To My Fellow Camp Counselors
This is the first time in four years that I'm not packing up my wolf shirts, water bottle, bandanas and Bible to live with me in the forest for ten weeks. It's the strangest feeling and I've felt the urge to get in my car and drive to camp immediately at least twelve times in the last five days.
But perhaps you have packed. Maybe you are about to drive down the gravel road to the forest. From somebody with "professional sleeping bag roller, four years experience" on her resume, here are some words written just for you.
You may never know if your feet are dirty or if you have a Chaco tan line. It's probably both. Accept that as a badge of honor, just as you should accept being called "weird" as a characteristic of a superhero.
My friend, it takes a special breed of human to be a camp counselor. Congratulations, you have made the cut. Have all the coffee but have no expectations. Walk ten miles a day. It's really no biggie.
When a camper wakes you up at two in the morning because a wolf spider and her egg sack are creeping in the outhouse, please simply put a sign on the door directing them to the bathhouse instead. There are some spiders you can deal with. A wolf spider, her egg sack and an outhouse at 2 a.m. is not a circumstance you should have to deal with.
Be proud when your girls whisper to you that they peed clear because that means you made sure they're hydrated. Be jazzed when another tells you she was excited about having a frog in her shower. Make each day close, real and good. Make every day like one you haven't seen before. At some point it's going to be your 50th day of camp, but it will be your campers' first day.
Make up long jokes that don't make sense. Tell outrageous bedtime tales, even to the high schoolers. I promise they'll like it. Your campers will soak in every word of your stories, and they'll crave to share their own when they know they're in a safe space with you. You can either tune them out or listen hard. Choose to listen and love them deeply. Make them know they are seen by you and God because maybe they feel invisible back home. This is your chance to be a world changer.
Invest in the work. It's more valuable and more precious than you can even dream of. I beg you, make your God-given time on the fruitful camp soil worth it every day you're there. Don't sleepwalk while you're awake.
When you're a camp counselor, you build fires and campers come to them. Some nights they'll be one-match sculptural masterpieces. Other times you'll battle humidity so hard that you start frantically whispering prayers to God that your fire might start before the campers hike down the trail for worship.
Build your campfires. Figure out if you like the log cabin or teepee structure best. I personally like the cabin. Peel bark off logs for kindling and gather small twigs and dried foliage from the forest floor. Light your match or take the lighter from your backpack. Fan the flame once it begins to catch. You'll have to work to sustain your fire like you'll work to sustain your staff community.
Try as you might, you can't force connection and you won't always get along. When you haven't showered in three days, have 37 mosquito bits on just one leg, and another camp counselor is getting on your very last nerve, you may feel like you're barely holding onto the edge. Take a breather and then step back to the present. You never know what they're just barely holding on too, so please love each other hard. Be the light because your campers are always watching. You can't be a superhero camp counselor by yourself. You cannot do this life alone, and you're not called to.
Let hearts be changed during nightly campfire worship and let your lungs breathe in the woodsy air during night hikes. Watch in the forest for the nights when thousands of fireflies glimmer around the trees. That is pure camp magic.
Let campers call you their older brother or sister. Give them space for cabin talk because that's when community is formed. It's a good opportunity to share your own sweet wisdom about life, school, boys and faith.
Humble yourself. Seek God's will this summer and call on him so that you can speak truth and love to your campers. The last night of camp will roll around each week. You'll sit around the fire, tears flowing and the Holy Spirit dancing around you and you'll know for sure that God is sitting next to you on the log.
You might evolve into your best self at camp. Carry that person with you after you leave. The seemingly small things you do over the summer will indeed ripple out to spaces you may never even see. Plant the seeds anyways and trust that God will do the nurturing and harvest.
Be fearless in your faith. Carry bravery with you and dispel every lie you tell yourself -- that your hands are much too small to do the work, that you're incapable of being a world changer, that your actions are insignificant. My friend, God blankets you in grace and sufficiency. You're valuable, worthy and seen. Don't forget that for a second.
Take the Sabbath. God can usually renew your energy better than a nap can. God worked and rested, and took delight in both. You should too. Gift rest to your fellow camp counselors, but also ask them for help. Be careful to not stretch yourself too thin but don't be too relaxed in the work. Fight the battle to establish balance.
Promise to fail. It's okay. But don't let that consume you. Dig out anything that's not serving you or speaking to your faith this summer. Let God fill the holes. Keep lists of your victories and the God winks you see, both large and small.
Make camp your sanctuary. Make it the place you crave to go back to when you're in the real world and you need to find yourself again. Let camp serve you as you serve it. If your heart is open, camp can help you find your place in the world, a place where you can take your broken pieces, insecurities and messes. Find your tribe. Be forest dwellers and bed stealers. Be church goers, fire builders, life talkers and s'mores eaters.
The work you do as a camp counselor is good. You will change lives, whether you see it or not. Maybe you'll get an Instagram DM weeks after the summer ends saying that she wrote a school essay about how you're her role model and you made her feel seen.
My friend, you are about to spend the next ten weeks of your life as a camp counselor. You ARE ready. What you're going to do WILL matter. The time is s'now to be a world changer, my dear sweet skippy.
As a camp counselor of four summers, I am rooting for you so hard.
Much love and many cinnamon rolls,
Kate
Dry Bones
Dry bones, oh dry bones, weathered and whitened by the winter's cold sun. Why have we become nestled into the dead winter field, just slightly blanketed by bent fragile wheat? Where is the joy laced in sunbeams and sunflowers? Come alive, oh sweet soul, it's sad to cocoon and hide in the dry light of loneliness and barrenness. Ask for living water, come alive once again to seek the beauty we see in even the shadowy, cobwebbed spaces. Reside in a city of golden awe as the earthworm peeps from the soil when the raindrops finally begin to speckle the weathered bones. Living water, wash away the dust, breathe life and joy into our winter souls.
This short musing takes the place of my weekly Currently post, the words were knockin' on my heart and seemed important today.
Currently: March 21, 2017
I'm trying to decipher words to explain how it feels to be handed an opportunity to write about a passion project that's nestled deep into your bones.
It's surreal to see a spread in a publication with your photograph and your words and a byline that says your name.
Bravery Mission is my own One Idea, the passion project that means the world to me. I so, so hope it grows to be larger than my own little corner of the internet. I so, so hope it grows to reach my fellow lion hearted humans. Friend, you have bravery and your own One Idea within you, whether you know it or not. It may be wedged somewhere in the woodworks of your mind, but the world needs it.
I think reading about other people's brave moments and how they nurture their own One Ideas, both large and small, helps us realize our own.
I wrote about the ideation process and growing ideas and passion projects, and how that reflects in Bravery Mission for the fifth issue of Comeback Magazine. I'm excited to read what the other contributors have written about for the publication's theme of endurance.
Bravery is woven into every fiber of your being and I hope maybe my words can add fuel to your fire. You can order a print copy or a digital PDF here. Please do! I'm all about supporting indie publications.
You can also find out how to submit to Bravery Mission here and read what others have already anonymously written here.
Sending love and courage to your corner, babe.
Kate
Currently: March 14, 2017
My baking and cooking skills are not strong, primarily because I forget how many scoops of sugar I've already put in, or I don't read far enough ahead in the directions to realize you were supposed to mix __ & __ together before adding the eggs. I realize these are all preventable, yet I can't shake them.
I baked a simple chocolate chip cookie recipe two nights ago to bring to a potluck dinner the next day. The cookies came out of the oven soft and delicious. I checked on them the next morning as if they were my firstborn child and they were still just fine. I came home later to grab them and they were rock hard, even though I had them tucked away in an airtight container. Only me. I couldn't bring rock cookies to a potluck, so I stopped at CVS on my way to the dinner and picked up some chocolate covered pretzels. So basically, things happen in the kitchen that don't make sense and until I gain some magical skills, I'm stuck with buying CVS pretzels.
Oooo, do I aspire to have the skills of Kayleigh Kosmas, a lovely Instagram friend behind the Crafts and a Cat blog. That said, she has a cat with adorable little paws named Bisou, and she makes // documents the most GORGEOUS cakes and baked goods. Please go creep on her because she's also a super sweet human. And if you're better in the kitchen than I am, please bake me these because I want them in my belly ASAP.
Click on the photos to be taken to the recipes! Here's her Instagram too.
Chocolate Olive Oil Cake with Rosemary Buttercream
Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake
Tea Infused Skillet Cookie and No-Churn Ice Cream
Maple Cider Tea Hot Toddy
This might be something I can handle making.
Homemade Cat Cookies
Please do note that these cookies are for cats, and they're totally safe for them to eat! I couldn't resist including it.
Currently: March 7, 2017
If you've been following along my Instagram the last couple of weeks, you may be familiar with a peachy little art collective called the Art Stew. My lovely and talented friend Rhea Amyett started this project back in January — each week, the participating artists are given a new prompt and we each make something that follows the prompt in our own unique craft. Together, our abundance of work creates a big ol' pot of "art stew."
It's a thriving and supportive little community of artists -- but anyone's welcome to pop by the Stew at any time! Head over to the #artstew52 hashtag on Instagram to check out work by other skippy artists (turned friends). I so wish I could sit down, have coffee and make with my fellow Stewards. Grateful for all of you.
Anyways! Since we're hopping into the third month of Art Stew 52, I thought I'd share some of what I've been making for the project! Ten down, 42 to go. This week, we'll be making a piece of work inspired by another artist in the Stew. It's going to be a massive challenge because I'm so inspired by all of you!
W E E K T W O :: S N U G
There's a clan of the tiniest raccoons. Their paws equal the size of just a few grains of sand and their entire selves are no bigger than a pinecone. They are kind but also naturally sneaky -- the raccoons are known to hide away in hydrangea bushes, awaiting a passerby who is wearing a snug, cozy sweater. When the raccoon spots one of these humans, she snatches up a hydrangea sprig and scurries out of the bush. She darts behind, dodging feet and follows this human into their home. She likes this human's sweater very much, so much that once the human removes it to change into sleeping clothes, the raccoon takes a pair of tiny copper scissors from her belt and snips off a small amount of the sweater's yarn. She has a stick draped with yarn scraps at her hydrangea home. Those are her own snug scarves. The raccoon is kind, of course, she always leaves a hydrangea sprig by your sweater when she takes out her copper scissors
W E E K T H R E E :: E V E R G R E E N
Here's a process shot for this week's Art Stew 52 prompt! I also have an entire page of ideas for a new project that this will be part of, so stay tuned for the unveiling of that! I'm SO flippin' excited, friends 💛
Side note :: here's why I'm fully and completely in love with the Art Stew weekly project. •
I graduated with a Studio Art degree about eight months ago. Upon reflection tonight, everything I made while in school was created with anxiety intertwined in my handiwork. Every creative move HAD to have meaning behind it. Each creative decision I made while making was preceded by thoughts of "What's the purpose of this?" because we talked about our work endlessly and critiqued deeply. •
I think that's why the Art Stew year long project I'm participating in is a breath of the absolute cleanest air. I drew this evergreen branch and quite honestly, it doesn't have a meaning to me. And nobody's going to care. I started with pencil, experimented with watercolor for the first time in absolutely forever and added some pen markings. Since I've taken on a liking to gold, I threw on some glimmering detailing and a golden border. Why? I'm not entirely sure, but I also took out a forest green colored pencil and scribbled in some green shading. •
This Art Stew community is supportive and full of experimentation and I adore my fellow makers already. I'm not anxious to try combinations of four different materials. I listened to Bennie and the Jets on repeat while drawing this evergreen sprig. And I could breathe without the anxiety I felt while in college as an art student. •
Actually, maybe this simple evergreen sprig is symbolic of creative freedom sans anxiety for my soul.
W E E K F O U R :: L U N A R
When I was small, I dreamed of living in outer space. It boggled my young mind that there was no end to the darkness, that it perhaps traveled endlessly on and on. That really, the small Kate standing on Earth was microbial in comparison to the massive darkness hosting revolving planets and stars and faraway galaxies. When I was small, I wanted to explore space, to leave this earth. But nowadays, outer space seems like it would be lonely and I think I would miss the foliage and greenery and foraging opportunities to design detailed dried wreathes. At least for now, I'll dream lunar dreams. But maybe someday, if another planet that offers a forest sanctuary is discovered, I'll be a space explorer.
W E E K F I V E :: A F A V O R I T E B O O K
"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." This week's Art Stew 52 prompt had my heart reaching back to Harry Potter with every beloved book I flipped through. This weaving is fully Gryffindor house-colored inspired and hopefully reminds you of a good ol' cardigan knit by Molly Weasley.
I'm rereading the books right now and am fully reminded of why the HP series was such a large part of my childhood. I have many favorite books in my arsenal, but my go-to will forever be Harry Potter.
W E E K S I X :: L O V E Y D O V E Y
In the past year, I've told myself that if a man happened to bring me flowers, I would dry the blooms and turn them into sculpture. That would be a compliment from me, of course. There is absolutely nothing like carefully moving your small hands to work with the fragility of petals as thin as paper. Preserving the beauty of nature into atmospheric and floating sculpture steals my heart every single time. It feels like home. I imagine that's how love feels like -- respectfully and mindfully handling a fragile process, discovering how a feeling of home and comfort resonates deep into the bones of each other, and creating a beautiful, preserved space. Timeless. Suspended by a thread.
W E E K N I N E :: W I N T E R ' S L A S T B R E A T H
Keep your chins up, dear sweet skippies. Feel the softness of your winter sweaters against your skin and know that soon you'll be able to shed the warm cocoon for breathable, light fabrics. Give blooms to strangers because it will remind them that those days are coming so, so soon. Seek to find beauty in all the corners. Take a walk with coffee in hand to watch the season's colors transition from brown and muted to green and breathing.