12:06 p.m., 2006-07-03
I am in a serious camp funk at the moment. It is a week I go away from the world to be in a place where everyone is treated equally, and where being cool doesn't matter; everyone is cool at camp. Every single camper matters, no matter their disability. But this year, again, that wasn't truly the case.
There are currently 723 pictures on the camp website from our week of camp. How many of them included my camper, a quiet and not very active 12 year-old girl in a wheelchair named Myles? Four. And not just any four random shots. The requisite shot of Myles with the camp leaders that everyone takes at the carnival, the requisite shot of Myles with me on the last day of camp, the requisite shot of Myles with the rest of our cabin on the last day of camp, and the requisite shot of Myles receiving the award I made for her on the last day of camp. By repeating "requisite" I am doing nothing more than saying that these are the pictures that every camper takes every year. As there were 54 campers, this means roughly 200 pictures are accounted for as compulsory.
In the other 500 pictures? Not a single shot of Myles. Pictures of our cabinmates, for sure. But not a single other photo of the little girl who consumed my waking energy for 7 days. Now that I am home and looking to see what pictures I want to buy to preserve the memories I made that week, I am left feeling depressed that yet again this year I will be forced to buy pictures of other people's memories since Myles and mine were not captured on film, or to buy none at all.
And less selfishly, what are her grandparents who so lovingly care for her year-round going to think when they can't find any pictures of their baby to see how much fun she had all week. Because she most certainly did have fun. And I think the photographic records should reflect that, but...for yet another year, they won't.
The trouble for me is that I always pair myself with a camper who cannot participate fully in the camp activities. It's a matter of being willing to work a week with someone who can't communicate their own needs. I understand that it's not for everyone, I would love to go a year and have an "easy" camper who just needs a friend for the week to hang out with as they do all the fun camp activities.
Last year alone I never made it down to the lake because I had a camper so afraid of the water that she wouldn't even go down to the beach. So when EVERYONE else minus another counselor to help me was down at the water canoeing, swimming, and building sand castles, we sat in the Arts and Crafts pavillion and listened to music so she could dance.
I guess I'm feeling like I always go out of my way to take a camper that other people might not enjoy having or might be overwhelmed by, and then I end up miserable when I come home and see the pictures of all the other campers having fun, pictures people take because THOSE campers have a really obviously great personality, when no one troubled themselves enough to get to know how great Myles' personality was too. It leaves me feeling depressed about camp.
I suppose now I should write about all the happy things I experienced at camp with Myles, just so that I can remind myself that it IS a positive experience. And I should remind myself that at least I wasn't in a ton of atrocious photos, as photos of me tend to turn out.
