Huddled - a 9/11/ remembrance

(Writer's Note: I was with about 100 other campers at Camp Cedar Glen in Julian, CA when the 9/11 attacks happened.)

    All throughout the Monday night campfire, there's this creeping unease that's about as wary-making as a childhood premonition the night before the back of Grandma Crow's house caught on fire. It's palpable but not super-imposing--things just feel weird. Maybe it's because we're using the outdoor chapel at the top of the hill instead of the fire pit down at the bottom of the hill like usual. Fire season is bad this year, so our only choice is to have our fires up here in a containment bern. Everything else feels fine and Monday night games are fun like usual, so the feeling gets shrugged off and then forgotten. After a parusing of the snack counter and giving a few hugs, it's time to call it a night.

    As I step outside the door of Cedar Glen cabin and walk across the way to Camerer Hall for breakfast, the sun warms the bones evenly. We have two new groups of campers: Spanish-speaking and active duty military, twelve each. However, to my surprise and then disappointment, I walk up to the military campers all huddled around a small, portable teevee and think to myself, “Why are these guys all here glued to this box? Can't they leave it down the hill for a few days?” I had no idea of the jaw-dropper that had just happened on the East Coast. They were huddled around this teevee hearing news none of us had known in almost sixty years; planes have flown into World Trade Towers 1 & 2 and the Pentagon, the only other information we have is in the form of two internet stories, copies and posted on a whiteboard on the outside patio of Camerer. 

    We all file in the dining hall quietly, and breakfast prayer is given in numb, whispered tones. We have all been shocked into soft speech this morning, and the nature of this tragedy will take all day to sink in. The gazebo becomes a designated meeting place for people to come and sort out what this means to them, how their future will change. It's the sort of self-centered panic thoughts you expect to hear after a catastrophe. Some say our President wants to make war because his poll numbers are down, others feel the sting of so much life lost. Some express grief for family and friends they have near Ground Zero, others express ironic relief at being tucked away here in the mountains. The world down the hill has been flipped and dragged from behind, but we have each other so we're almost better off. Camp isn't cancelled, and in fact, if it gets any worse, we may have to stay here indefinitely. The most jarring memory I have is of Nurse-Skip, a fellow staffer and retreat mentor, as he stares into the camera for a picture. His eyes have become a vacant, glossed over void. PTSD has set in and he is back in the trenches in Vietnam. A former camper is up to present a morning workshop and tell an eerie tale of driving on a deserted highway. I have no way to conceive of I-8 or I-67 totally empty, and just sit quiet, wide-eyed, as it all continues to sinks in. 

    As staff, we pretty much have to change the program completely, no longer able to talk about just how things are going so far. And yet, something special starts happening. We know exactly what has happened and we're talking about it, but we all start to feel something fall over the whole camp. We feel united, actually drawn closer together by this tragedy. We take care of each other and offer hugs and shoulders and smiles, laughter even when in the pool. This happens to a certain degree in any year, but this year our familial bond is on loudspeaker.

    Tuesday night's campfire “In Celebration and Remembrance” has that much extra weight on it. We do not sit and keen, spectating helplessly; no, each family group makes a point to memorialize those who have been lost in the towers. Our military campers have made a point to remind us that we will be protected. Our Spanish-speaking campers make it a point to remind us that “todos somos familia.” Our love grows hot and bright like a new star, which from accreting spacedust forms into a new planet. A planet where love is the Highest Law. 

    We take this energy down into the craft hall, still solemn but also exuberant to have taken this night back from evil. A new friend who sticks tight walks with me back to Cedar Glen before continuing on up the hill to his cabin. I plug in a small boom box and try to tune in to any station with any update on who or why an hear the name Osama bin Laden for the first time. In bed and under the covers, anxiety fades away just long enough for sleep to be an answered prayer. 

    Five hours later, early rise is a minor miracle. We're the Galaxies family group and we serve breakfast with one other group. There is a strong residue of yesterday still in the air, but we're all still intent on moving forward. I stay a few moments after the last camper leaves to wipe down the table and seats and then walk back to Cedar Glen to tune in for more updates, anxiety growing ever stronger in its hunger to sink its hooks in. NOOOOO! I have to break away! No use in waiting to hear every minute detail. I can not let fear take over my mind. Walkman in hand, volume up full, I stand and then dance, if for nothing else but to shake the fear loose from my body. “Wake Your Mind Up” is a clarion call is ice water to my face. That's life. I gotta roll through anyway.