This July, your local queer, storytelling, bar church is going to camp. Starting July 11th, we’ll be on the lawn at 4250 N Paulina (and on Zoom), roasting marshmallows, doing crafts, making friends, and, if some of your childhood camp stories play out: not pooping the whole time you’re there! (But there are bathrooms available.)
The only time I went to overnight camp as a kid, I hated it. It was church camp that even my parents worried would be too conservative. (They were correct.) My visions of finally having a peer group of “cool Christian kids” evaporated when I realized that cool Christian kids could recognize a dork like me just as easily as cool non-Christian kids. Like some of you, I hated camp, I never quite found my people there, and was relieved to get home.
So it’s a miracle that I went on to work at camps for years as a teenager and young adult. That I didn’t just get used to outhouses, but also to multi-seat outhouses (friendly!) and outdoor showers (cold! But sexy!). I didn’t just tolerate camp life but reveled in it. It made me who I am — or more fully revealed to me who I am. Someone who loves groups of people striving to make community. Knowing each other too well and lots of singing. Shared meals. Big laughter. Easy tears. Inside jokes that grow and evolve over years. Nudity, sometimes. Fires, as often as possible. And every year, when I came home and struggled to readjust to “real life,” I’d think (or someone else would unhelpfully offer, unsolicited), “Well, you can’t live like that all the time.”
I dunno. Can’t we?
In July, Gilead’s going to camp. And this time, y’all, it’s gonna be so. good. If you’re a camp kid, this is gonna be right up yer alley. If not...come reclaim camp.