a different camp, for different girls...

you guys, my organs are shifting again. i can feel it. it's kind of like that anxious feeling, only wayyyyy lower. deep down in my gut. there's work, and life, and love and all the unknown that comes along with it. and even though there has been so much change recently, i'm craving more. it's as though i got all changed up, started spinning on a different track, but also got flipped over. and i need just a little bit more to be on the right speed again. you know? (hey, big red... if you're reading, don't worry, all is well. i am well. just feeling reflective is all). she gets worried about me sometimes.

i've been sitting with my palms faced down in my variations of seated meditation lately... to keep me grounded. and i remembered, recently, how nothing has ever kept me as grounded as those fifteen summers i spent in vermont. thirteen of them at brown ledge.

i found this poem not too long ago. one of my bunkies re-organized the where i'm from template, by george ella lyon... to be about brown ledge. it's not a story, and probably isn't clear to anyone but a bunkie, but i need it to be here today. thanks...

brown ledge is about prayer flags that hang over the canoe dock, a brand new nalgene and table decorations.

brown ledge is about knowing every rock and root on the point; you could walk it at night, blindfolded.

it's about dirt stuck under your toenails, woodchips in your birkenstocks, dried petals from rose ceremonies past and the sweet smell of citronella and gun powder from the rifle range.

brown ledge is fred and twylla. it's the smile i recognize in maddie's face from her mama. it is eva singing goodnight sweetheart to me as a homesick ten year old, playing duck duck goo-us with samuel swift and dancing to i am a ballerina with rosebud.

it's about watching my beautiful ex-smuggs and ship ahoyians become extraordinary young women.

it's about swinging along the open road under a sky that's clear and hittin' em in the head and sockin' em in the eye, so that our bones will rise again.

it's the best of times when you watch your bunkie get her vanguard, releasing the anxiety of whether you will get yours... because at that moment, she is much more important than you. and it's the worst of times when you sing the goodnight song as a second year jc for the last time at the awards ceremony.

brown ledge is about dancing out the lyrics to your favorite song with your campers in strawberry hut.

brown ledge is about giggles, comfort, happy tears and always some sad ones.

brown ledge is the time marty promised he would shave his head and buy me every flavor of ben and jerry's if all of the theatre jc's got their sailing basics in one day. it was the most illegitimate basic of that summer, but now i know... ready to jib, jib ho!

brown ledge is my love, that is always unconditional.

brown ledge on my finger, every day.

first photo is from brownledge.org... check it out. if you have a daughter, it'll change her life. change. love you.