Camps balance fun and growth — but change is harder
In a rainbow barn packed with a hundred campers and forty counselors, a 16-year-old CIT with electric-blue hair performed what felt like the final poem of her childhood. Tear-streaked but smiling, she addressed Laura Kriegel, the founder of Camp Stomping Ground, directly: “There is a version of myself that is only for you. And for this place.”
This was the fifth camp I had visited, and nearly my hundredth day away from home. My summer had been so saturated with hidden curriculum—unspoken customs, bizarre rituals, indiscernible lingo—that I had surrendered to ignorance, discomfort, and unfamiliarity. But I recognized that girl, that feeling. It’s the medicine; it’s the magic. The fire and the glue. It’s being part of something special and bigger than oneself. It’s growing up, away from home, under the sky, together, just for a little while, but somehow forever.
