... due to Mom probably) tales of Baba Yaga, birch trees and family, English, Hispanic, Indonesian; they helped me relax and sleep. Simple stories that didn't take much energy to get through and smile from with their easy morals and easy characters. These tales didn't hurt my head (which actually did hurt physically, right in the back.. probably a combo of dehydration and stress... weird though). But I have been longing to read classics again, really engage literature. Note to self: I have to read "Howard's End" also... that is a must. I missed being a "bookworm", but my mind has become hungry again, and it is devouring whatever I put before it. I've been browsing through Mom's book, Gail Sheely's "Passages," and have found it very intriguing. How human are my insecurities, my commonality. I am so relieved to not be alone in the confusion of growth and transition. Not that I am one of a pack, or one of a species, one in a million faces (as the Christian Rock song goes), but just that I have the safety of knowing that my emotions are psychologically expectable, that the frustration and fear I have in leaving my complex (love/hate/ideals) nest at L'ville are not easy, but eternal. Moving forward is a struggle, but one that must be embraced. Here I go!

"There are but two or three human stories that keep repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never been done before."

We are at OI until Saturday. Perry ships out to Ropes on Tuesday, and I am so excited for her to handle all of her leadership positions and incredible thoughts with the school community without a shadow of Hodgkins cast over her. When Leland left Lawrenceville, I became my own person. And now, so too will Perry. She has so much to offer, and is responsibly putting her own touches on everything from cross-country to WILL. How odd that none of my ohsix faces will be present! With the class, so too goes the school...

And then I am off to Greensboro! Toward flying and prepping the Long Trail journey! Uncle Kemp has a million tips and pieces of gear for the backpack. Everything ahead smiles with anticipation and potential. Below is the chapel speech I gave at camp. One of the best things I've written, I think. I read it slowly - I was pretty choked up. Cheley is tied up with a neat little ribbon, as is Lawrenceville. So long, mountains, see you in who knows when. I'll be seeing the Green ones in a month + 4 days.

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Remember the Hills

I lift my eyes to these hills - from whence cometh my help.

At Cheley we have faced many hills - Hagues looming before us on the Mummy Kill, the Cheley Challenge bike ride, the unfortunate hill of boathouse duty. Hills are hard work, and thus we are helped. Out boundaries have broken down under sweat and grit, under the sounds of sisterhood rising into the night sky. I have looked at these mountains, these hills before us - tangible and abstract - and watched my peers trudge or bounce up them, placing one foot after another. It didn’t matter if you were first or last - we all made it to the top.

The hills stand and taunt to some, invite to others - they reach impossible heights, and I sit here every Sunday and force myself to remember that my comparatively minuscule body walked across the distant range. I remember what touching holiness felt like - the power and tender humility of standing about treeline countless times - the mountains ringing with names loved and unknown - Newly, Keller, Henderson, Engeln, Rausch, Alexander, Boat, Bond...on and on - ringing with those countless women - strong and free - that walked these hills before my two feet knew how to move me up and down. Time and conscience balance together to meet goals and push me back to this place, here, now, where I look back longingly, lovingly, on my endless, endless memories, and I stand in this place of passage and transition, here on the threshold or adulthood, in the comfort each summer has given me - that it will only get better.

I am so ready to leap into responsibility, ready to give to those who will come next the same empowerment I have known here - to believe that friendship could exist so truly with mentorship. I have learned that the hills will give me the peace I need. I lift my eyes to them, I walk them again and again, and still they retain mystery and endless lessons - patience, friendship, determination, joy.

Cheley has taught me by philosophy and example, in the woodwork of people and programs, to follow the greatest commandment there is - to live in love. In the complexity of retaining a childlike wonder for the glory around us and mathching that with reality and obligation, I have found this CILT summer that progressive idealism is possible, but not as simple as it seemed in Lower Chipeta - where values were values and that was life. Instead, I realize that in a community where the director is the voice is the sweeper, where leadership facilitates instead of dominates, I realtize that inside the frustrations and mortality of adulthood, inside all the responsibilities and complications, that beauty is not in love, but in choosing love over and over and over again inside an elemental simiplicity. I have learned that change must be owned, as I stand here, owning these last eight summers, owning who I’ve become because of this massive house of worship. I heave leaned on Cheley, and learned that Cheley leans on us. The wilderness leans on our protection, the columbine on our choice to step over it, the hills lean on leave no trace, on our footsteps - our decision to climb them so that they can fufill their mission and offer us help.

There is a misconception that we owe all to the helping hills - that they give and we receive. But sitting on the rocky shore of Lake Gibraltar, staring up at Ogalalla for the second and perhaps last time as true women choosing to be children of God, our eyes wander up - and the hills give back in alpine sunrise glow, in character, in confidence.

So I wonder now - a term having blown by in music, hills, love, leadership, and horses - I wonder how I will know help, get help when my eyes look up and only see New York City skyscrapers, and the suburbia of New Jersey? How can I handle the thought of future when so little remains the same in my world of technology and adaptation? When my eyes see screens and my ears hear horns, when my mouth tastes pollution, and my fingers feel infinite metals and plastics instead of dirt? How will I keep the Code when the night is dark, and there is no pure motivation? No one will give you a cell phone patch; no one will give you a key for loving your children; no one will support you in holding yourself as accountable as you are held here. The hills are literally visible. How can I allow this Cheley era to close my childhood tonight?

I can’t. I cannot let go - and nor should I... nor should you. I will transition all I know and love, but never let go. I will hold onto friends - I will hold onto Sarah Thomas until she is a godmother to my children, I will return to the hills, I will live in love, and I will sink into the foundations of morality that this sanctuary has blessed me with. I will know that if my headlamp burns out, Elise will light my footsteps. I have sworn, as you have and will and should, that love would begin with me, that that was my solemn vow, and that I would never forget the dear old Chipeta girls I loved so well. I have met you all in Rumi’s field beyond right and wrong, and have loved so hard and so fully, that saying goodbye at this stage in my life could not be harder or more perfect. I will never doubt in the darkness what I have known in this light.

I will close my eyes on the less magnificent East Coast, and think of the hills once more - and help will come. It has always come. From the hills I have gathered courage - I have visions of the days to be. I have the strength to lead and the faith to follow. All this I give to Cheley.
Camp is done. Gone this bright sun - I am torn from Lake Gibraltor, from these hills, from this unimaginably blue sky... But all is well, for I have lived in love and protection here. I have no reason to fear - I will safely rest, for I have met God, met myself... met you... and learned that God is always, always, always nigh.

Camp means eternity. Camp means friendship. Camp means self-knowledge.Camp means love to me.

Remember the hills. Keep looking up.