Dear Camp Pembroke,
We spend 10 months counting down. We cross off days on calendars, hit refresh on the camp website, and pack trunks weeks in advance. We dream about Opening Day, first hugs, first grilled cheeses, first songs, first swims, first nights in the bunk. We spend nearly an entire year wishing time would hurry up. And then…somewhere around this point in the summer…everything changes.
Suddenly, we start bargaining with time. Can we make this week last just a little longer? Can someone slow the clock down? Can we have one more campfire, one more canteen run, one more free swim, one more bedtime story in the bunk?
Camp has a funny way of doing that. Our youngest campers spend years imagining what it must feel like to be one of the oldest girls at camp. To lead a Color War rally. To waitress meals. To be a Big Sister. They watch the leaders, the captains, the role models, and think, I can’t wait until that’s me.
Then, somehow, without even noticing, they blink, and they are the oldest. They’re the ones everyone looks up to. The ones finally getting to experience all the traditions they’ve dreamed about for years, and just as all that waiting finally pays off, something shifts. Wishing for it to come becomes wishing it wouldn’t go so fast.
Many would trade just about anything to spend one more day as the youngest camper again. To walk into the Dining Hall wide-eyed and to hold their favorite counselor’s hand. To experience it all for the very first time. At camp, you’re always looking ahead while quietly wishing you could go back.
It’s why we count the days until Color War…and then secretly hope it takes forever to end. It’s why campers beg to know when the surprise is coming, only to wish they could press pause once it finally arrives. It’s why we race toward every milestone while trying to hold onto every ordinary Tuesday.
Time doesn’t seem to work quite the same way here. The days are impossibly full, and yet the weeks somehow disappear. Every day feels packed with memories, but somehow the summer slips by before any of us are ready.
That IS the magic of camp. Not that time moves faster or slower, but that camp makes ordinary moments feel important. The sunsets over the lake become the backdrop to another unforgettable evening. Color War captains become counselors who pass along the same spirit and traditions they once looked up to and summers become the stories our campers will tell for the rest of their lives.
So, as we find ourselves wishing for just a little more time, we’ll do what campers have always done. We’ll linger a little longer after evening program. We’ll take the long way back to the bunk. We’ll sing one more verse, and we’ll do it a little louder. We’ll hug our friends a little tighter and link arms in the Pine Grove, trying to soak in every last second.
If camp has taught us anything, it’s that while we can’t slow the clock, we can make every minute count. That just may be why saying goodbye is so hard…not because summer is ending, but because there was never a moment we wanted to rush through in the first place.
Shabbat shalom!
Love,
Becca & Amy
