The Boy Who Calls Me Miss Linda

Tags

camp, Hiawatha Youth Camp, love, ministry, personality, summer, teenagers, youth

He stands in a swaying sort of way with his weight shifting from one untied tennis shoe to the next. He holds one arm behind his back with the other arm, holds it at the elbow in an awkward way like he might be nervous for a first date or to ask a girl if she might want to dance at a middle school turn-a-bout. When he stands in the sand on the beach, it always seems like he’s standing just a smidge sideways. He’s a teenage camper at this youth camp who calls me Miss Linda, which is out of the ordinary.

This is the boy I fell in love with in the early days of the camp. In love like I’ll make sure no too-bold high school gal breaks his fragile heart.  In love like I’ll help him with his science project after school.  Or listen to his piano solo before the big recital.  I’ll match his checkered tie with a green collared shirt under his suit and tie a double windsor for him, show him how.  In love, like I’ll screw his glasses back together, even when he loses the screw.  In love like I’ll spend my time in want for him to succeed.  Not in love like the romance novel; in love like my Father for me. 

When we herd a hundred or more campers onto the busses Saturday morning, the girls from my cabin shuffle around in the sand searching for me, requiring hugs before they depart.  So I stand off by a fallen tree and sip my Starbucks coffee, waiting for them to come running.  And out of the crowd comes my favorite little boy, whispering Bye, Miss Linda.  And, more in love with him I fall.  And even if it’s just this one thing, which it may be, this one thing has made the summer a summer of purpose and worth.

Feeling Real

Tags

distance, friends, friendship, Hiawatha Youth Camp, loneliness, love, people, story

When Billy speaks, he’s always talking about someone specific. Someone sitting right in front of him. Someone whose eyes are darting left and right, not wanting to be noticed. Someone who’s heard his too-long speech one hundred times and is fighting sleep. This time that someone was me.

We’re all surrounded by one another, sitting in a too-small excuse for a library, and it’s about to get more crowded in here. There are almost forty of us on staff. Just a buncha off-beat kids who live at the camp and make the place run for half a summer. Tonight, the campers come. Over ninety kids under twelve, running around in sandy flip flops asking if I’ve seen their Bible or toothbrush in the cabin. No, I haven’t.

I’m surrounded by people. So many people that I can hardly breath fresh air. I’m sweating from the overcrowding, one arm’s stuck at my side, there’s a camper clinging to my leg. There are people everywhere. The noise is so loud, I wouldn’t hear my name called out among the crowd. But Billy’s speaking to me because he knows that among the throngs of bodies, there is loneliness. He sees beyond the funny hats we wear for our skits and through the fancy dance moves we create to teach Bible stories in song. And behind all of that, there is loneliness.

When he says someone there’s always, truly, a someone sitting within ten steps of him. He’s never hypothetical. This feeling isn’t hypothetical. It’s seeping in and feeling real. Surrounded by folks, this feeling’s real.

Close Isn’t Comfortable

Tags

camp, conversation, family, frendship, Hiawatha Youth Camp, life, Mom, movie, pain, staff, summer, youth

Mom said your name. Your mom, I mean. It’s just that after so many years of the way we were, friends the way we were, I became so used to saying her name the way you say it, like she was mine. I see now that she’s not and that I just became so comfortable so close. It pushed you this far, I did.

Anyway, she said your name. Your mom did. My ears leaned closer, my body didn’t move. No one knew I was listening hard to the mumbled words she said next across the room where the lights were off and the staff was chattering. Something about something and then, she’ll arrive at midnight. The last name I’d heard was yours and I thought she still meant you. My eyes opened wide in the dark, my pupils like shutters, wide to let in low light. Wide to let in the thought of you, here with me and us, like every year before. Ashleigh asked what while I hung my head and confessed. I thought you were coming, but I’d made a mistake.

It’s fine, I said. Ash’s elbow leaned on my knee, we were about to watch a movie. She heard me sniffle, saw my sleeve up on my face. Of course you’re not coming at midnight tonight. You’re down South, done with this, all grown up. Close isn’t comfortable anymore; I pushed you this far.

Christ-likeness in the GLBT Walk of Life

Tags

Andrew Marin, apology, Chicago, Christ, forgiveness, Gay Pride Parade, GLBT, hate, humility, love, Love is an Orientation, The Marin Foundation

I believe in this. I support this. I want to try and be more like this, because this is Christ-like. Simple as that.

Azalea Festival

Tags

accident, bikes, childhood, festival, funnel cakes, Grosse Ile, kids, Michigan, play, scar, summer

The Azalea Festival happens every year on Macomb and I have a scar to prove it. We were just riding our bikes. Jesse’s mom works at MBA Realty and we were going to see her. Just riding our bikes to go and see Jesse’s mom. That’s all.

He wanted to ride with us, Jimmy did. Wanted to ride bikes with us to see Jesse’s mom at MBA Realty. But his friends weren’t ours and they wouldn’t ever be. So we rode on ahead, leaving him back at Macomb and Parke Lane, by the log cabins where I used to live. We rode on without Jimmy, Jesse and me.

Now Jimmy, he wasn’t very happy about us and our bike riding. This riding on ahead without him and all. Jimmy followed us down Macomb, through the throngs of Islanders milling about at the Festival, powdered sugar on their cheeks from funnel cakes, balloons slipping out of their greasy fingers into a cloudless sky.

At Meridian, Jimmy had had enough. He’d had enough of not riding with us to see Jesse’s mom. Enough of riding his bike half a block behind. Enough of not having any of me, of not being boyfriend-girlfriend and breaking rules past dark on the porch. He rode up behind us, reached out to touch me, grab me, love me, but we fell.

We all fell and fell hard. Jimmy’s street bike snuck out from under his control and the chain found the soft, fleshy skin next to my spine. The chain was rough, sharp at the turns, smeared in oil and slime. The tines dug into the folds of my back while my limbs hit the ground, hit each other and Jesse skid to a stop.

We left our bikes, Jesse and me. Walked on to see Jesse’s mom at MBA Realty. My shirt was bloody from my back. My back was open stinging, sticking to the shirt. We didn’t go back to the Festival and after that year, it wasn’t called Azalea anymore, just Island Fest. And I never heard what happened to Jimmy, but he didn’t get the girl.