Well, I haven’t dropped any cookies in my trashcan this evening, and I loathe following Tater’s talent in any sort of writing endeavor, but I am compelled to put down some thoughts for the Chanco Once blog. I have found myself thinking a lot about Chanco lately…

As the years go by, I find my summers by the James more and more difficult to discern from my wonderful, golden dreams of early childhood. Somehow, writing about the fading memories makes them real for me again. For a fleeting moment, I am back behind the old Dining Hall, sitting on a picnic table in the dappled sunlight on a clear summer afternoon, laughing with other counselors and campers at something I still cannot quite recall. It must have been close to 100 degrees, but we didn’t seem to mind. After a few weeks in Surry, we had become as accustomed to the muggy heat as we were to the dingy orange tint our white clothes had gradually taken on. Ours was the kind of laughter that brought tears to our eyes and made me think that we might not be able to stop. It was laughter borne from the freedom of youth, and innocence, and faith in the world. It feels good to remember that now…

And so I write to keep those beautiful memories alive. Some of them have already faded completely away, like a favorite pair of jeans worn threadbare over the years. I don’t want to let any more memories fade sadly away... And so I write. I write to bring back the smell of the old tents and the musty old cots and the damp, earthy scent of my trunk when I opened it at the end of the summer. I write to revisit a mid-summer night as I blow out a candle, leaning back in my bunk in Campsite John in the still, sweltering heat of July, praying for a breeze, listening to the cacophony of crickets and cicadas in the night. I write to bring back my dearest, closest friends, hugging and crying, laughing and singing, imagining that the heartaches of our lives then were the worst they would ever be… I smile as I remember now.

I write to chase the wind across the James, filling the sails on my Sunfish, daring me to ride on and on, to risk not getting back to the beach by nightfall. I write my way back into the eyes of a hopeful, trusting camper on opening day, seeing that they already miss their parents the way I did when I went away to camp for the first time. I see a glimmer of my own children’s eyes, struggling to be brave, to fight back tears. A lump swells in my throat, and yet I continue to write. I write my way back to the amphitheater, where we are dancing around the fire circle… tap-tap-tap-STEP tap-tap-tap-STEP… Drums beat in the treetops. Young voices, swirl up to heaven in song like smoke from the fire. The new join the old. Mattaponi… Pamunkey… Powhatan… Old Order…

I write to remember God’s grace… and I feel the warmth of the Chanco Spirit as it continues to course through my veins. Although times change and Chanco may feel far away, I’ll always know the way back. All I need is the time to remember… and I know I will be wrapped in the comfortable warmth of that spirit once more. It is mine… It is yours… It is ours forever.