I just felt like posting something, I hope you like it
I got an A on this, by the way.
~
The plane ride was as unnerving as the first day of school. My stomach was full of butterflies. More like wasps, really. It was early, I had barely slept the previous night, and the man in the chair next to me kept poking me with his elbow. I had no intention of crying, as that would just be too much of a flashback to kindergarten, when I cried straight through the first week of school. It’s not that I have horrible homesickness. It’s the leaving part that gets to me. So when the attendant called all the unaccompanied minors to board, I could have bawled. But I held my head high (sort of), and marched onto that plane with the kind of fierce determination you see in the eyes of an athlete who knows he’s going to lose, but isn’t going down without a fight.
During the flight, there were times when all I could think about were the cotton candy clouds and kaleidoscope sky. And then there were times when my stomach would twist and turn every which way, like an infant who doesn’t want to get his diaper changed. For the most part, I played all the emotional songs on my iPod and made myself cry. Luckily there was no one sitting next to me, otherwise they might have been concerned.
After the plane landed, we boarded a bus headed to Interlochen Arts Camp. Although I sat alone, I felt at home among the animated chatter of seasoned campers:
“Oh, she’s such a theatre major.”
“I know, Jung Ho Pak is God, isn’t he.” (Jung Ho Pak is a conductor. He’s the ‘hot celebrity’ of Interlochen)
When we got off the bus, the wind was warm, but it was blowing frantically. I had to register myself all alone, without the comfort of an organized mother doing the talking for me.
After I found my cabin, lugged my suitcase up the steps (with the help of the nice looking blonde girl named Mae), chose a top bunk, set up my bed to the best of my ability, and discovered that I only had two shelves to fit about three tons of clothes, and four pairs of Converse, I changed into the uniform, and took a walk.
I followed the groups of people, yelling to each other like old friends at a high school reunion. It really was like the first day of school. Except at school, there is no place like Main Camp. Nope, definitely not.
Oh, Main Camp. Where you think you’re having a conversation with someone, and then it turns out that they don’t speak the same language. Where you learn never to walk in front of someone with a sketch pad. Where the ice cream you eat there is the first ice cream of the summer. Where the new pick-up line is: “what’s your major?” Where black is the new gray, as far as squirrels are concerned.
Back at the cabin, I tried to get directions to the building where my placement audition would be.
“Just go out the back door-”
“I thought the back door was the emergency exit,” I interrupted.
She looked at me like I was from another planet. Apparently, that planet was a place where people actually got in trouble if they used the emergency exit for regular coming and going.
“Never mind,” I said.
“So, just go out the back door,” she continued. “And take a right, walk through some trees, take a left at that big oak tree with the sock hanging from a branch, keep going straight for about 15 seconds, then take a right, another left, keep going straight, then turn sort of diagonally to the right, and you should see it right in front of you. It’s a big stone building. Can’t miss it.”
I looked at her. She stared right back at me.
“Oh,” I said. “Thanks.”
I found the building, and while I waited in the hallway, I chatted with some of the other majors. We talked scales.
“I don’t know three of the minor scales!” Exclaimed one girl, hysterically.
“What? How long have you been playing?” One boy asked, incredulously.
“I just switched teachers,” said the girl, and everyone nodded sympathetically. As if that explained everything. Which it did, but only piano geeks would understand.
A woman came out of the room. “Francesca?”
I stood up. Half a dozen “Yeah Francesca!”’s were yelled towards me as the woman closed the door behind me. It was really quite surprising when I remembered that I had only known those kids for about 10 minutes.
“Your last name,” said one man. There were about five adults all sitting in chairs, and two pianos lined up on the wall. I sat at the one closest to them. “Begos,” he continued. “That’s one of my favorite Polish dishes!”
I rolled my eyes, and proceeded to bomb the audition.
After the audition, I walked back to the cabin with two of the piano majors, one of whom actually was in my cabin. When we got, all the campers had gotten set up, and the counselor said: “So who knows how to play ‘Apples to Apples’?” And everyone emphatically yelled at the same time, “I LOVE that game!”
Great minds think alike.
That night, at 10 o’clock, when all the girls were in their beds, we had our bunk talk. One counselor said we should do the roses and thorns one, which was where you go around the cabin, and everybody says one good thing and one bad thing that happened that day, but the other counselor didn’t want any negativity, so we just said two roses. I think the only time we played roses and thorns was the last day of camp, and everybody’s thorn was “going home.”
Night music was around 10:15. A girl stood on a table in the middle of the Unit and played the violin. Thinking about it now, I tear up. Back then, I burst into tears. The music wove through you, moving in, and settling in your heart, evicting as it did so all those trivial, inconsequential worries that used to make up day to day life. It was then that I realized that I wasn’t going to be homesick. Because home is where you love to be.
Some people will go and say use none at all! (Seriously!) But I think that's way too nitpicky. (See what I'm doing? 
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