At the age of 16, from 4 to 5 p.m. for the better part of two weeks, I sat on a damp towel in Franklin, Mass. reading aloud to some of my cabin mates at an Armenian summer camp. Like many summer camps, Camp Haiastan was relentlessly regimented. Part of that regimen consisted of an hour of free swim in the afternoons, a chlorine-coated reprieve from the hours of playing games under the sun’s scrutiny. In the first few days of camp, I would choose to swim with my cabin mates, but most days I’d opt to read Nicola Yoon’s “Everything, Everything” on my towel. Some of my cabin mates would sit with me, and eventually, I began reading out loud to them. As we weren’t allowed to have phones, or any technological devices, books and letters had become our primary forms of media. For those few days, cut off from the rest of the world, that towel, that book and those girls felt like where my world started and ended.
Even years after those sun-soaked afternoons came and went, sandwiched by many years before and after, they still stick out as some of the most carefree and special hours of my life. Beyond our reading sessions during free swim, and despite most of us not knowing each other extensively beforehand, there was something so special about camp that drew my cabin mates and I together within a day or two of walking through the door of our well-worn cabin for the first time. On one of our first nights at camp, preferring sharing hushed conversation to adhering to a scheduled bedtime, we all gathered in a circle on the forest-green wood floor of our cabin with flashlights on after lights out. A self-described oversharer, I suggested we all go around the circle and share our “life stories.”
At the time, it was just an attempt for me to exchange emotional vulnerability for social connection. In retrospect, I’m struck by how quickly we were able to open up to each other about some of life’s most challenging subjects. Sitting cross-legged in our pajamas, we discussed religion, fears of becoming our parents, belonging in the Armenian community, sexuality, losing friends, body image and so on for hours. In a world that insists on the necessity of women working against other women, this circle embodied female trust and camaraderie to a degree that I haven’t seen since. We passed around flashlights and tissues, knowing that this wasn’t something we’d ever get back. From that night on, those girls — almost all of whom I didn’t know prior — became lifelines in places I didn’t know I needed saving.
In addition to how naturally my cabin seemed to click, summer camp’s unique offering to do things exclusively for one’s own enjoyment also contributed to the authenticity of our relationships. Looking back, I’m surprised I went to Camp Haiastan once — let alone three times. The activities there typically encourage either athletic ability or a knowledge of Armenian culture and history — two things I have always felt I particularly lack. Whether it was understandably being the last pick for someone’s dodgeball team or stumbling through the Lord’s Prayer in Armenian before meals, being bad at the things I was tasked with left me feeling exposed. But once I realized that this particular context of vulnerability would only exist for two weeks, my interest in presenting a particular image of myself to those around me became limited. Particularly at cultural summer camps, there’s almost no evading feelings of otherness in some way, and I know several of my cabin mates shared my disinterest in appealing to ideals we’d never reach. And with that commonality, we all met each other where we were — not where we were told we were supposed to be.
For those two weeks, I was energized by the transience of the physical and mental spaces I was in. There’s something distinctly formative about living in the same room as seven other girls and knowing that you only have two weeks together. I shared fears and insecurities that normally took me months, if not years, to be honest with someone about, and watched the girls around me do the same. I said ‘yes’ to everything because I knew the context I was living in had a two-week expiration date. I went out of my way to do things that I wouldn’t normally do, and so did a lot of the people around me. My cabin mates and I adopted the practice of saying every day was “our day,” laying claim to each hour as if it was ours alone. I spent several nights staring into the trees above me watching flying squirrels jump from one branch from the next. It was tradition to stay up all night on the last day of camp, and all I can remember from that night now is watching the sky above “picturesque Uncas Pond” lighten in the early morning. Watching the sun rise with my cabin mates, I struggled to come to terms with the fact that we were all leaving and for the first time questioned what would become of these relationships that had all at once become central in my life.
For many, nostalgia plays a crucial role in retrospective perceptions of summer camp. I’ve found that the most nostalgic moments are often the most unattainable. The more out of reach a positive memory is, the more we miss it. Summer camps excel at maintaining this elusive quality: I will simply never be 16 with a schedule consisting exclusively of playing games I’m bad at in rural Massachusetts, and talking with new people from different corners of the country over cheese boregs again. Once you sign out of a summer camp, it’s back to the real world: the microcosm of early mornings and flashlights after dark collapses just quickly as it was created.
While I don’t talk with any of my cabin mates regularly now, I see snippets of their lives on social media and sometimes I wonder if they think of the fudgy ice creams from the camp store or the five-minute showers or the dance lessons or the midnight conversations that I could have sworn would never end. In writing this, I’ve realized how much my memory of this place and the people I shared it with has faded. I don’t think of Camp Haiastan often, but when I do I am forced to acknowledge how different I am now. The confidence I once had has been eroded by self-doubt; the girlhood I once shared with my seven cabin mates now feels like an impossible caricature of youth. Despite knowing that place and the person I was there will perpetually be out of reach, when I revisit memories of camp I always have this quiet hope that if I think about it long enough, it won’t be gone — and that I’ll feel that same sense of assumed trust in the world and in myself again. I don’t think I’ll ever really grow out of that 16-year-old summer camp self, but I don’t know how to stop myself from losing the spontaneity and trust that version of myself requires. Regardless, I never want to lose sight of her. While I might never have access to those late nights after lights out again, I refuse to believe that the adulterated enthusiasm and compassion my cabin mates and I shared have entirely left me. And I’m willing to run the risk of chasing that generosity for the rest of my life. Our teenage girlhood has ended, but the love we so freely gave each other all those summers ago is still there.
Statement Columnist Olivia Mouradian can be reached at omouradi@umich.edu.