Kaufman 1

Sarah Kaufman
Mrs. Crichton
AP Language
07 November 2013
Home
For as long as I could remember, I had no faith in chairs. None. Like the innocence of a
child, my faith in chairs existed for a short period of my life before that mindset became merely a
memory. Too many times had I gone to sit in a chair and fallen to the uncaring floor in its
absence. I trained myself to always double-check, to make certain that the chair was not plotting
against me, before I sat in it. Sometimes, these little habits, the things we considered sad-but-true
facts of life were actually horrors shrouded in normality. Only in one place were my eyes
opened, my lies unmasked.
In my early days, at school, I never made any real friends. Not one. I always wondered
why, because I wasnt really very different from anyone else. Was I? What made me such a
social outlier? It took me a good six, seven years to realize that if nobody liked me I was
probably doing something wrong. And whatever this wrongness was, it followed me around
everywhere I went. Including camp. Camp Campbell.
I loved camp. Camp was where adolescents went to not feel like adolescents. I still
couldnt make friends, but I was not-making-friends in an entirely new setting! So naturally I
assumed it was better. It wasnt. Along with a sleeping bag, flashlight, and camera (for the
memories), I brought all the constraints of normal life. I was fine. (So I thought.)
Two summers ago, I made the bold decision to venture into uncharted territory. A
different camp. I picked Camp Redwood.
Kaufman 2
So I packed up my clothes, my bug spray, and my mindset, and got on a bus bound for
Sequoia Lake.While my bug spray, thankfully, stayed by my side, my mindset must have slipped
away during the swim test, spiralling down into the opaquely green water as the campers and
counselors cheered for their cabin mates with some unknown fervor (Which I would later
recognize as honesty).
I was quite confused by this new development. The only shred of normalcy I could find
in this world of unknowns was a girl in my cabin. She didnt like me. (Or so I thought.) She
disagreed everything I said. Which was fine.
A good example of this was roll-call. (Which was always taken just outside the cove of
cabins, in front of the dining hall, where smaller campers would kick up the greyish-brown dust
that highlighted the rays of sunlight which peaked through the trees.) I suggested a cheer-- she
shot it down like a bird that had yet to take flight. Fine. I suggested something else-- she shot it
down again. It wasnt until she took aim at another girls idea that I decided this needed to stop.
If you dont like any of our ideas, why dont you come up with one of your own?
She stared at me, faade of nonchalance firmly in place, and shrugged. Fine, lets do one
of yours then. With the conflict resolved for neither the first nor last time, we went to lunch.
The mess hall was a jovial gathering place, and no meal was eaten in silence. Sometimes,
the cacophony of camp songs filled the air, but mostly it was a gorgeous mix of laughter and
excitement, conversation and joy. The long tables were stood parallel to the far window, with
benches on either side. Benches, not chairs. Surrounding each were the campers from each cabin,
ranging from pig-tail-age girls to scruffy-chinned boys. It was nearly perfect, if not for the daily
clash that plagued my table.
On Wednesday, my cabin-mate went too far. She said something to a counselor,
Kaufman 3
something rude, no doubt, and one of our leaders took her aside to talk. Half an hour later, the
leader returned, but without my cabin-mate. She told me I wasnt in trouble.
I didnt know where we were going, but when we got there I recognized it immediately.
It was the stage. The stage was where we held campfire. It wasnt much of a stage, it was mostly
just a collection of wooden planks which rose less than a foot off the dirt. Two fire pits stood
sentry on either side, and a wooden sign above it proclaimed REDWOOD, as if we could ever
forget where we were. The sparks from last nights fire were long lost to morning dew and time
itself, but the charred edges seemed to invite the flames in, as if fire were the missing piece of
some immortal puzzle. The stage had a similar affinity for music, I found.
I also found that the mask whom Id been arguing with minutes before had dispersed,
leaving behind a girl who had tears escaping her steel reserve. I immediately tried to apologize
for being so unkind at roll-call, but she only laughed. Then she did something completely
unexpected. She apologized. After a moment of incredulity, I told her that it was fine, really. She
didnt laugh again, but she might as well have from the look she shared with our leader. I was
more confused. I used that word, they told me, far too much, and far too freely, because anyone
who looked at me could see it was a lie. Its fine, were fine, Im fine.
Much like my faith in chairs, my mentality, my view of the world, my coping
mechanism, fell to pieces before me. I simply broke. It was fine, though, I told her, totally fine,
because you arent the only you, there are dozens of you and none of them like me, so it must be
something Im doing, something I need to fix because otherwise Ill be alone forever
Someone hugged me. As hard as it was to accept that there was something wrong with
me, it was even harder to accept that there wasnt. I could only have done it at Camp Redwood.
As the week drew to an end, the sun sank behind the mountains, a masterpiece of color
Kaufman 4
and fire brilliant in the sky. The epitome of light reflected in the mirror-perfect lake with only the
tiniest distortion in the orange and red to distinguish it from the real thing. We all sat on benches
and sang long into the night. (The darkness illustrating the purest of nights while the stars graced
the surface of it with invitingly vivid porch lights, as if to say Welcome Home.)
And as I sang, I realized-- I dont need to have faith in chairs if I can have faith in the
people who hold them in place.






Word Count: 1100