Departure Day
I woke up on the floor
Snuggled under a fuzzy blanket
To the sound of Valentina playing ukelele
Saying goood morning campers, the time is currently 7:29 am. Please wake up your friends and bring your bags and mattress down to the lodge.
While campers chattered lightly and signed directories
Some of them had been up all night
I walked up to my cabin, said goodbye to it for the last time, carried my bags down
And helped a friend bring down her mattress
My bag went on the porch
the mattress went on a 7 foot tall stack in the lodge
I went to Will, the medical moose, to pick up my pills and check in about my arm.
That part was quick, but I stayed an extra fifteen minutes talking.
Short last morning meeting
Sang Look at What the Light Did Now
Hug number 478
People already crying
Waving off the first group to leave for the airport
Crying laughing hugging on the porch
Gathering on Carl one last time until next year
Making our way down the hill with all our bags to the pickup area
More crying, more hugging more people goodbye
Figuring out what car I’m in
Talking about what friends to bring next year
Eating sandwiches
Asleep for four hours in the car
Waking up seeing Orthodox Jewish kids on scooters
And then a grown man playing with a water fountain outside a brick apartment complex
Flaky paint and shiny cafes
I am undeniably in New York City now
Sister opens door
Hugging family
Holding cat
Spilling all my luggage onto the floor
Leave it like that for a day or two
Seeing friends and trying so hard to maintain that sense of community
Tell yourself to never forget how you felt at camp
Close your eyes and think about
the warmth of the campfire and
angel walk and
bonding night and
sleeping on the porch
and when you sit alone on the blue subway on the way home from film class
remember you’ll be at camp again and get share with everyone what we’ve created while we were apart
This is a picture of me on departure day on my walk back through the woods from a kybo
My name is Zoe or Zoe JDP or just JDP
I live in Brooklyn New York
I am 18 somehow
I’ve gone to Not Back to School Camp in Vermont in 23, and 24, Oregon 22, 23, and 24.
I like to improvise through dance, vocalizing, acting, and drawing. I also like to make films. As with most unschoolers, I do lots of many different things that are too many to name 🙂