🧵Thursday Thread: Did You Go To Camp As A Kid? Let's Cook Up A Dream!

They say in the wilderness of summer camp, kids find themselves. I'd love to hear from folks who had that experience (or not & why! or from folks like me, who never got to go to camp at all ... )

I never went to camp—neither day camp nor a sleep away camp. But the photo above is of the fire pit at our wilderness cabin in the BWCA in Minnesota, where I’ve been learning to breathe with the birch and cedar.

And now I have a thing up my sleeve, a thing brewing, a thing I’m excited about. It’s going to be unlike anything I’ve ever done before.

I’m planning a writer’s camp for 2025.

It’s true. I am! A place to write in the dark together for real. I’ve led group retreats for about 12 years now, in Mexico, on the North Shore of Lake Superior, on Madeline Island, and on a tiny island in the middle of a good old fashioned Midwestern summer lake.

But those retreats were smaller, and, well, fancier. This one will be a little different, a real summer camp kind of vibe.

I’ll let you know more about it soon, in the weeks and months ahead.

Meanwhile, I need your help! I need to hear from people who actually attended summer camp as kids and teens, etc., and who loved it. Who found themselves there.

Can you tell me about the shapes and textures of your camp experience, the woolen threads that stayed with you, the fragments of night sky that never left your skin and bones, the moments you shared with other humans or alone with yourself or the silent woodsmoke or the crickets or the north star that sent you, guided by your heart’s desire, in the direction of your future self?

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can’t wait to hear your stories, whatever they might be, even if you, like me, never got to go or had a bummer of a time.

Love,
Jeannine

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