Camp Rock

 It's natural to start again.

Ahhhh.


It's good to be back.
I have no excuse for my long absence, other than the unplanned series of events in my life that have occupied my thoughts, rendering me unable to write anything but poetry. Bad poetry.

But fear not, I am back. Back in black, as they say.

I am back and I am employed. Surprised? You should be. After last summer's infamous "My dad threw me out of the house and refused to let me back in until I found a job" day, which ended with "Dad please let me back in the house on account of no one is hiring because we are in an economic recession and I think I'm going to have a heat stroke out here under the hot Carolina sun" hour; I decided to start earlier this year. You know, to avoid homelessness and having to pay for college on my own. Also to limit the risk of a heat stroke.

I work at a Summer Safari Program, which is a day camp for kids ages 5 to 11 at Crooked Creek Park.  It is also nothing at all like Camp Rock.

  Working at a camp I suppose makes me a camp counselor, which allows me to do two things;

1) Carry a walkie talkie around
2) Feel really old

I remember every camp counselor I ever had. There was Hope, with the long curly hair with a fellow camp-counselor-boyfriend with an even longer and curlier beard.
There was Reba, the crazy redhead who didn't shave her legs. There was Jessica, Weston, Julianne, and Spencer (who would constantly play/sing "Idiot Boyfriend" by Jimmy Fallon in the church vans). I say all this to say, its quite strange actually being one and not looking up to one.

Getting out of bed in the morning is incredibly difficult. Morning shift is like waking up for school, except no late Wednesdays. I punch in and I punch out. I wear a name tag. It's very "working girl" and sophisticated. I don't expect my younger readers to understand.

There are two parts of work I like.

The first part is called "The Kids."

Even though the days are long and hot and sticky and sometimes difficult, I can hardly help but smile when I see my kids. I work with 6 and 7 year old boys most of the time. Yesterday, to kill some down-time, I suggested we play telephone. I started the game with "I like my scrambled eggs with peanut butter" and at the end of the game it ended up being "Miss Natalie is hot." Never play telephone with 6 year old boys.

The second part I like is called "Pay check."

This one is pretty self explanatory.

A Walk in the Woods

It's natural to explore.

I live in a nice neighborhood, a nice house, with a nice yard.
To the left of my backyard, the lake, to the right, seemingly endless woods.

When I was a kid I spent endless hours exploring and pillaging those woods. I was a hopeless tom boy.

After my run tonight, I walked to the back yard to cool down, and looked into those woods where so many memories were made. I hadn't been in them for years.

So I started walking.

It was a little different but mostly the same. My old tree house is rotting, but it was glorious in its prime. I stepped on a nail back there, and had even built a bridge across a ditch once. Once I stumbled upon a group of teenagers smoking pot deep in the woods. I've never seen pot heads run that fast. And with damaged lungs too! Impressive.

I was walking down the newly made four-wheel trails, when I came upon a grave yard. I had discovered the grave yard when I was about nine, walking through the woods one day alone. I was completely freaked out that there were dead people buried in my back yard, ran back home, and then apparently blocked it out of my mind because I had forgotten about it.

As I walked towards it, a deer jumped out and scared me to death. I felt like the female lead in some zombie movie as I opened the rusty gate, and stepped inside the tiny cemetery.

It was a family cemetery, with the name Mcartha etched across every worn headstone. Most of them had died in the late 1700s-early 1800s, as young as 20 and as old as 94.

Across every stone, the phrase "Gone but not Forgotten" was carved.

There were a few roses scattered around. A tree had fallen across the gate.

I wondered if there were any surviving Mcarthas, and if they knew that their relatives were buried out here in the middle of nowhere, where boys drove four wheelers and teenagers smoked pot.

I walked slowly home, pondering life and death, and listened to the birds sing.