The Magic of Camp Friends

[00:00:00] Chloe: Hi, my name is Chloe. I am 15 years old, and I have been going to camp since I was going into fourth grade, so this will be my seventh year at camp. I love all my camp friends, and I’ve made so many great friendships there. Seeing them is the highlight of my year usually the only negative I would say about camp friends, it’s just the amount of time that goes in between seeing them. It can be a few months. Maybe you’ll have your reunion. But usually most times it’s almost a year until you’ve last seen them and people can change a lot in a year. It’s not necessarily a negative way that people change but that means each year, I notice that friends are slightly different. You might get close to this person one year and be not so close to them that year because people change a lot. Then there’s some people who live closer together and see each other more, and so they become closer. Also it’s just sad because you don’t really get to see them in person super often because they usually live far away. But, again, going back and seeing your friends after a year is like, just crazy. And it’s really sad when you have to leave, but friendships last a lifetime.

[00:01:05] Amy: Camp friendships are the best friendships. I have a friend who I met when I was nine at overnight camp we are still friends to this day. I’m now 46 years old the two of us ended up in college together. We’re roommates in college. lived in the city of Chicago. Now we both live in the suburbs of Chicago and we are still the best of friends. there is nothing like having a lifelong friend who knows you through every stage of your life, is there through the ups and downs. And what’s even cooler is that now both of our daughters go to camp together. So we have, a generational love for camp just a deep friendship, from nine years old to 46 years old. I treasure her more than anything. And now I’m crying even talking about it. So camp friends are truly the most unique and the most special.

[00:01:55] Baila: Hello, my name is Baila, one of my biggest camp friends who I cannot live without. her name is Catherine . I met her two years ago at camp she is one of the nicest, sweetest, most caring angel. She has literally taught me everything about being kind, everything about standing up for yourself and standing up for others, everything about being inclusive, not only does she do that for everybody else, but she also did that for me, I don’t know what I would do without her in my life.

[00:02:31] Nina: Welcome to Dear Nina, Conversations About Friendship. You have arrived at the much anticipated camp episode, much anticipated for two reasons. First of all, I’ve been teasing it a lot on social media. I had it in my newsletter, Conversations About Friendship on Substack, asking for voicemails. There are more to come. I love hearing from kids. That was so fun. I heard from adults. I heard from my husband, who actually told me something interesting in person. I said, Oh, you got to leave that as a voicemail. that you will hear in a moment.

I’m coming on three full years of podcasting soon. I’ll have a special anniversary episode coming up for three years of podcasting. And I have not covered camp friendships. I don’t even know how that’s possible. Camp friendships are such a major part of life out there when you talk about friendship. I think camp is the most special place to make friends for a lot of the reasons that I’ve talked about on this show in terms of the power of proximity, what it’s like to be around people all the time.

There’s so many other special things about camp that we’re going to get to throughout the episode. Up front, I’m going to tell you right now before I play more voicemails before we hear from author and the main guest today, Dara Levan, who had a really important storyline in her book about camp. One of the big reasons I think camp friendships can really help is it forces you not to have all your friendship eggs in one basket.

This is not something that came up in the interview, and it’s not something that came up in the voicemails. it’s important for me to get that point across here right now. And it’s, An aspect of friendship for kids that adults can learn from, which is to not have all your friendship eggs in one basket. I’m doing a whole episode about that in the future. So just a quick mention here that for a lot of people, camp is an escape from the school drama that they have with friends. If you’re somebody who keeps getting sent to camp and it’s not going well, then school is a break from that.

The bigger point being, it’s a good idea to have some of your friends spread out, whether that’s through activities, through things you do in the summer versus the school year. It’s a healthy, good idea. And for adults too, to not have all your friendship sources coming from the same place. And that way, if there’s issues in one place, you have refuge in another place.

We, of course, talk about how camp right now is a extremely rare time of no screens. How it forces real interaction, it forces conflicts to get resolved in person, not with paragraphs on Snapchat. Any of you out there have teens who refer to the paragraph, so and so sent me a paragraph, I’m sending so and so a paragraph.

This is a thing where at least they’re communicating. So I’m not going to hate on that too much. I’m glad there’s communication. At camp you’re going to have to do it in person. There is no getting around it. It’d be nice if they did that at home too, but doesn’t happen so much. Of course, there are no parents to interfere, at least in an ideal situation.

I do think nowadays that is not as much the case. that might be something we are a little bit more nostalgic about from yesteryears of times when it wasn’t so easy a camp to get in touch with the director. Your parent probably had to call and call and maybe leave a message with whoever answered the phone and then eventually maybe a director would get back to you.

Expectations seem different now. You’re going to get in touch probably with somebody quickly. There are camp staff whose entire job might be to communicate with parents. And then, of course, you have all the counselors up there with their phones who are texting their parents and letting them know what’s going on with campers, with siblings, with cousins, with family friends.

That’s different than how it was. So sometimes when adults are nostalgic about camp life and camp friendships, it is different now. That doesn’t mean that camp is still not an extremely special place to make friends, to have an intensity of friendship that is quite difficult to have at home. But it is not exactly how we’re remembering it. Those of us in our thirties, forties, fifties and beyond. Doesn’t mean it’s not special, but it’s not exactly the same. There are some things that are the same that is like having safe risks where you can try something new, water skiing, horseback riding, depending where you go to camp, things that you maybe would never have a chance to do in your home life because of where you live.

Maybe where you live is in a more urban setting, suburban. It doesn’t have that country setting that a lot of camps have. And then there’s the aspect of just having a break from your home life. I’m going to play you a message from my husband. He didn’t introduce himself in the message, but this is my husband, Bryan.

[00:07:05] Bryan: This, you know, this column is funny because we’ve talked over the years so much about camp and so much about friendship, but we actually never talked about camp and friendship, in particular, how it impacted me and really, to a large degree, probably saved my life, at least in terms of quality, because of the impact it had on my, Friendships and my ability to make friendships, both guys as well as girlfriends and girlfriends.

I went to camp around Wisconsin when I was 15, which was on the later side of starting, but it was due to the fact that my parents had been divorced two years earlier. And so I, I knew that I was socially you know, I didn’t realize it exactly, but I was ultimately kind of suffering and recovering from the trauma.

I wasn’t angry at my parents per se, but it does impact you. And what camp really did for me and back then everyone went for eight weeks, it created like an intimacy and an intensity. So in eight weeks over multiple summers, I was able to catch up with kids my age socially again, both with guys and girls.

And then ultimately. Really kind of go to the more capable end of of social skills. Thanks to the environment that camp created. So for me, camp was just a critical part of my life, in terms of my friendships and really my happiness overall. So great topic.

[00:08:21] Nina: One last voicemail before we get to the interview with Dara is from a camp director at Camp Marimeta I was so thrilled to hear her leave a voicemail. I went to Camp Chippewa, which is another camp, not far from Marimeta at all, but my best friend, Taryn, who has been on the show a handful of times, just a very special, wise woman went to Marimeta and loved that camp. her daughter goes there too. So interesting to hear from a camp director, what she has to say about the really special benefits of camp friendships.

[00:08:54] Jami: My name is Jamie and I’m the owner and director of Camp Marimeta for Girls, located in Eagle River, Wisconsin. I believe so strongly in Camp Friends because at camp you have shared experiences with your friends over such a short period of time. You have fun, silly, amazing, awesome, Awesome memories that you make together, but you also encounter challenges together that could be missing home or, enduring a challenging overnight camping trip having to problem solve with a cabin mate because there’s a disagreement and going through those experiences, both good and bad together forms really long lasting bonds. Camps by nature are designed to be supportive and inclusive. And so we encourage kids to be themselves without the pressures that they might face at home or in other settings. And it really creates a safe space for authentic connections. lastly, your campers are just different from your home friends.

At camp, there’s no pressure to look or do certain things. You can have a carefree friendship. You’re also connecting with others from different places, with different backgrounds, different races, different religions. it really allows you to connect on an authentic level and build relationships for years and years and years to come.

[00:10:05] Nina: and now it is time to talk to Dara Levan, who is the author of It Could Be Worse, which has a big storyline set at camp. She is a long time writer, storyteller, and podcaster of the podcast, Every Soul Has a Story.

Hi, Dara. Welcome to Dear Nina.

[00:10:23] Dara: Hello, thank you so much for having me on. This is such an honor privilege and I’m really excited. I know we’re going to have a really fun conversation.

[00:10:31] Nina: It’s been a long time coming. I was on your podcast. Probably a few years ago already. And we were just getting to know each other then. And we’re a good example of people who were just intrigued by each other online because we’re both writers and interested in some of the same topics. we got to know each other and that’s how it works. You have to do something to get to know somebody off the screen.

[00:10:52] Dara: And interesting you say that because the whole idea of connecting with people online totally freaked me out for a long time. I was very, very private until recently. I still am really. I’m so grateful for finally being brave enough, at least for me it felt brave, to put myself out there more and reach out to people like you, because I have developed such incredible friendships that began online that really have been nourished offline.

[00:11:16] Nina: Exactly. And it takes that action and you’re, you’re good at that. I didn’t know you before you weren’t good at that. our topic today is camp friendships, , before we get there, I want my listeners to understand why you are my guest for this topic.

And you just had a book come out called, It Could Be Worse. it is a book that has a lot of difficult family elements in it. difficult parents, a really difficult childhood for the main character, Allegra. But there is one special camp relationship that probably saves Allegra. Can you tell my listeners, a bit about your book.

[00:11:47] Dara: So it could be worse takes place in modern day Miami. I’m a rare Miami native, so not much research there. And it’s also has some pivotal flashbacks to a music camp in Northern Michigan that was very much inspired by my own eight summers at Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Allegra, my main character, her parents only call her because they’re very formal and that sort of. Detailed in the novel and as her story unfolds, she meets her best, best friend Ruby in her camp in the woods, and that becomes her safe person, her safe space. She doesn’t know it at the time, which is what I think is so fascinating about childhood friendships, whether it’s in camp, whether it’s in elementary school. Sometimes we don’t know as these little beings, as we evolve and we awaken and we become, we don’t really know, but we see Allegra and Ruby as kids performing on stage, getting their periods, having all these shared experiences. We also see them as adults. They mother together and Ruby continues to be her support and her mirror as a really good friend, I feel does as an adult as well.

[00:12:50] Nina: A couple of things without giving anything away, but especially as it relates to camp, they’re both therapists. Right, Ruby and Allie, so she goes by Allie by her friends in the book, I found it fascinating that because they’re out of town friends, they only are camp friends They only mostly see each other in the summer. There is a scene where Ruby tells Allie a memory she has of visiting Allie when they were kids just the things that she was seeing in Allie’s home and the perspective she was able to have as this outside friend who lives in a completely different community she was able to tell adult Allie, hey, That wasn’t normal, like, and I knew it.

I even knew it as a kid. It didn’t take me being a therapist to know it as an adult. I mean, I’m putting words in Ruby’s mouth, but that’s how I saw that scene, that Ruby was like, I didn’t need to be an adult to know that something was not right in your house.

[00:13:41] Dara: I love what you’re sharing there, not only on the page in my novel, but off the page. I could speak to that as a parent. I have a boy and a girl. I know you have 4 kids. They’re these little sensors. Sometimes they don’t know they can’t put into word. There’s like this, or that person doesn’t feel safe or the opposite is true as well where maybe they go to a home when they’re little or a camp space where they feel more joy than they perhaps were used to. I love that you brought up that scene Nina because for Allegra she was told how perfect her parents were bright by her parents, which is typical of narcissistic people so every time she went to camp she felt accepted. Didn’t matter her weight. Didn’t matter if she was the lead in the show.

Ruby accepted her with her whole heart and the rest of her bunk, and also interesting where we can connect with people at such almost like at a sister soul level, even for different, Allie and Ruby are night and day. Allie is more of a pleaser. She’s a goody two shoes. Ruby’s like this badass, her total foil. She really brings out in her and kind of unleashes her free spirit that really wasn’t allowed at home.

[00:14:44] Nina: there are several points about the magic of camp I want us to talk about really fast. I want to know how a girl from Miami ended up at a camp in Michigan. I’m a Midwesterner, so it’s totally normal for us Midwestern kids to go to camps in Michigan and Wisconsin and Minnesota. We don’t get a lot of Florida kids up here for our camps. So how did that happen?

[00:15:03] Dara: Interlochen is an institution. It’s almost a hundred years old, actually. I was always one of those creatives. My parents used to always say, Oh, she’s our little free spirit, our little hippie girl. I learned about Interlochen from several different people. I wanted to leave Florida. I wanted even nine year old little Dara.

I wanted to go somewhere different. And then that extended beyond camp. I ended up going to Indiana university. And I spent a summer as a reporter in Dayton, Ohio. So I’ve always been one just as an individual to want to push the limits. most of my friends went to Jewish camps. Mine was the complete antithesis.

I was bunking for eight summers with kids from 70 different foreign countries. It was incredible. And so I learned so much about who I was and who I wasn’t. it was exposed to even things like very young, like divorce. My parents are still together, thankfully, almost 50 years. But this girl, Lisa, I don’t want to say her last name.

I remember that summer I was 10. so my mother tells me, I wrote a long letter home saying, I appreciate you. I saw so much dysfunction in this home that I didn’t experience. camp also exposes you not only to different cultures, different perspectives, but also people bring from their home into their summer home.

There’s sort of this fusion of, experiences and almost like a molding because for that one summer, whether it’s a week, whether it’s four weeks, whether it’s eight weeks, especially in such a diverse camp in which I was in, you have these common grounds, but we all come from somewhere. I mean, I find that even as an adult, even when you leave where you’re from, you are who you are.

And sometimes that becomes more clear. when you’re in a camp situation where you have these common grounds, but also ones that are not so common. And that’s, I think that’s where growth really happens is in those uncomfortable spaces.

[00:16:49] Nina: you bring up another important point about the different kinds of camps. So you went to really a specialty camp. So it was a theater camp well, theater music.

[00:16:57] Dara: Music, visual art, dance.

[00:16:58] Nina: that is very different from the kind of camp I went to and the kind of camp my kids go to. I went to a different kind of camp than my kids . So I haven’t talked about camp. I don’t think in any episodes, I’m going to tell you a little bit about my

[00:17:09] Dara: Yay, I can’t wait to

[00:17:10] Nina: Yes, I went for eight summers to Chippewa Ranch Camp for Girls. That was the full name. No one really calls it that. They just call it Chippewa. Chippewa is an Eagle River, Wisconsin, a lot of the Chicago kids, which is where I grew up in the North Shore suburbs. A lot of us went to camps in Wisconsin, and a lot of us went to single sex camps. A lot of my friends went to different girls camps. I went with a couple of my very close friends from growing up, but then we met girls, it tended to be Chicago girls, Milwaukee and Shaker Heights, Ohio, like those three towns.

There were other places, but that’s what happens in these camps is some families start and then those people’s neighbors go the next summer and so on and siblings and cousins. And so you end up with these little communities. They’re not that big these camps, maybe a couple hundred girls, very different than the kind of camp my kids go to, which is a Jewish camp co ed.

The boy girl thing really is a big part of their summer. Whereas a girl’s camp, that was not a big part of the summer. We would have socials with boys camps nearby couple of times a summer, but other than that, it was just girls. And I thought that was really a cool way to grow up.

[00:18:21] Dara: That’s beautiful.

[00:18:22] Nina: I loved it. I loved going for eight summers, but one place I never got to fulfill maybe a lifelong vision I had, I never got to be on staff. When it got to be that summer and two of my four kids will be on staff this summer at their co ed camp, I never got to be on staff because when it got to be that age, my mom felt like, all right, enough.

and she wasn’t wrong. She was a camp person too. She’s from the East Coast and she went to East Coast camps. she kind of felt like eight years, it’s enough. Go do something else, work or go on a trip. They were willing to send me on, one of these teen tours that kids do. And then once you leave, that’s kind of, that’s that.

[00:18:57] Dara: actually I went back. So same thing they said enough, eight summers. And I basically got myself a job in the PR and marketing department. Between my sophomore and junior year of college. I needed to go, I had to go back. I had to. It was amazing. And I worked with the kids. We did a yearbook, which was my jam anyway, in high school. It was so much fun. And another thing I’ll throw on as far as, which is unusual, we had uniforms. So it didn’t matter. They were corduroy knickers. Anyone who went to Interlochen remembers that swishy feeling of when they’re wet and stinky, and you’re coming back from a performance. But I’ll tell you what was so important.

It leveled the playing field. So camp, especially I think in the last decade becomes competitive who the have and have not who’s wearing the popular brands. Now, mind you, this is in the eighties. I’m dating myself. I sound really antiquated. But still people would try and I remember the esprit sweatshirt I wanted so badly or like the Edwin jeans We were allowed for our socials once a week But we were all you didn’t know some half the camp could be on scholarships.

So I loved that also about Interlochen that leveling of you know, and then you’d have all these what’s called first chair violin. So like in an orchestra. You can’t all be first chair You have all these kids coming from around the world that are all so talented. It’s very humbling. And so whether it’s a performing arts camp where I attended or all girls camp, I think camp also that experience can be quite humbling to realize, Hey, I’m not the best at this, or I also need to improve in this. There’s this intense, at least for me, there was an intense growth and intense connection that you really can’t replicate.

[00:20:38] Nina: that word, that word is huge because I put out a call for voicemails a lot of notes I got. I got emails. I got voice messages about camp and the word intense. Was probably in half of them and it’s in every kind of way, like you’re talking about an intensity of learning and growing and changing and having to challenge yourself, be humbled.

And there’s that. And then there’s the intensity of friendship. And I think it’s because of the time, you cannot replicate, not even college, which is also a lot of time, but there’s a lot of kids and you’re also have classes and there’s just a lot going on in college. Camp is living together. With people at first that you don’t know and eventually you get to know them and then you have to continue to get along With them even if you don’t like them sometimes that’s worse as summers goes on Because you know, you don’t like them and you still have to get

[00:21:27] Dara: it’s so hard. And then I, looking back as an adult, and also just the research I did for my book, I’m thinking about how, I had to teach my kids to, especially my daughter, hurt people. Hurt people, meaning there’s always a kid in the bunk where either they were socially awkward or they were shy or much, much more impactful and perhaps destructive than that, a bully, right? Why? They might’ve come from a home where they didn’t feel love. And so how do you give love if you aren’t love, right? Or loved. there’s also navigating that also in camp where you have to figure it out. Also, I was thinking about body image, especially for girls, right? They’re going through puberty, body shaming. You know, you have to get ready at least most camps.

I know there’s lake time or water time, whenever you called it at your camp and putting on your bathing suit or getting out of the shower. And oh my gosh. My body’s changing. You know, you’re 10 11 12. Some people, they’re developing faster. Some people not at all. There’s that whole element. Also, that kind of, I think, prepares you in some ways for college when you’re living in a dorm. How do you navigate that?

[00:22:30] Nina: You’re bringing back so many memories for me, both good and bad. They started bad and got good, which is, I hadn’t even thought about that, but it’s so true. I definitely developed early. so that was hard. I was so shy. I think to this day, cause when I put out a call for voicemails and messages, I asked for the positive and the negative nobody else had brought this up as a negative, but I’m glad you brought it up because it was a negative for me.

And to this day, I’m really modest when I’m sharing dressing rooms with people. I hate even Artizia. Do you know this? Do you have the store Aritizia in Miami? It’s a it’s a great store and you have your own dressing room, but it’s a common mirror space Like there’s no mirrors in the dressing room. You have to come out. I just even to this day do not like that kind of public I mean at least you’re dressed butI hate getting undressed in front of

[00:23:17] Dara: same. We had a place called Loehmann’s Plaza.

[00:23:20] Nina: Oh, I know, Loehmann’s

[00:23:21] Dara: oh, my gosh. I mean, you would come out and you were literally parading in front of people. It was horrible.

[00:23:27] Nina: I wonder if we’re traumatized from camp. I’m gonna get to the part where it’s a good memory because there is a positive. I’m also the youngest of three girls and we all shared a bathroom and I think I just craved privacy, I guess. So in my whole life, I just I love privacy. I like privacy. I didn’t like that I was the first to have everything but then later And it’s funny that I’m now in this advice gig in a way. People would come to me. I think I taught every girl my age at Camp Chippewa how to shave their legs, how to use a tampon. Like I was that person. So it was embarrassing at first, but then it was sort of like, okay, I know something. I know something you don’t know. And I was able to teach other people. So that was the positive I became a leader in a development, I guess.

[00:24:11] Dara: the whole thing, too. You know, friendship has always been so important to me, even when I was a little girl, like, I call my friends my framily because they are. that really, I think, was very much fostered in camp as well. There are people I stayed in touch with over the years. I just had, this is like, I have the chills, the most amazing, good kind of. I have been in touch since I published this book, what, just two months ago.

I’ve had three people from camp I haven’t heard from in 40 years, Nina, just one yesterday. I started crying. Oh my gosh, I just read your book and I remember, you know, blah, blah, blah at Interlochen because the camp and the book is called Camp Intermezzo. So I know, super creative, haha.

[00:24:47] Nina: That’s cute. That’s cute.

[00:24:48] Dara: You know, it was, it’s so amazing how these, this longevity, these, what may feel like a temporary relationship or interaction or connection really transcends time.

I mean, I just met with someone when I was in New York for the book. She was one of my favorite people in camp ever. I haven’t seen her in 40 years. we squealed like two little 10 year olds all over again. We met just for an hour and it meant so much to have that. There’s something so powerful that there’s a pull to your past that also sort of informs your present. I think if we sit and think about it, camp or not, how friendship really impacts us. in those intense summers, you really learn who you want to be, who you don’t want to be. You know, you might see so and so and think, Oh my gosh, I’d never do that.

Or, Oh, what a great idea. Or let me take a risk and push myself more, whether it’s emotionally or a physical thing, if it’s a sports camp. But I think there’s that thread of intensity and also, above all, to me, connection.

[00:25:46] Nina: The intensity is, like we said, in the time and the kind of friendships you can make. And the reason you can make friendships like that, even more so today, I think, than when we were kids. There’s a number one reason, and this is a very popular topic. Jonathan Haidt’s book, the anxious generation has been making the rounds for a reason. There’s a lot of talk and he’s not the only one talking about the amount of time, two things that the kids are on screens, obviously, also that the kids have so little autonomy nowadays. they’re so overscheduled.

Parents are scared to let their kids do anything on their own. And so a camp. It solves both of those issues. You can take risks. You can try activities you’ve never tried. You’re not on a screen and you don’t have your parents hovering over you all the time. These issues we have during the school year are magically gone every summer, if your kids are privileged enough to be a

[00:26:35] Dara: Right. That’s the whole thing too. And I’d add another component is creating. And it doesn’t matter where you are. It could be a sports camp. It could be all girls. It could be co ed because we are unplugging and we’re not, you know, our kids are not constantly looking down or basically not being present.

You can’t be present if you’re constantly online. Right. So you’re creating, whether you’re making little bracelets, whether you’re creating plays, whether you’re creating, you know, fourth of July. We used to do this thing where they put shaving cream and pass the watermelon. You can’t possibly have all these experiences when you’re constantly plugged in.

And it’s kind of this forced pause, at least the camps that I personally know about and love. And there’s so many types and no judgment, you know, there’s day camp too. I did that also. I think any kind of, even if you’re a Boy Scout or a Girl Scout, we could even go into that. I didn’t really do that. My son was a Boy Scout for like five minutes, but the time we did it, it was lovely.

And camping, just the getting away from the daily grind, the pressures, the cliques. Now that’s not to say there’s no cliques in camp. That is

[00:27:39] Nina: Lots of cliques.

[00:27:40] Nina: don’t even get me started.

[00:27:42] Dara: But I will tell you, that’s something I always shied away from Nina. I mean, even as a young girl, I’ve never been a group person as much as I am supposedly an extrovert. I wonder, sometimes I really love one on one meaningful friendships. And I found that at camp and I saw that my own kids, they went to different camps, sleep away. my son, just he’s 22. He just graduated from college. He just saw his camp friend that they met when they were eight.

[00:28:04] Nina: Nice.

[00:28:05] Dara: that’s beautiful

[00:28:06] Nina: I love that stuff.

[00:28:07] Dara: Uh, Yes.

[00:28:13] Nina: you know, those first year or two of camp has a certain magic that sometimes as the kids get older and your friends are more set. Even your camp friends are more set. It starts to be a lot more stress of who am I requesting to be in a cabin?

That part I could do without. I really, just as a parent now, cause as a kid, my camp was kind of small. I think there were only two cabins per age group. And as we got older and kids started to go do other things, there was just one cabin per age group. So then this whole, who’s going to be in my cabin was not even a thing.

It’s a huge thing at my kids co ed camp. And I don’t love that idea element of it because they are start thinking about it halfway through the school year. it bugs me. I don’t know if other camps have that as much. And there can be a lot of stress about, the pictures, who’s in the pictures together. Um, that’s another thing we didn’t have, right. When we were at camp.

[00:29:05] Dara: I mean, my, and I found myself getting caught up in it. Refresh, refresh. My husband and I were away on a trip to Italy for the first time. He’s like, what are you doing? It was, you know, midnight and I need to see my kids. I was, I think it’s terrible. I’ll be blunt. It was terrible.

You know what, let them do what they’re going to do. going back to something you said, I think it’s really important. I thought about actually thinking about our conversation today. It’s inclusivity. That is just such a high value for me as an adult as well. And I love that about camp. And I don’t like this whole requesting this requesting that. You’re supposed to, again, in my opinion and experience, which is just this little blip.

But as you know, I feel passionately about camp and friendship having different points of view, being with people who are not like you. that’s the beauty of it, right? That, and it’s good to be uncomfortable. That’s, I really believe that’s how we expand our, our consciousness. That’s how we grow empathy.

And I just feel this whole, like, in all the pictures. Oh my gosh. I. There’s so much to say about that.

[00:30:03] Nina: I know. It’s so funny. I came into this conversation feeling it’s nothing you’re saying. I’m now I’m giving it more thought. I mean, it’s both of us feeling very, very like positive and nostalgic. I am very positive and nostalgic, but there are certain things. That are true now that, well, I guess one thing was true then too, but like the cabin request, the, who are you going to sit with on the bus on the way you obviously flew to your camp. Um, but we took buses to Wisconsin and my kids take buses to Wisconsin and that’s a big thing. Like who’s going to be on the bus. And, um, I’ve talked about in the podcast before, never will I forget the day my daughter was supposed to sit with someone on the bus and then that person ditched her that day.

I had to learn. She was actually okay. I had to learn to grow and be like, okay, she’ll be, she’ll be okay. Sometimes our kids get disappointed. we learned to as, as parents, how to let go just like kids when they go learn how to be more on their own. Obviously the staff watches them carefully and everything, but they really get to experiment with the kind of person they want to be and how they manage in the world.

So that’s all a really good thing, but there are these growing pains. One other element, by the way, Of camp that is different than school in high school. You get this proximity, not just to people in your cabin. That’s true too. And that’s where that intensity comes from, but older kids. So I admired these older girls.

I’m friends with some of them on Facebook now, but they’re still to me. Oh, these are older. Cause I had kids that span. My kids are From 12, they’re 19 right now. And so some of these older, campers, I remember they were probably on staff, maybe have a kid the same age as my oldest or something. And so they ended up in a summer program together out of town or whatever.

And it’s like, Oh, I admire them so much.

[00:31:48] Dara: well that’s another thing too. You have role models. I was going to touch on that. Like counselors. You know, maybe a coach, performance instructor, a swimming teacher. And yes, like I remember it’s for us, it was called junior girls back then. I went when I was nine and oh my God, the high school girls were so cool.

I was like, God, they get to see up an hour later and You know, I think that’s beautiful too, because sort of that scaffolding and they call it in education, we call that where you’re also learning almost in direct learning. By seeing people interact and the socialization in the cafeteria, you know, all of that is, it’s awesome. I remember that too. I remember that exact feeling. I know what you’re speaking about.

[00:32:26] Nina: I still feel it if I see their pictures and different than you would have in school. Cause like a high school is ninth through 12th grade, right? And middle school is different. else is a fifth grader, a sixth grader, a fourth grader have such proximity? To a 16 year old unless you have a sibling, you know, it’s pretty uncommon

[00:32:44] Dara: reading, I wouldn’t say exactly this, but Sweet Valley High, one of those teen books, but you get to see it.

[00:32:49] Nina: Oh, yeah

[00:32:50] Dara: it’s like, Ooh,

[00:32:51] Nina: We definitely learned some things we weren’t supposed to learn too I mean I definitely remember learning things from counselors and different things like you you come out of camp With a lot of stuff when my kids come home. I’m always like, oh gosh What did what did they learn this summer who especially because it’s a co ed camp, you know, like who knows what what education they got?

What other last thoughts before we? You Windown, do you want to share with listeners about camp and, why it was important to you to have that in your book?

[00:33:19] Dara: Oh, thank you. That’s a great question. I appreciate you asking it. we have life events that happen and it could be any time, a death, a birth, a divorce, whatever it is. Life events happen, right? My, one of my grandparents died, which I did put in the book. The book is obviously fiction, it’s a novel, but like any novelist, we do draw from emotional truths and all kinds of experiences.

Personal, not personal, research. Going back to the beginning when we spoke about intensity, camp is not just a safe space, but it becomes almost like this cradle. And this nourishing place where your friends can show up for you in a way that it might not happen at home because of the 24 hour interaction.

Even when you’re sleeping, you run into someone going to the restroom in the middle of the night, or you play a joke on someone or whatever. the resilience, it’s something I write about. It’s woven throughout my novel. It’s in all my blogs, my own podcast. A lot of resilience comes from camp. And I feel that’s a very positive word.

Some people see that negatively, just like the word boundaries used to be so negative. I think it’s a very positive thing. You become who you’re meant to be. And you’re with people who see you at all phases of life, all versions of you. And it, especially if we’re fortunate and blessed enough, like we weren’t enough to go back summer after summer. Who I was at nine was not much different than at 16 in my core values or who I am at almost 50, but we do evolve physically.

We evolve in our relationships, our maturation, our life experience. And so for me, camp was, I was so excited to go. And it was almost like this amazing check in. You hadn’t seen your friends in 10 months. And back then we didn’t have FaceTime. We wrote each other letters, believe it or

not, right. Which I love running to the mailbox and just hearing about my friend, getting on the phone and sneaking into my bedroom with this long, like cord that was like 40 feet long, tucking in.

Cause I didn’t have a phone in my room and my parents were smart because they know I’d be on it 24 seven. So yeah, camp for me was, such a joyful place. Almost like a learning laboratory, but most of all, a place of community and connection. And it’s where I realized that friends are so important to me, friendship, friend. My friends are my family. I know that’s trite, but it’s how I live. I’ve had friends of several decades and I take it really seriously. And that’s really where I think the bud that is now blossomed into what’s part of my DNA really started in camp.

[00:35:37] Nina: I love that. That’s a beautiful place to end. Thank you for summarizing that up. So just perfectly, I feel the same way about just having learned so much at camp, how important those summers were. I had other summer kind of experiences that, were really fun and cool, but Barely remember the people like those summer trips.

I referred to it. It’s like I remember the one friend I went with But not the ones we met because it was fleeting. It was a three week trip. It was a four week thing. It was a tennis camp. I did that one time for a couple of weeks. Very different than that summer, after summer, after summer. It’s a magical, challenging and sometimes, but a magical time.

Dara, thank you so much. The book is It Could Be Worse. And I know I’ll see you off screen, so I’ll say goodbye for now, and I may end our episode with one more, uh, voicemail from a camp lover, so stay tuned.

[00:36:32] Dara: Thank you so much, Nina, for having me on your amazing podcast. It’s been so much fun and I love conversing with you both online and offline. And I’m grateful that we are friends.

[00:36:44] Nina: Aw, thanks, me too. Bye!

[00:36:46] Nina: Wow talking to Dara brought up some camp memories I hadn’t thought of in a long time, and I have a few more voicemails to play. I am so glad that people left their thoughts. Let’s listen to those.

[00:37:00] anonymous: I have so much I could say about the lifelong friendships that I made at camp, but one thing that I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older that is so special is reconnecting with camp people who were not necessarily my closest friends while I was a camper or even on staff. I’ve found that this type of reconnection is so much more rich than I could have imagined.

Even though we were not super close as kids, we shared a significant experience together, and as adults who might not otherwise have much in common, We still have such a strong connection, foundation, and understanding of each other. I could give a million different examples, but just one. During COVID, with masks on, I was in my local Trader Joe’s.

A woman that I went to camp with runs the store and had just moved back. Since I couldn’t see her whole face, it wasn’t until I saw her name tag that I was 100 percent sure it was her. But before you know it, we were hugging in the middle of the frozen food section. I was in near tears and everyone was staring. We hadn’t seen each other in over 20 years and life took us in very different directions. But in that moment, it was as if no time had passed at all.

[00:38:05] Carly: Hi Nina. My name is Carly I went to summer camp for 15 years, starting at the age of eight. I was a camper and then a staff member and then a supervisor. the camp I went to is a very large Jewish summer camp in Michigan it’s a non profit.

So I’m now on their board of directors and the executive committees. Greatest friendships started at camp. the camp I went to was called Tamarack. the very first year that I went, I shared a bunk bed with my friend Katie, who I’d known since we were two. a girl named Valerie had the bed right next to me. And I became great friends we lived together in college. We were freshman year roommates. We’re still very close friends I really chalk all of that friendship up to that, that first summer. When we had bunk beds next to each other. And I have such vivid memories of wearing cow printed biker shorts and watching Valerie fall off of her top bunk. We still talk about our memories from when we were eight and those camp friendships.

[00:39:05] Nina: Thank you to everyone who participated in this episode. Thanks for being here listeners. I will see you next week. We have lots of fun summer episodes coming up. I hope you’re doing something fun to enjoy your friendships this summer. If you do have kids going to camp and you find yourself with a little extra time at home, That is fantastic.

Enjoy that. I am going to have a little bit of that myself this summer. I have a couple working at camp. I have a couple going to camp. That is pretty amazing. It doesn’t always line up like that. wishing you a great week when our friendships are going well, whether at home or a camp or any season, we are happier all around.

Bye.