Start Where I am Comfortable, Move to Where I struggle

after all of those fliers for healing circles around Portland, I can't use the word 'healing' without grimacing, and so instead I say about my summer, that it undid, unravelled, reset, restarted. As I left, the thoughts lingering were: gratitude, comfort, ease, transcendence, readiness and and fulfillment of ideals.

Buck's Rock is a city of tiny wooden cabins, hundreds of them, probably, 500 or so people bustling through their days, Working in small nooks, living in tiny enclaves. The young people, or rather their caretakers, pay a tremendous amount of money to be there, and the slightly-less young, the anyone-over-roughly-17, are themselves paid-if very little- to be the surrogate caretakers. Their jobs are very specific. They live with the young people, or they cook their food, they direct their plays, or sew their costumes, or instruct them in painting or video editing or sports. My job was to teach yarn crafts to whoever wandered up the hill to the weaving studio wanting to know. Some days I taught 15 crochet lessons, some days I waited and made hats for my friends.

This is by no means some Ultimate place, but like any other small and isolated community it takes on an other worldliness that makes it so important for those who stumble in to it and for whom it resonates. Returning to work there was accepting, if sheepishly, all the privilege that allowed me to be one of those people- my parents attentiveness and affluence that bought me a place of belonging in my 6 summers there.

If not healed than reset, restarted: my two month's returning did so much to make me feel composed and okay.

Some of this was no surprise: At Buck's Rock I felt like a good teacher. Because I was teaching skills I am well versed in, my days were filled with small revelations in how to teach better. Because of the ease with which I could navigate this strange institution, the ways rules and routines resurfaced from embedded teenage memory, I had strong opinions and the comfort to articulate them. Because many people already knew my name, it didn't take long for them to stop and wish to talk with me. I felt again like the world was interested in what I have to say.

Some ways I could not have anticipated, or two of them. Or one of them. I am filled with so much gratitude for the company of two new and old good friends. Zander, who came back to camp with me, and who I knew I was setting off to recharge a friendship with, and Jonah, who I had not even seen in 6 years, maybe, but who I knew immediately. within 12 hours. would be important to the journey I was about to go on for the summer. When people ask about my summer, there is no language that feels serious and real enough to explain how important they were to me. Maybe this will come to me with time. It doesn't feel sufficient to say that they were just really good friends.

And a million little ways: Thin walls that let the rain and wind through, so you are never quite inside. Grass and trees everywhere, sunshine for picnics for lunch. Endless arrangements of hundreds of colors of yarn, access to clay and glass and sewing machines and a million other arts I didn't have time to try. People to cook for me and do my laundry, so much free time and safety. Kind of being a kid again, but now I yearned for purpose and not for freedom, could fill my time with purpose because I'm some adult now, freedom is a given. I felt affirmed that I am not a child any longer.

Start where I am comfortable.
Move to where I struggle.

Two months was a luxurious chunk of time to revel, to accept all the affirmations available at buck's rock and to store it up, holes of doubt filled with resevoirs of confidence for the future when it will not be so easy.

I am moving to new york city, the week after next. I will run an after school art program at a magnet school on the lower east side. I am filled with doubt about these choices, but choosing to see them as imperfect and correct. What isn't easy also isn't wrong. Moving to the place I struggle wth most, moving towards actions and ideas that challenge me, making space for the friendships there with all of their non-idealness, incompletion, moving forward together with kerry committed to the space between him as a person and the unattainable ideal partnership, moving closer to my family and all the discomfort and challenge the details of each other brings up, moving towards art-making because ultimately there is no other option.

I couldn't stay at Buck's Rock forever, even if I wanted to, and yet/but also I happy that it is time to move on. There is no time I'll be more ready.