but isn't it beautiful, we're not really here and we're really not there... we're really not there...

i was the only core staff in charge of 19 campers this week, i had a volunteer with a two-year old from breakfast to dinner, a volunteer with me all the time, and another volunteer that i barely saw all week and never saw after dinner even though she was in our cabin...
but the campers were wonderful. 
and i had them trained.
'clap once if you can hear me' turned into 'clap five times because it's fun' or 'sing mary had a little lamb'
...and they did it.
'jump up and down until i get back.'
'frolic.'
haha, so wonderful...
pretending that there was glass in the doorway of the south asia section at the art museum?
hilarious.


still long week... 
very long...
had a wonderful lesson wednesday night however, out around the campfire...
and plenty of good talks with the campers.
even if i found myself up until 3am because tie-dye shirts needed rinsing, showers needed bleaching, and i needed a long shower to get the grease from the grill and charcoal from the fire out of my hair, i didn't even make an attempt at the dye on my fingers...
rinsing each shirt until the water ran clear, even the ones by the over-zealous campers that turned out like mud...
thinking of the lesson i gave, their reaction, and praying for them as i washed each shirt.
but then again, that's being a counselor, leaving your tray mid-food-line or putting down your toothbrush to pull a tick out (both in the same day,) taking your s'more off the fire because a girl's tooth with a crown on it fell out and she was bleeding everywhere, feeling tired and sore from 4 hours of sleep, walking around an art museum all day, dancing crazily all evening with campers, my knee swelling up and giving me a ridiculous amount of trouble...
and then slowly lowering myself to the floor of the girls room, wincing from my fatigue, wiping my soapy hands on my shorts because i stopped mid-dishwashing, and singing my girls to sleep because they asked me to.
they're worth it.
...and even if the voice i'm gifted with is only used to quiet and calm campers, it's well worth it.
can't think of a better way to use it.


last night consisted of loud singing and dancing to songs from my ipod, primarily songs from 'hello dolly'
it's wonderful to see even the shyest of the group have fun like that...
to see kids firmly in their shell and then tear up when they said goodbye.
i have two favorite campers now, a brother and sister. the brother has something permanently wrong with his voice, sounds like permanent laryngitis, he doesn't talk much...
or so everyone thought.
out of the five people i led around the museum yesterday he was the most talkative. 
such a good kid, and his sister is wonderful once she comes out of her shell a little, haha, she left her backpack at the dining hall...
half a mile with three campers, all of us 'opera' singing, frolicking, running with our arms straight up in the air, or jumping in the air, turning, pretending that we're ballet dancers.
it was hard saying bye to her and her brother.
to most of them, really.


i don't post status' like Praise GOD for He is mighty!' or 'GOD IS THE ONLY ONE, HE IS HOLY!'
i don't say 'well, praise the Lord!' for something good, even if i do praise Him
i don't raise my hands in the air or close my eyes during worship
i don't rush up and put my hand on someone to pray for them


...i read psalm 8 to my campers, my favorite lesson this summer, i read it to them under the stars.
i tell them of the symphonies God placed in the trees.
of how God laughs at me and i laugh with Him,
of how i used to still talk to constellations as if they were my friends and Orion is my brother,
of how my best friend created the stars, 
and the one that placed them in the sky died for us.
who are we that he cares for us so deeply and yet he created the universe?
the colors that we used in art camp were of His invention, and He is the one always there to embrace us at the end of a long day.


i discuss wonder and the rowdy bunch of campers becomes silent as the stars blaze in the night...
i talk to the disruptive country/redneck 6th grader that keeps asking if he can throw apple cores at his little brother in another camp and he tells me about how much he loves his brother and looks out for him, talks to him when he's homesick and cares for him greatly. 
i tell a crying camper stories from when i messed up or was embarrassed and make them smile from imagining a penguin with a red popsicle wanting them to feel better.


come home from an amazing art museum, look at the awe-inspiring clouds early in the evening before the sky turned colors and say 'that is my favorite work of art. and the artist is my best friend.'


i sing and dance to 'put on your sunday clothes' while serving popcorn, make campers laugh, start a crazy dancing ring that everyone joins in on...
make an environment that they feel at home in.


i sing jon foreman, jack's mannequin, and jack johnson to lull them asleep...
i sing for God to wash me white as snow while hoping they listen to the words...
i tell them that this world can be ugly but isn't it beautiful...
i tell them that this world can be ugly but isn't it beautiful...


...i live.




i was myself this week, finally...


i just pray that i remain myself...
i know i won't, yet i'm on the road.
then again, no one is themself all of the time.
no one.


last night i looked n the mirror at my acned face, frizzy hair, and weariness glazing over my eyes.
'i look terrible.'
'you may think so, but I think that girl in there singing to those campers was beautiful.'


...God's words got to me.
...and i looked at that week.
and fully realized, for a time, how 'beautiful' i was.
...am.


it's different...
but...
really, would i have it any other way?


i shall miss my 'sketchy campers of doom' (art camp! sketches, haha... yes. yes i am a dork. i found out this week that i love soft pastels... and am a better artist than i thought... i pretty much had to lead all of the projects)


rode home all the way with the window down, most of the time my arm resting in the window...
sad to leave camp, but the wind felt wonderful...


...and now to rest, great scot have i ever earned this rest...
sore from the entire week, so much, so crazy, so tired...
so worth it...


it feels good to rest at the end of a long day, read a good book...
still want that porch swing...


so worth it indeed...

'morning brotha, i made a pot of kool-aide...'

i loved when my campers went on the hay ride, a time to reload the fire with wood, sit on the heavy wooden log bench and gaze up at the trees, nothing the shadows the falling sun casts and the twisted branches looming above my head.
i love the shadows in the evening...
so much.


other random:
i always find myself in metaphors, or so i realized as i was sitting by the fire.
also thought of as i gazed up at the trees was how odd it is...
i love the life trees have, the music their leaves make, the bright colors they go down in as they nearly die out only to revive again the next spring... i apologize to them as i cut them down even if it's necessary, i love the landscape they produce...
and i then i moved my head to the side and looked at the logs i had just put in. 
full circle life, appreciated through its many deaths and rebirths and then gazed at as it is carefully placed in a position to burn quickest as it gives warmth and feeling in the end.


goals in life:
~a porch swing to watch the sunrise/set
~a hammock
~my own fishing pond
~a big dog that thinks it's a lap dog
~a glass of lemonade to sip whilst sitting on the porch swing/hammock/ edge of the pond trying to keep it away from the big dog that thinks it's a lap dog and wants that glass of lemonade more than it wants to chase the tennis ball i threw into the pond.

...i don't dream big, but i dream.
...maybe i should dream big. 
then i'd have more concrete goals.






random:
pretending the core staff in my camp was my twin (we tricked the campers hardcore...) really made me want a brother...
well it was nice to have a 'brother' last week.


i love camp.
with my kind of people.
this doesn't mean they believe the same things as i do.
they could be more liberal, or  more conservative.
but they're my camp family.
a new male counselor is quitting, a co-counselor pointed out that camp isn't for some people, it's not real life in a way.
i can definitely see that...
pity it isn't.

'so jealous of the moon...'

"i hope you meet someone your height, so you can see to eye to eye with someone as small as you."




i'm enjoying a nickel creek binge.




definitely ready for camp this week...


gave my presentation over Germany at church this morning, went well, i enjoyed sharing what we did and making people laugh...


great scot, i've been looking for excuses to get outside all weekend.
just want to be outside.
breathing in air, thinking 
'okay... i feel the pulse...'
not that i'm dead so much as i can't feel it over the...
lifelessness.
well, it makes sense to me.
my INFP is hiding but i can feel it even if i haven't acted upon it in the past few days...


phew...
i'm feeling better however.
sun, leaves, stars, rain...


Lord, who am i that you would make me of such things?


and please let my sarcastic wit and clever phrases sprinkled with puns to not shut out the INFP.
balance i say...


wish i knew what i wanted.
then again no one knows...
do i want to sit at a computer my whole life?
is suburbia a goal?
what can i do that i can have a porch with a view of land and a fishing pond to dip my feet and fish in? 
i can live anywhere content.
ish.
there'd always be wanting open spaces.


*sigh*
there would always be wanting open spaces.
always.

dusty boots and personality hybrid roots...

camp people...

camp...

love camp.

more than college, i don't want to go back...

and really...

great scot, being surrounded by my kind of people makes me realize how terribly wrong for me that guy was.

and these people would not have approved.

...okay, so i never fully approved either.

perhaps that's part of why it hit me so hard?

random:

driving down a country highway, arm against the window, looking down at your dusty bootcut levi jeans stuffed into your worn riding boots is...

ridiculously satisfying.

i love midwest, i love kansas.

counselor i worked with last week has been to 49 states and different countries, and he thinks the midwest is the best place to live, great place to be from and then to visit elsewhere.

i agree, even if i doubt i shall ever be able to visit elsewhere.

i went to germany and loved it...

but...

kansas is home.

i could be home in germany,

and perhaps it's naive to think so but i choose kansas.

however germany has a good deal of midwest US spirit in it.

living there would be nice...

yes, i could do that, would do that if i knew the language...

so really, i think the week i looked back on the past few months with a 

'???'

expression.

seems like school never happened.

i'm back at camp.

'why did i really like him and how didn't i see that he wasn't my kind of people...'

...

'oh wait i did... and i went out with him anyway. stupid.'

and i like not blogging at the end of every day.

i like being outside all day.

i like not having air conditioning and walking everywhere.

i like talking to God when i walk alone at camp.

i like deconstructing my thoughts to the stars.

even if they're not recorded.

and quite frankly the camp self i find me in cannot understand how something like that cut me so deep...

it rubs the scars, looks at the sky, and wonders at how or why...

but moves on.

and wishes to forget the hand that held the knife.

it realizes that constant compliments and praise just...

don't fit.

but a supportive camp family does.

earned compliments please, not a shower.

wonder what in the world i'm supposed to do with my life...

i love music, i enjoy graphic design, i get ridiculously happy when i see that i'm driving through a small town on a kansas highway and while wearing riding boots, and i want to travel all over.

...

for now, i shall lazily lock my truck with my camp stuff in it and go to bed.

...

i think my soprano is better than my tenor.

singing that style at least.

and people at camp noticed my voice got 10x better than last summer and last summer it was good...

...

i want to do something with it and lack any resources, other than voice lessons.


at anyrate, i love feeling my shoulder muscles get stronger from hoisting my leather saddle onto the tallest (and most beautiful) camp horse every day.
being hot and sweaty and it not mattering if my clothes get dirty.
haha, finding a mouse giving birth on one saddle was interesting to say the least...
lover being outside, doing real work, interacting with campers, being tired at the end of the day.
so much.

tick tock tick tock... please be anticlimactic...

i keep thinking 'i can look at the stars when i go to take care of the dogs, talk to God and my dogs...'
and then i remember...
i know that i said goodbye to sydney at least...
but i suppose that i cannot comprehend them being gone.

today was okay, however mom saying 'i'm telling you no, it will not work!' with 'no' being in that terrible tone... great scot why that tone... when i tried to put the tub i'm using for camp in the cart and pack the groceries in it...
...
well things were going okay.
i even talked about hockey in front of her yesterday and she didn't bring up the jer...
didn't bring him up.

great scot lindsay, stay away from 'normal' human behavior...

at anyrate, that kind of killed the roll i was on and made my body realize my weariness.
well, that and her telling me to try stuff on i didn't even like, i felt so negative saying 'no, i don't like that. no, i still don't like that. no, i'm not trying it on i don't like it!'
great scot, i know my swim suit is getting worn out but it's not a dire situation and i told her that i didn't like what that store normally has anyway...
i felt terribly negative and picky...

agh, and now aswell...
she does realize that when she yells it makes it sound like she's mad, right?
great scot, freakin stop it, i'm dead at the moment and i don't need to hear that, my mind is ravaged and i'm trying to ignore the knife in my back, i'm tired, my arm has some ridiculous weird pain that's numbing right below my elbow and a few of my fingers, my eyes are weary, two of my favorite people in the entire world were heartlessly torn from the camp they love and hold dear and i will probably never see them again and the product of moving home from college and then going to europe for three weeks is the biggest mess my room has ever seen and it's freakin DRIVING ME INSANE.
so please,
PLEASE,
do not yell at, criticize, demean, or insult me.

must clean room...

this ridiculous mess is permeating the mind...

time to have some nutella with rasberry jam.
and a tall glass of milk...
calm down...
relax...
go watch another new phineas and ferb...
and don't listen to your mom.

*sigh*
one of the wranglers, a counselor turned wrangler that was my first counselor, said 'lindsay lindsay' on thursday.
...
made me miss the old site director.

need... sleep...

...
camp is ridiculously good for me.
jumping into my camp family is ridiculously good for me.


...and i miss my two favorite people in the world.
their absence and how the higher up people went about it all sickens me...
they had no warning, they were told they had a meeting, they went to town, and were told they didn't have jobs.
they had a month to get out of their on-site house but they left in a week.
...
great scot, no warning, no warning...
...

*sigh*
the camping board is going insane, one lady left the church and the board...
granted, she was always very particular, but she cared for that camp.

the new lady in charge (well she will be next year, this year we still have the program director...) is nice, i like her... not sure i like her for camp, i've only known her a day, but she is a good person.
and i trust the guy in charge, always knew he'd be the one driving that camp truck around someday, i just didn't expect it so soon and in that manner.
*sigh*
great scot, such a mess, but camp is going well.

yesterday i found myself clearing trails by myself...
a new lifeguard said she's allergic to ticks so she went to get bug spray... so the other counselor and i were on the trail.
then i lost the other counselor i was with, no idea where she went...
i was the only one on the right trail, so i cleared the brush form that trail, the main back trail, and the ball field trail.
i laughed as i remarked to God that just because i hadn't had time alone in ages it didn't mean he had to get the other people lost. it was nice hiking along on my own, cutting low branches, clearing small logs, large sticks, branches, trees growing in the path... it was nice to do work. real work.

random:
one of the counselors that i have been a camper with (actually, two i have been campers with, the other one a long long time ago) pretty much talks to his girlfriend all day on the phone.
and all night.
apparently it's hard for then to be apart since school is over?
he can't talk to her like that during camp...
great scot, he said they've been going out six months? is talking to her 24/7 really going to help her adjust...?
or him for that matter?
suppose it's hard to describe on the internet.

i love camp.

oddly enough, when most in my element with people i care about, new people that will be part of my camp family, when i'm myself... that's when i think of him and am glad i'm not going to end up with him.
ridiculously glad.
just doesn't fit.
and it shouldn't have happened.
i shan't over explain.
but oh well.

i like being me.
a lot.
and without him...

driving along on the highway to the tavern where camp staff had an amazing meal of ribs (hole in the wall place. amazing.) i looked around and thought of how many people in my jazz band talked about how ugly kansas was.
i like it.
and what's more i love the midwest way of life.
and the people.
definitely the people.

have i mentioned how good camp is for me?

i'm dead tired now however...
jet lag hasn't hit me, yet being up at 1:30 is a terrible notion.

the end is the beginning and the beginning is the end.

...i'm in kansas.


can i go back now?


suppose i'm ready for home.


how small the world is that we can fly a day and end up so far away... in a completely different world.
have we really become that big?
if we have then i daresay much of humanity has forgotten its humility...
suppose that i view stewardship of nature in the same way i view stewardship of campers.
you live with it, respect it, treat it like it deserves... and resume your role when something needs done or something bad is happening.


today as i laughed at the graffiti (plankton from spongebob in converse. 'so crazy' as our wonderful bus driver says.) and looked at the rainy sky i drifted off with the music. tired.
one last bus ride before the planes... 
one last look at Germany.
i gazed out at the trees and apologized to the landscape for not being alive.
i love the outdoors here...
there, i mean...
so much; yet i wasn't alive out there.
suppose i was playing frisbee in the park that one day...


somehow as we stood in line to load the plane for the long flight home i felt fine.
overwhelmingly so.


it was odd...
and welcome.


the flight didn't seem as long as it had ocming over, of course i took a sleeping pill.
worked for maybe three hours, but that's better than nothing.


during a layover, lounging about with the rest of the band, luggage strewn everywhere, i thought of how odd changing realities is...
my reality a few hours ago was jazz band.
concerts, jokes about our song numbers and titles, quoting the bus driver, making music to touch people.


as i wrote in atlanta:
i find changing realities to be...
odd.
my reality right now as i sit in atlanta is the jazz family i have been with for weeks, months rather.
when i step off that last plane that reality is over.
some people i will never see again.
sad?
perhaps.
yet somehow it's okay.


(why i wrote this in mixed tense... who knows...)
i sat there near the ending, gazing up at the ceiling of my gate in atlanta; 
so many endings and beginnings in life, some people say that to make a coherent story you must flow seamlessly from event to event...
life isn't always like that.
it jolts, startles, disrupts, it's inconvenient.
i suppose how 'seamless' the story is depends on what distance from which you are looking at it.
until then i sit at the 'end' and 'begin' tomorrow.
...ah metaphors.
i always find that we are one.
four years...
i sit at the edge looking over...
and it feels wonderful...




it still feels wonderful.


i am me.
i look into the mirror and see those blue eyes looking at me, i smile and talk to myself...
to You, Lord...
i will mess up and dislike what i do,
i will stray from who i am,
i will be awkward, 
i will mess up...


but i'm human.
i can't be perfect and i can't expect myself to be.
and i can't let it bother me when someone comes along and rips me to shreds because i trusted.
that's part of the risk you take in any kind of relationship.
i accept that.
but that doesn't change one thought i have ever had about it.
and it doesn't change the betrayal.
or the feeling of being lied to.
because i was.
and all of the truths and the lies hurt, there is no difference.


i will hurt, yes.
the pain may be all i can extract to paper, yet that isn't all that there is.
sometimes, yes.
that's part of the addiction of pain; where pain is all there is what do you do when it is gone?
perhaps time heals all wounds because slowly various other things take its place. 
the pain heals, but it can't leave if there is nothing else.
but it will not always be that there is only pain.


it will be almost 4 by the time i get to sleep...
getting up to leave for camp by 9:30...
*sigh*


i deconstruct at the cost of my own sleep and sanity.


perhaps i'll wake up at 10 instead.


random:


...


great scot, just realized this.


so that whole relationship thing, i say you have to value yourself before you consider being in a relationship, you cannot rely on someone else to give you worth.
well.
i did value myself.
the hard part was someone else valuing me.
learning to let someone else give me worth.
...
and then that being so brutally crushed shook everything.
or at least that's one aspect.
because i do value myself...
Lord, You value me...
i didn't realize how different it was for another human to value me such.
suppose i wasn't used to it.
or at least not that much that quick, i suppose i went from nothing to drowning.
and what do you do with that?


ah well.


so tired...


it's 10:32 in germany.