River Brown

I have been directing day two of the Creative Writing Camp for kids in grades 3-8, and after camp I crossed town in the rush hour to pick up our t-shirts.  They are very cool, but it is extremely hot.  Not since I was in Ashland has my car thermometer registered 102.

And I am torn between a bit of my own mulling and writing and getting to the private blog for camp, which only has some extremely cute pictures of kids and no copy written.  It is Tuesday, and I have been remiss with my commitment to the TWT group.

I wrote the parent email tonight, inviting them to our celebration Friday.  The rest of the evening is turning into a blur, but finally some breezes are stirring now that it is getting dark.  I should write my blog.

Moments.  One moment today was when I was doing lunch duty at camp (I order food for my teachers and let them sit together to share). I walked over to a little girl sitting by herself.  Some of the kids prefer sitting on the pavement under the classroom eve to sitting at the row of tables.  This little girl is a year younger than the third graders and I asked her how camp was going.

She told me plainly, “I don’t have any friends.”

“Well…,” I mused, stooping down next to her and taking in her freckled face and her matter-of-fact demeanor.

“At my regular school I have tons and tons of friends,” she clarified for me.

“Well, I think that, when you are in a new place, maybe you could sit with someone at lunch.  You could say, “hi” or something friendly.”  She nodded slightly and continued eating her PBJ sandwich.

I walked around, passing four boys wrapped up in their own hilarity, several kids reading more voraciously than they were eating, and came to two younger girls. “Are you in Ms. Kim’s class?”  They nodded yes.

“Do you see Hannah sitting over there?  The one all by herself?” They looked over the way I was looking. “Sometime could you ask her to go do a craft or play a game with you?”  They strained to see which Hannah I meant and a boy helpfully pointed and shouted.

“Shh! I don’t want her to feel like we’re all looking at her,” I said.

In a few moments, after I made a turn around the quad, the playground, and came to one of the craft tables, there they were.  The two girls had taken Hannah over and they were drawing on the big cartoon banner.  Just as easy as that.

I do a lot of details all day, as director.  In fact, I have been doing bit after bit of details since February for this program and the other one taking place at SJSU to happen.  It isn’t a big or glorious thing.  But it matters to me.

I am so pleased to have hired super cool teachers, who whisked the kids into their teaching, connecting, and like magic got them going– almost the moment they walked in on Monday. There’s laughter, and writing and sharing and good conversation.  And time for play and experimenting.  Yes, even the reluctant, dubious fifth grade boys are in.  There’s cartooning and creative story writing.  What’s not to like?

So the weather is hot.  This camp is hotter.  🙂