My deodorant reminds me of church camp. The mix of the savory/ sweet odor emitting from my pits, smells of dirt/ grass, tree sweat, and heated fabric. Sounds of small birds’ chirp-chirping in a nearby tree, with a respondent further away cheeping back in agreement. The only good part about church camp was how close I was held in nature’s song. She would speak to me in a defined tone while gently brushing my hair away from my face with her breeze.
As I sit here on the 606 trail nearly two decades later, I revel in the fact that I can still hear her song. The trees above me, all around me, speak to each other. Their leaves rustle in the wind, rubbing out their phrases and sending them into the air. I might not hear English when I listen to the arborist’s conversation, but I can understand them, nonetheless. With nature, it’s all about math and vibes. Now I am awful at math, so I run on pure vibe when it comes to the world around me and the conversations she is having.
A small leaf twirled down and landed on the path ahead of where I was planted. It shot me back into my church camp recollection. There was this HUGE bell. Like gigantic. That hung in a wooden frame atop a hill at Camp Olly. The only other structure that was erected from this hill was an open-air worship gathering place that held rows and rows of pews and a bug-infested pulpit. This bell, we shall name “Carl” for all intents and purposes, was rung to wake up all the campers and to signal chow time. I loved hearing it three times a day, but when Carl rang out with a deep and vibrational DONG DONG DONG at 6 in the morning, I thought of how amazing the crackling sound would hit my ears when I caught it on fire. Hell hath no fury like a pre-teen’s scorn.
I would hear Carl and open my crust-shut eyes to a cobweb-decorated cabin filled with 7 other girls. This camp was co-ed, and the cabins were of your gender only. This was all fine and dandy except I was terrified of girls and knew that they could smell it on me that I was different. How they could tell I was a dyke in training was the question. The answer was not to come to light for many, many more years. Anywho, I would climb down off the top bunk and begin the hateful ritual of getting dressed in a cabin full of others. Sofie shorts pulled on over my Walmart underwear, a hand-me-down cotton t-shirt was pulled over my head and placed on top of my empty training bra. I would look down and become horrified when I would see two underfilled pockets of air strapped to my chest. I knew others would see what I did, a body that was supposed to be a girl, but a chest that wanted to be a boy.
Cold feet slipped into my Old Navy flipflops, toothbrush in hand, and the bravery of a thousand warriors, I made my way to the bathrooms. This horrid building was located at the bottom of one of many hills at Camp Olly. The bathroom building was just one large cement block that was separated into a girls’ side and a boys’ side. Let me walk you through what it was like in there. The inside of this bathroom consisted of concrete, treated wood, steel, and bugs. For over 20 girls here at camp, there were 5 potties, 5 shower stalls, and 6 sinks. It was a fight to the death to have some space to piss, shit, bathe, and groom. The smell was one of bleach, wet, and Victoria’s Secret body spray. Ahhh, to be a young gorl and smell like a grown woman. Now, of course, there were the instances that the boys would dare each other to run into the girls’ side to “scare” us. They would run in, and their mere presence would send girls into a screaming fit. Some would laugh and roll their eyes while others were appalled by the intrusion. I always thought the girls who didn’t seem to mind were because they had brothers at home, they were not surprised by the sheer stupidity of it all, or they had a crush on the Justin Bieber carbon copy that dared show his face, so why not be happy he saw you in the bathroom? So many odd sexual undertones to explore there, but I digress.
I was always annoyed when I saw their pimple-faces pop in. Like, get the fuck away, dude, I have to shit and brush my teeth, and it’s already 80 degrees at 6:30 am. Oh ya, there was no AC anywhere to be found at this beloved church camp. Did I forget to mention this fact? The camp counselors, who were older members of the congregation, would put a stop to the boys as soon as they decided to pay attention. I do remember a time I decided to shower before dinner, as I liked to sleep with as much bug spray on as I could to try and stay bug-free in my sleeping bag. I was one of 4 girls who had this idea. Let’s lay out the shower stall set up for optimal understanding of this situation at hand. One curtain pulled back, and you had a small changing room that had a useless, narrow “bench”. You would place your towel and a change of clothes in here for after the soap baptism. Then there was another curtain you pulled back and it had the shower head, hot and cold nozzles, and a hook for your loofa or whatever. For this particular memory, I was in the water part of the shower when I heard boys laughing and chatting in hushed tones. They began to rip back the first set of curtains to see if they could catch any of us changing. Then one of the boys took it further and began to yank back the second curtain to see the girl naked, afraid, and trying to bathe. I heard the girls crying, yelling, and turning off the showers to hurry and cover up. The boys just laughed and laughed. I was in the last shower stall, and I was frozen with fear. Why would they do this? Where were the adults? God must love boys more, as they are laughing, and we girls are mourning our safety at church camp. Needless to say, I hated those bathrooms, and I learned very early on that boys are animals, and once they grew up, they would become monsters.
After the morning peep show, we were all herded to the worship area. This is where we were forced to sit for an hour to listen to a sermon while they made our breakfast. I never listened to what was being fed to us, as it always seemed to pertain to men and no one else. I am not a man, so I took this time to zone out and ask myself questions like, Why the fuck am I here? Do I want to belong so badly that this is what I am willing to take on? Would it be less obscene to not wear this training bar than to have it dangling off me? For a 12-year-old, these are the questions that I needed to know the answers to.
While I was deep in thought, slumped down in my chosen pew, something caught my eye. There was a small golden leaf that had gotten itself tangled up in a gray spider web. The wind spun this leaf around and around in a circle, encasing it further in the delicate abandoned home. It was beautiful. My very own performance to show what once was life is now a death dance. A lady who was sitting next to me followed my eyes and leaned over to me to whisper, “God placed that there to bring you joy.” My heart fluttered, and my eyes met hers. I smiled and felt seen by Him. I belonged to something, and that was what I needed to hear. I didn’t want to go back to listening to the preacher and his dumb ass speech, so I quickly took the counselor in. I wanted to keep talking to her. To continue to be seen and heard. Her clothes were modest and boring, her hair was the same as every white church lady’s, but she had a small tattoo on her wrist. This was my in.
“I love your tattoo. I can’t wait till I’m old enough to get one!” I chimed back. She looked at me with stern, deep-set wrinkles I had not noticed before and said, “I have stained the skin God gave me, and I live with that regret every day. Don’t go and ruin the skin He gave you.”
All I could do was blink my eyes rapidly. My brain trying to take in all the information that was just thrown my way. Were my eyelashes trying to fly me away from this awful conversation? All I could hear in my head was, “bitch what!?” I knew two things right then and there. One, I would never come back to Camp Olly. Two, when I did get my first tattoo, it wouldn’t be of a stupid fucking cross. Why in God’s name, literally, would you choose to get the torture device that killed the guy whom you have devoted your entire life to, inked into your skin? This made and still makes zero sense to me. You don’t see me walking around with the Mac n’ Cheese Dinosaur tattooed on me. I have been a devout follower of him my whole life, and never once have I gotten him permanently placed on me.
