Candlelight circle.......

This picture is so beautiful to me, I had to share it. It is our candlelight circle at camp.

It is probably one of the most sacred times of my life.

jb

Another softball season ...........

There are two more games left of softball season. Sadly enough, I am quite sure this is my last year on my team. This year the team kind of fell apart. My favorite teammate(and appearantly the glue of our team) went out for back surgery, a couple people quit, some new faces showed up and the whole spirit of the team went to hell. I do not like the new people and they have basically taken the team as their own as if the rest of us havn't been here for years.
My friend and I have decided to stick together and find a new team next year. We are softball buddies and I can't imagine playing without him.
You might think it is only a softball team, what's the big deal. Well, for me , playing softball on this team brought some life back to me after I was on my own. It was the first thing I did to bring myself out of my despair. I made new friends and learned how to have fun again.
But, it is time to move on.. and find a new team.
It's weird how sometimes things or people come into your life, bring you what you need, and then you move on. I used to have a real problem with that, but now I accept it.
So, next year I hope to find a fun team to join with my friend and continue to play a sport that I love. Because no matter what happens in my life, softball will always bring me joy.
jb

"Old School" is not a bad thing....

Technically speaking, I am way out of touch. I still have Windows 98, a 35mm camera, and I don't own an Ipod. I have never gone to youtube and watched videos, and I don't even know how to burn a CD. (not that I could on my computer).
Sometimes, it bothers me that I have not kept up, but mostly I'm ok with it.
I just watched on the news some kid that installed a video camera in his car and then basically baited a cop to pull him over and have an altercation. The cop got way out of control, and the kid put the video on youtube where millions have viewed it and he is now on CNN.
I find this pathetic. This kid prearranged his 15 minutes of fame. The cop is now on suspension and the kid is somewhat a hero in the youtube world.
Nothing is by chance anymore.
I don't mean to be one of those "I walked 10 miles in the snow" kind of people. I believe in modernization and someday hope to upgrade my computer or buy a digital camera.
However,it is my belief that socially our society has gone to hell. Technology has it's advantages without a doubt. It allows me to put my rantings on my blog for one thing, but I see things getting kind of scary.
Soon, we will just be Stepford Humans walking around like Zombies. We will not know how to communicate without a device and noone will ask me how my day is going or wonder how the old guy on the corner became homeless. They won't know the girl who works at Starbucks just got married to a man with a 2 yr old child, or that the Lawyer on the 8th floor is kind of a racist or that the kid who works the U-scan at Fred Meyers hates his job. These are things that are only learned by conversing with people.
This may not be useful information, but does all information have to be useful?
jb

The magic continues...........

Driving out of camp yesterday, I was apprehensive of returning to the "real world". It is always a surreal experience reentering regular life. Everything seems trivial, busy, and somewhat out of place.
I went to camp this year with the thought in my head that this would probably be my last year. On day one I wanted to get in my car and drive home. I just didn't think I could do it again.
Then, Sunday, the kids came. The familiar faces, the hugs, the community that instantly formed, captured my heart once again.
Two of the campers are pretty sick. This was quite apparent as soon as they stepped off the bus. Skin almost blue, lips the color of putty and a weakness in their bodies that made if hard for them to get around. My heart instantly broke. I also instantly recognized the courage these kids have. Suffering from this wretched disease known as Aids and still coming to camp where they know they will be safe and they will be loved. Words cannot explain what we all felt when we first saw these kids and the decline that had happened to them over the past year.
Camp was pretty dysfunctional this year and I saw allot of aspects of it that I did not like. It's hard to explain, so I won't bother. But the amazing moments overtook the dysfunctional ones.
I had 6 11-12 year old boys this year. This made my camp experience allot different than years past. I feel in love with each of them.
We played games, we swam, we paddle boated, we picked blackberries and made a pie, we skipped, danced, sang, laughed until we almost peed, sang along to Johny Cash in the arts and crafts room, confessed our camp crushes, dressed up, ate too much candy, got told hysterical bedtime stories each night in my cabin by one particularly imaginative 12 yr old, and shared another week with each other that no words can capture.
The last night of camp we do a candlelight circle and each person says one word that represents camp to them. As I stood next to two fellow counselors whom I have grown to love with all my heart, our arms tightly wrapped around each other, the tears flowing , I could not sum it up in one word, I needed two..... "Forever Friends".
To realize camp is better because the three of us are there, and our lives our better because we know each other, I knew I would be back.

One of my favorite camp memories was while I was out paddleboating with my boys. The young female lifeguard was wipping around us in her boat, and in her boat was the camper whose skin is almost blue. His body is ravaged by a horrid diesease. He had on a down coat even though it was 80 degrees, his body so frail, and on his face was the biggest smile I have ever seen.
She was giving him the gift of love, fun, acceptance and freedom because she knows nothing else.

My heart will continue to be filled with the memories of these kids and adults and a very magical place known as "Camp Starlight."

jb