The story continues... thanks to everyone's personal messages and kind words of support! The next couple of segments might be intense, so enjoy this little breather. Camp is still some of the happiest memories of my life!If you missed the first two installments, click here for part 1 and here for part 2.

For a short while my summer vacations were rather idyllic. For at least 3 years I attended Camp Illahee, an all-girls overnight camp in the mountains of Western North Carolina. I went for the maximum time, 6 weeks, to give my single mother a break from figuring out what to do with me.

Before that, most of my summer memories are some combination of day camp, neighbors’ houses, and being home alone. I always had a chore list, and since my brother left home when I was 7, I was in charge of having dinner planned and ready so that when Mom came home, she could take a 20-minute nap and then we’d eat while watching the evening news. We were living in Dawnwood, a decent condo complex before it was swallowed by the bad neighborhood nearby. There was a kidney-shaped pool and a couple of tennis courts. Sitting at the pool always resulted in a sunburn, so I usually just stayed at home unless I could get the 80 year old Hungarian guy to play tennis with me.

Overnight camp was not a thing a single mother working as a physical therapist could afford, but I had patiently sat through day camps that served plain yogurt and cold, whole stewed tomatoes in an effort to be healthy. Dietary challenges were not grounds for change, however. When she finally saw my frustration with the lack of creativity and challenges of the non-dietary sort, she was willing to consider other options. I was a kid with too many hobbies used to entertaining herself, so things had to be pretty bad to be called boring.

An appeal was made, and Nana came to the rescue and paid for camp. Nana and I weren’t particularly close since Mom and I had moved from Maine when I was 6, yet I had fond memories of her and loved her exotic gifts, which ranged from boxes of individually-wrapped grapefruit to a jewel-encrusted ostrich egg jewelry box on an elaborate 4 legged gold stand. She was a world traveler, a trust fund kid who never worked a day in her life. Money was not forthcoming from her, but she would at times help her children to pay for things like houses or cars. My mother was severely independent and had various fallings out with Nana over the years. To my knowledge, she herself never asked directly for help, and harbored resentments towards her siblings who had no such qualms.

My mom justified it within herself to ask Nana to pay for camp since it was for a grandchild rather than for herself. She could still feel radically independent, if not more so since this infusion gave her 6 weeks off parental duties. I think she actually missed me because suddenly she had to plan meals and cook again, a skill she never mastered since she was raised in a house with servants and pawned off to boarding school from age 10. We had fun communicating by postcards and letters.

Camp opened up a whole world to me. It added fuel to my creative life, showed me where I was on the spectrum of feminine beauty (pretty low but I was big on personality), and definitely exposed me to a class of living my mother never bothered to explain. Maybe girls here weren’t super rich, but several came with their own horses. But I didn’t care! We were all given equal and ample opportunity to do and try everything. This was an all-ages camp as well — campers ranged from age 6 up to age 15, and then at age 16 they could become counselors.

I loved camp so much that I wanted to go there every year, especially since there were certain activities restricted to the older girls, like rappelling, that I couldn’t wait to try. The wood shop had an age limit, but I was able to talk my way into it since part of my mom’s fierce independence was being comfortable with tools, gas pumps, anything that “the man about the house” would regularly take care of. At age 3, I impressed one of her boyfriends when he asked for a screwdriver. I responded, “Flat head or Phillips?” I sweet talked my way into wood shop before age 10 and impressed the instructor by making doll cradles and plant stands and never once hurting myself.

I also rode horses, practiced shooting and archery, played tennis, and excelled at weaving and other handcrafts. Swimming was required, and I got into dance to emulate Flashdance. After a couple of years I was allowed to try canoeing and was a whiz! At canoeing! So I got to be the youngest member of canoe formation, a vigil done stealthily at night. Each canoe carried a lit candle, and we had to paddle in a way that made no noise. We maneuvered the canoes into various formations, writing words and making pictures for the other campers to enjoy. It was a magical thing to behold each year at camp, and even more special to be a part of it.