UP IN THESE WOODS

This is my first day as a Creative Writing Counselor at Buck’s Rock Theater and Arts Camp. I’ve been interested in working at Buck’s Rock for years. Jade Patton and Amber Luning used to talk about adventuring there all the time back when I was still regularly doing standup comedy. Last year, Kechi worked there for most of the summer, and I missed her terribly while she was gone. This year, a slot opened up very abruptly as we were planning the particulars of our move to Chicago, and we found our plans changing very suddenly after I got the offer.

My only experience with summer camp as a camper was going to Camp Manidokan in West Virginia when I was nine years old. It was a (very) Christian camp, and while it had its moments, my experience was generally negative. (I wasn’t prepared for evangelical-style racism.) Teaching at Buck’s Rock feels like a chance to offset that negativity a little and connect with young students again. I did teach at Duke TIP in San Antonio for two summers. 2016 and 2017, I think, and I had fun there, especially since those were my first chances to teach writing and speculative fiction. (Oh yeah, I also taught a session of Mystery and Suspense in 2017.)

I do prefer to teach adult students for a living. I enjoy connecting with graduate and non-academic students, especially. Right before coming to Buck’s Rock, I spent ten days teaching at the Stonecoast MFA summer residency. As always, it was a fantastic experience. I was a little worried that the unbridled chaos of our East Coast Summer would affect my teaching, but it never did. I spoke at the MFA graduation ceremony, and people tell me I did a solid job. Of course the star attraction was teaching fiction workshops in both the first and second half of the program. I had fewer students than usual in my workshops this year, but that gave us a chance to talk more, to do entire Q&A sessions about speculative fiction and the publishing business.

While I was teaching at Stonecoast, Kechi had to fly from Portland to El Paso for her brother’s memorial. While she was gone, she developed a dental abscess that caused quite a bit of pain and swelling, very much exacerbated by three back-to-back flights.

Originally, after returning to Portland, Kechi was to stay with me one more night on the USM campus and then drive south to pick Karate up from my former roommate’s house, and then drive him to camp in Connecticut where they would wait for me to finish up and bus it down from Maine. With Kechi hurting and swelling like that, I wasn’t willing to let her out of my sight until she’d been effectively treated, so as soon as she landed, I got her to an Urgent Care and an ER, where they drained the abscess and told her to get to a dentist ASAP.

Kechi stayed with me for the rest of the residency, and then we left Portland at 3 am Sunday morning, drove south to get Karate, and then drove back north to Buck’s Rock. We arrived in the late afternoon after twelve hours of travel, exhausted. For the next couple of months, we’re staying in a three-room cabin with two other staff couples and Karate. We were a little surprised to find that instead of bunks, we were given a bed that we both fit into, and there’s even room under the bed for Karate to use his own bed.

Karate seems to be enjoying the new environment. I know I am. I thought my experience with Louisiana summers would prepare me for the heat and sweat a little more, but they are serious, and I’m not as prepared as I thought. At least I know for a fact that I’ll keep losing weight here, walking up and down hills and spending most of my time in a cabin with no AC at all. I’m not 100% certain what I need to do to keep my back from complaining about our mattress, but I’m confident I’ll work that out, too. I also enjoy walking up and down the hills and working in the publications shop. (I’m sitting in here now.) While we’re here, one of our major goals is to land an apartment in Chicago that we can move into when we leave here.

I didn’t get a chance to be a theater kid, growing up. I acted in and helped put on a few plays, but it wasn’t until my first time studying as an undergrad at Evergreen that I really got into theater at stage acting. I enjoyed it, but had a hard time moving past my own hangups to socialize with most of my classmates. I also had the sense that if I was going to be a writer, I needed to devote my energy mainly to that, and I pushed myself through a punishing schedule until I broke down. Starting to do standup was like rejoining theater in a lot of ways. Standup comics are often theater kids who can’t stand sincerity and have a lower tolerance for lameness. (I call it lameness, but that’s not a value judgment. Nerdiness, lameness, and a willingness to make a fool of oneself are all virtues in my book.)

All I’ve done so far on my first day is sweat buckets, complete paperwork, and brainstorm a list of workshop subjects with my fellow creative writing counselors, and I’m here for it. Our friend Jade isn’t here this year, which is a crying shame since we’ve left her behind in New Orleans as we embarked on our East Coast adventure, but she’s been working at the camp for years now, and I’m sure she’ll be back. I don’t know whether I will—life is changing direction so quickly that the decision feels like it has nothing to do with my personal level of enjoyment. I’m excited to be here until the end of August, and I’m even more excited for what comes next.