Goin Out To Eat

In 2016, the Boston College Men's basketball team finished off their season, albeit not a very good one. After the last game, it was time to do interviews. Senior Dennis Clifford had just played his final game with the team, and he was asked what he would take away as his best memory at BC. Clifford paused, stuttered out "Probably, just like..." and tapered off. He put his head down and was motionless and silent for quite awhile. When he finally brought his head back up, his face was flushed and tears welled up around his eyes. He managed to choke out "going out to eat" before putting his head back down.

In the time following, many people made jokes out of what he had said; how can a person reduce a successful, D1 basketball career to food? In reality, it's likely that he was processing everything outside of basketball. It's easy to think of athletes only in terms of what they do in competition, or even in practice, but this ignores much of the story. A true team stays a team in all areas- competition and practice yes- but also travel, meals, class, locker room, and even the dorms or houses they share. It's likely that this man shared so many fun experiences with his teammates while eating out that he was affected most by realizing that was gone. Myself, I miss the long hours of playing foosball with my teammates in the locker room. The main idea here is that it's easy to get wrapped up in the big things, but the small things we miss a lot more.

I'm in Virginia now. This was a major change in all aspects in my life, especially the weather with it's incredible humidity right now. While I dwell in this new place, I have many times found myself wishing for or missing the little things. In terms of running, I never realized how much I took for granted wide enough roads to run on, and I definitely did not spend enough time being grateful for our chill and tame spiders back home. After a week of finding places to run in a world of skinny, winding, shoulder-less roads, I've learned that parks with trails are the best bet. After a week of covering the upper half of my body with spider webs every day while trail running, I've learned to keep my head down.

In the rest of day, I miss seeing the sky and the clouds, because the incredible size of the trees here makes that difficult; I miss gravel roads and the open countryside; and I even at times have found myself missing the blowing snow that we likely will never get here.

Leaving camp was particularly hard. With nine summers at Camp of the Cross Ministries under my belt, I find myself hard-pressed to find a summer I more thoroughly enjoyed than this one, be it the advent of lawn chairs in the front of the wellness center, where I could stop and enjoy a peaceful evening exhale, the large number of supercampers that chose to be on staff this year, the lack of shoes on my feet most of the time, or the dad-jokes that spread through camp like an infectious disease.

The little thing that affected me the most was the family atmosphere of the camp. During the first two weeks of summer, the staff spends time together in cabins during staff training, boys in one cabin, and girls in another one or two cabins across the courtyard. It's hard to understate the bonding time that comes from living in close quarters with others for an extended period of time (in fact, this summer the non-counselors had to do that all summer!) I have always looked back and missed those times of learning and fellowship. Also those first few summers for me, I would spend my weekends holed up in Prairie Rose cabin, all alone and learning about silence and peace from the countryside. I miss waking up in the middle of the night to shut the windows while thunder rumbled nearby.

Before I left this year, I took a walk, one which brought me through Prairie Rose. It was a double whammy for me, because this also functioned as the space for male staff this summer. As I stood by the back door, I looked around: dirty clothes covering the floor like carpet, unkept sleeping bags strewn across wooden bed frames, a working air conditioner uncomfortably hanging out the window, a musty boy smell wafting around. I simultaneously thought about my peace in Prairie Rose and the time of fellowship in the cabins during staff training, and slid to the ground and cried. I cried hard. They were very minor things to most people- a quiet cabin on a few weekends, and a couple weeks of time with friends, but for me it was some of my most favorite camp memories. I wept. I miss those days.

I was allowed to make my peace and say a proper goodbye. I travelled almost 1800 miles to a new homeland, full of abundant life in ways I've never experienced. My new teacher orientation has started and is a full two days in now, with two more to go. I haven't met too many new people yet, but I sure hope to. But I know that I have the ability to thrive here- North Dakota taught me that.

After our morning session today, our assistant superintendent gave us a 1 hour, 30 minute lunch break, asking us if we were ok with that. Hearing literally no objections, we picked up our things. I had resigned to go to the seemingly always-packed Chick-Fil-A by myself to use my gift card, but some teachers my age were starting to discuss going out to eat at the new Mexican restaurant in town, a very tasty one I had the pleasure of going to with family the previous week. They turned to me and asked if I wanted to go out to eat with them. I smiled- of course I would.