Return To The Farm

In my wildest dreasms, I never expected to be back at Appel Farm as a member of their staff. I thought I would get tangled in the yards and yards of immigration red tape or I wouldn't have a dollar to my name or someone in Australia would be willing to employ me and I would be on the first flight home. But somehow, the cosmic planets aligned and I find myself right back where I started 12 months ago.

It's strange being back in the place where my elongated journey began. It was the place where I first became a 'traveller', where I remembered what it was like to be a teenager - to be 13 and have Matt Eaton call you 'weird' and know that he was right, where I rediscovered talents I'd left to rust from lack of use. The summer of 2010 set me up for the year that I've had. It prepared me to embrace opportunity and to not cower in the shadows out of fear or the distance from familiarity.

But this is no longer 2010. This is 2011. The staff is not the same staff I shared so many memorable experiences with. The campers will not necessarily be the same campers I taught to write haikus and who told me about their temporary boyfriends. The buildings are the same and the grounds are the same. Everything is exactly the same, but yet completely different.

I knew this feeling would flood me. It was my greatest fear in returning. How could anything possibly trump my 2010 experience? How could anything come close? What if I made the wrong decision? What if the new and returning counselors couldn't meet a middle ground? What if I couldn't find the place where I belonged in this new cohort of counselors? What if everything goes pair-shaped and my perfect 2010 is ruined by a miserable 2011?

As the new counselors clung together and the returners tried to work out where they belonged, I realised we were equally intimidated by each other. We each wanted the same thing - a memorable summer - and it was equally up to us to make that happen.

It doesn't happen overnight, but it does happen. Somehow, during the training and the workshops and the never-ending meetings and the social activities held during Staff Week (okay, and the alcohol-induced karaoke at Steakouts where I unintentionally won myself a position in the Steakouts Karaoke Championship), we came together. We worked out how to free ourselves of our high expectations and we bonded over the most obvious thing - camp.

It's the day before the campers get here and I remember exactly how I felt in 2010 - hungover from the previous nights' staff party, overwhelmed with information, terrified one of the children was going to hot glue their hands to the art table while under my lack of watch and absolutely, positively exploding with excitement. This year, I'm cool, calm and collected. If not still a little hungover.

I guess some things don't change.

Ciao for now. xo