Well, I must say, I’ve been eager to get back with you all to report on Family Camp on Hog Island with Noah last week, but by the time I got home Sunday afternoon, I’ve been absolutely beat and have spent extra hours in bed catching up. 24/7 x 10 days with an 11 year old boy is enough to wear a grandpa out, you know? ;-)
I suppose that’s the best place to begin: Noah’s energy output. Such a little dynamo! I must admit, I did have a hard time keeping track of him on the island at first, but then it became evident that such close tracking wasn’t really necessary. He and his posse of buddies created a ‘fort’ just above the high tide line in a very rocky spot covered over with bushes. Turned out just about every time I wanted to know where he was, I could hear his voice as I approached the ‘fort.’ I caught his eye like clockwork, too. He seemed to have a sense of my looking for him.
To put the essence of the week right up front, Noah was willing and able to try just about anything all week. For starters, just after we arrived on island and the requisite orientation session began, we were asked to introduce ourselves. Being the introvert that I am, yet wary of making Noah feel uncomfortable in his first hours on-island, I figured the intro was up to me. As I turned to him to tell him what figured, he jumped up and said, ‘Let me do it!’ And so he did.
Later on that afternoon, campers were asked to participate in a ‘sense’ exercise where one person would lead another, blindfolded, to a local destination, and then, after being led away and using senses other than sight, the blindfolded person was to take off his/her impediment and then locate the place led to.
I assumed Noah would be my partner. Not so! Before I could say anything, he picked his new little buddy, Elijah, so I took on the role of photographer. I must admit, it was fun watching the kids work together.
And then to get activities started Monday morning, the staff invited all interested to investigate low tide pretty early: 6:30 am. Breakfast was scheduled for 7:30 with morning sessions right after. The intertidal piece was a schedule add-on, and frankly, I didn’t know how Noah would react to getting up so early. The kid can sleep until after 8 no problem here at our house.
We Ohioans need to understand how early the sun makes its appearance on summer mornings on the Maine coast. Around these parts, old sol breaks the horizon around 7 am this time of year. On the coast of Maine, at the other end of the Eastern time zone, that same daily event happens a full hour earlier. So when I advised Noah it was 6 am and time to get moving if he wanted to go intertidal searching, I fully expected him to turn over and blow it off. No so! ‘Let’s do it,’ he said. And so we did.
And it pretty much kept up like that all week for Noah. When I do full-week workshops like this, I deliberately skip at least a couple sessions, choosing to rest in bed or find a good place to sit with journal or poetry notebook to have some zen time and meditate. Noah, on the other had, was up for anything. Intertidal at 6:30 am? No problem. Jumping in a mighty cold ocean on Harbor Island? No problem. Walking through a bog, chest deep in peat? No problem. The little dude was ready for it all.
Lots yet to talk about regarding a Family Camp involving a grandson and a grandpa who so much wants the younger one to be interested in Nature and people. Stay tuned.
Today’s Elder Idea: Agreement is not important. Only understanding is.
Richard Wade
images: top: Monday’s early morning low tide adventure. mid: Elijah and 'blind' Noah. bottom: Noah post-bog walk.
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