I Camp Alone Now​​

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​​Virginia had received the most rain in decades that spring. The rapids overflowed with nature’s secrets, a ceaseless shouting — no need to whisper, humans hardly listen. Especially teens; especially me, then. Soon enough, this group of inexperienced thirteen-year-olds I found myself amongst would strap on our helmets, grab our paddles, plop into kayaks, and attempt to tame the untameable. Assuming we’d survive the most boring drive of our ungrateful little lives first.

 

We were packed into this kidnapper-blue-colored van, stinking the thing up with hormones, gas station snacks, and what little we knew. The stale scents of fake cheese powder, wafting gaseous releases, and sweat clung to the air like discarded chewing gum, a sticky humidity of sorts, human-made and gross. It was terrible, sitting in the last row, unable to move, like in this story I read of an octopus in captivity that became so desperate it escaped through a sewer drain, except there was no drain and I was not that brave. I still get carsick now, as a proper adult, so during that eight hour schlep from Bumfuck, New York to Bumfuck, Virginia, these hilly highways immersed in broccoli green, I became increasingly nauseous and needed a distraction.

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Stress-eating Andy Capp’s Hot Fries was not the answer to solving life’s problems, but if it was, I’d have done so exceptionally (yes exceptionally). Instead, I scanned the van as the outside world only made me dizzier. My best friend Henry was on the trip; normally he and I would tell an endless stream of jokes that only we found funny, such as bathroom-related cheese puns (who harvarted? it was halloumi, you muenster! brie right back, ricotta go pee, I’ll comté too) but he was busy practicing French with Heather — voulez-vous une crevette? hon hon hon — and I didn’t want to disrupt their flow. Alex was next to me but he was too busy snoring to a Disco Biscuits CD, which left Giancarlo, the hot guy, and Amanda, the hot girl, in the immediate vicinity; she was practically a literal woman, it made no sense how developed and adult she was and how I was more shrimp than human. I stared at her, leaning against Giancarlo’s shoulder, jealous of the situation but I couldn’t figure out why.

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The radio recycled to Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” to engulf us with an umpteenth swimming in a fish bowl. We were all dying — Henry and Heather and their sacré bleu, Rose Floyd!, Giancarlo and Amanda and their groans of displeasure. But you’re teenagers, you die every damn day. This is your purpose: to suffer and die spectacularly.

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So the moment when Goo Goo Dolls snuck into the rotation, this van full of suffering teens was ready to release some of that built up sexual tension that we really, really did not understand. Finally, I got my distraction. Commence group singalong. Somewhere between your mom disowned you, don’t suppose I’ll ever know, and what it means to be a man, Amanda turned around to face me. Very self-assured, meeting my eyes, conscious I couldn’t meet hers back. Who sings this song? she asked as I stared at her headrest like a perplexed caveman. I was excited though. I knew the answer and knowing things in these contexts is cool. It’s “Slide” by Goo Goo Dolls I said. I can remember looking up, how specifically my smile must have said please like me as my eyes found hers. She let the moment that I didn’t realize was a moment linger longer than any other in my life before saying … keep it that way.

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It took me a while to figure out what that meant, but then it hit me: she thinks my singing sucks. Which, granted, yeah, puberty, I’m sure my voice was god-awful. I couldn’t make sense of what I was becoming. But that hurt. It lingers within me to this day, each time I hear pop radio in an Uber, each time I smell hot fries, or see a woman sing. It constricts me into inaction, an incessant reminder of what I am not: an octopus daring to escape.

 

We made it to Wherever, Virginia, and I managed to not throw up. I also managed to not speak to anyone, except for Henry, for the rest of the trip, even when I saw a bear leaving the outhouses. We capsized our kayaks and the instructors chased them down while we tried not to drown. Henry and I changed the lyrics to Talking Heads songs — feet on the ground, head in the sky, it’s all wrong, we’re gonna dieeee, die die — as we caught our breaths and waited for the instructors to ferry our kayaks upstream. I’d laugh and pretend everything was fine and say wee-wee because I didn’t speak French while I floated above my body, above the rapids, above, above, above. What gets left behind if the real you was never really there in the first place?

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I camp alone now. I know I’m just an animal looking for a home, hoping someone, anyone, will love me till my heart stops.

 

 

 

 

We went on this surfing trip to San Diego, a few years later, Henry, myself, and another group of teens who really, really didn’t appreciate how good things were. We rented boards and slept in tents and showered in these beach bathrooms that were never cleaned, sand crusted everywhere. Henry and I barked like seals because we thought it was funny but I doubt it was. My long hair helped me fit in, looking the part as kids who could actually surf nodded at me and I felt cool, which was cool ‘cause I’d never been cool. But I wasn’t very good. In fact, I was terrible. I’d paddle out and hang on my board and wouldn’t actually surf because I knew I couldn’t. Just a fraud, a buoy in the distance offering false promises of serenity; I imagine seals think something along these lines when they flop up for a rest: barrrrrr! told ya this ain’t no island, barrrrrrr!

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I’d always be last in the water to minimize bulge visibility time of my wetsuit, which didn’t fit properly so my anatomy resembled that of lame action figure; Captain No-Dick!, perhaps. My hair tangled in these salty knots — a present for my zipper — and I hoped nobody would recognise me for having ‘Jew curls’, something teens in my hometown regularly chirped at me. They’d all make the same dumb, cheap money jokes despite the fact that I had the fake ID and bought the beer. All these baffling attempts to be cool. At least now I won’t forget that the capital of Delaware is Dover.

 

One time, I thought about attempting to pop up when I saw this dolphin zipping along, fin peeking out from the peak of a wave. Nature doesn’t think. It just does. Granted, the whole experience of using water for fun is much more instinctual for a dolphin, born in water, opposed to me, who … well, I was a tub birth but I didn’t learn to swim until ten because I saw Jaws at four and was convinced sharks hid in pools, which made me a failure because that’s far too old to learn to swim. We are the only animals that create failure and give it meaning, latching onto these moments, making them an identity rather than an event.

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After pretending to surf for a week, it was time for seakayaking in Mexico, near La Bufadora in Baja. I yak’d repeatedly into the ocean but I did not apologize because it was the ocean’s fault and not mine. Henry drifted along near me, best friend that he was, but would freak me out by telling me I was chumming the waters. I spent the rest of the trip on land.

 

I’d journal — you do your ‘girly’ writing again today, fag? — staying up on the cliffside to avoid the group bully. There’s always one. The cliffs overlooked an alcove and I could get really close to the edge and watch water and rock continue their battle the ocean will ultimately win. There was litter and names carved inside hearts and I thought about a girl back home but nature doesn’t care about the crushes you won’t tell the truth to, it only wants to crush rock, wave after wave. I wonder if we were kinder to nature it’d be kinder to us in return.

 

I listened to The White Album on my CD player to drown out the snores. The ocean wasn’t soothing as those stereotypical meditation guides suggest. I listened to “Mother Nature’s Son” on repeat and tried to fabricate lyrics for a “daughter” equivalent, but that word is practically unrhymable except for “slaughter” which frustrated me for many reasons.

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We bought ginormous bags of churros for a dollar and lived as kings. They were warm and sugary and basically my only sustenance for five days. I bought a threaded poncho to complete the whole white-teen-cultural-appropriation look, and a ukulele because why not at that point. The coastal blowhole shot water one hundred feet in the air and we marvelled at what we did not understand. Tourists got soaked with water and nature did not care because nature does not feel shame. It doesn’t think about how to be what it is — it simply is. I’m still unable to do this.

 

Henry and I bought more churros and ate them up at the top of the road, singular, made of dirt, full of vending carts and noises and sunshine. I hadn’t experienced anything remotely similar it in my sheltered, homogenous upbringing. We never wanted to leave, this being our first taste of autonomy, and because Henry had moved to Maryland while I was still stuck on the same street in Connecticut where we met over a decade prior. We said nothing and did everything to not say goodbye.​

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I camp alone now. I set up tents and make fires exceptionally (yes exceptionally) and those things happen on land, which is where we’re supposed to be. I don’t have to say goodbye, which is the worst feeling in the world, because if I’ve done my job properly, the camp won’t even register that I’ve been there. I can whisper things to the waving trees and they whisper back; what exactly, I don’t know, but I try to understand. I leave no trace behind so I can just be forgotten.

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​I began attending sleep-away camp when I was about eight or nine. It was these two-week sessions and my first real experience away from home. It was terrifying, but Henry was there. We were probably having pun by then, too.

 

Our age group was called “Bandits” which seems pretty appropriate. We had this overnight retreat in these crappy wooden cabins — essentially sheds covered in daddy longlegs spiders — that we stayed in for some reason. The counselors told us this scary story about an abandoned mental hospital nearby. One night, when the hospital was still open, a patient escaped and came to this very site and snatched a kid. Story goes, after that night, the institution was closed, and camp increased security. But they never found the man, or the kid. Looking back, it’s so obvious what was going to happen, but as kids, our imaginations unfettered and not yet discouraged by the scourge of “the real world” — we gobbled this up like hot fries.

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So who shows up? You guessed it. Clad in a white doctor’s uniform from some knock-off costume store, here comes “Crazy Dave” bounding through the woods, charging our campsite. Kids fled — Henry’s screams reminded me of me, when my parents tried to take me to the town pool after watching Jaws — while someone got snatched. Some counselors rushed us inside, others chased after “Crazy Dave” and the kid. Meanwhile, I remained, forgotten, immobile. I remember sitting there, paralyzed and perplexed by everything — the first truly terrifying moment in my life. I had no mechanism for self-preservation. I just accepted my demise. Chaos does that.

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I awoke on the top bunk; literally no idea how I got there. Kids were flat-out losing their minds as counselors tried to explain to us that it was just a prank. Our screams echoed across camp, to the point where those-in-charge showed up. It was a disaster. People were fired. And to this day, I think about being in that top bunk, spiders crawling about, wondering why people do what they do to each other — the harm without thought of consequence. Is that truly our nature?

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I camp alone now. I lay on my fold-out cot, in a spider-free tent, and wonder if I’d been forgotten because how do you remember something that doesn’t know what it is. My sleeping bag protects me now. Nobody comes for me.

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We did a canoeing trip, same summer but different from the kayaking death wish. It was boring and hot and I got sunburnt and hated it. We’d paddle along some river in some state like Who-Gives-A-Two-Shits with waterproof bags that always filled up, and made camp on little dingleberry inlets along the way. Henry and I had two friends on the trip: another Jewish one, Scott, and Cesar, this Puerto Rican kid that our super white town bussed in from New Haven because that’s what white people in Connecticut do to try and create equality. Anyway, we liked Cesar, he was hilarious and you wanted him on whatever activity you did. This included canoeing, where he was ripped, and I was, again, a shrimp. Cesar got with Julie, who I had a crush on but was scarred by Amanda; years later, Julie wound up dating my friend Colin, who always said I was the best at doing things that don’t matter which is probably why I became a writer. But boy did that trip spark drama.

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You can’t put teenagers in the woods with nothing to do and expect them to not do hand stuff in tents. We didn’t have smart phones and even if we did — hand stuff in tents. Not me, mind you, I wasn’t ready, for infinite reasons. But Cesar was. So was Scott. And just like adults who do hand-related activities with the same people, teenagers too, get jealous. While Cesar and Scott yelled about Julie, I squatted over a hole and watched my toilet paper roll down into the river; couldn’t even wipe my ass. I had to fish it out and still use it and then returned to camp to find the counselors yelling at Cesar and Scott, which sounds like a restaurant, Caesar & Scot, which doesn’t exist but it could. I couldn’t exist in a world where I got into shouting matches over a girl, not because it’s ridiculous that boys do these things, which it is, but because nobody liked me. I was a shrimp, and let’s face it, there’s way better fish on the menu than weird ocean mice. And shrimp certainly don’t go tell the pretty fish don’t cry, it’s not your fault, boys are dumb. Shrimp stay silent.

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I camp alone now. I can just exist, watching and listening to nature as it does its thing. I argue only with myself, not over girls, but for thinking the real me is magically hidden somewhere, behind a rock, up a tree, right over there, Oh, there I am. You can’t find something if you don’t know what it is you’re looking for.

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​My toes dip into the shocking cool of elevated run off, my memories, too many to process, swimming after the uncatchable flow. All of these never-done’s of the past entering the undone plane of the constant future, the land of opportunities never seized, never touched, only viewed at, afraid of the rejection, frozen by pre-failure, forgotten within one’s own unforgettable memories, gone to some other life, to some other story to be told by someone else on some other screen or some other page or at some other campsite, or to be forgotten. Where does it all go? The whispers return. I hear them. I am a hibernating tree begging to be in full bloom. But I don’t want to go through the pain of waiting for the rain, or the sun, or the birds and bees to come pollinate me, give me the life I desire. I can’t. I don’t want to see the traces of the old me left behind, my fallen leaves or shedding bark or departed seeds. The what ifs, the what if it doesn’t work out, the what if I’m not pretty, or even worse, functional, or even worse, forever remaining as the me of seasons’ past, the tree that didn’t comprehend how to be — skipped over by nature — cluelessly, roots reaching for the sky, branches digging into the ground, not grasping how to be the very thing that it absolutely, fundamentally, instinctively knows how to be. Cause how could one not know? Nature doesn’t think or judge or shame itself into non-existence. It simply does.

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Yet I can’t. Because I don’t know if I’ll live. I don’t know if I’ll wind up releasing some strange pathogen to take myself out. Or if nature will refuse to have me and sick its beetles and fires and axemen. To remain is to exist, decaying slowly but still offering something in this dying season of myself. But to change, with the seasons and chances life offers, is to risk extinction.

 

I don’t want to deal with the graffiti on my bark, the stealing of my branches and berries and flowers, the urinating on, the chopping of, the look at this stupid tree, the gathering of me into faggots and burning them burning them burning them.

 

The waters whisper secrets. I hear them — Turn to paper; turn to story; turn to me.

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​​By Adele Voyria

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Adele Voyria (AV) is an Edinburgh-based writer, screenwriter, and teacher from Connecticut. AV completed their Creative Writing MSc in 2021, serving as the Head Prose Editor for the From Arthur’s Seat anthology. They have been shortlisted for the Grierson Verse Prize (2021, poetry) and the ScreenCraft Comedy Competition (2020, screenwriting). AV is currently undertaking a Creative Writing PhD at the University of Edinburgh.

 

IG: @adele.voyria