Her name was Joanna, but I didn’t learn that until the end of the second summer. To me, to the hundred other girls a week at camp, she was “Sam.” She was one of two counselors-in-training (CITs) those summers and she was amazing. Energetic and silly, mischievous and kind. And she sang. Always she sang.
When she reappeared at camp a few summers later as a full staff member, she had a new camp-name, TBear, but it didn’t change her essential coolness. I would have followed her anywhere, and probably did follow her everywhere I could.
Every night, we’d build a fire in the fire circle by the pond and she would sing.
Twenty years later, I lie in bed with my three year old son asking him what song he would like. He has exhausted my usual repertoire of lullabyes.
“Mama? I want a new song.”
I stare blankly into the milky darkness of his bedroom for a moment before the song comes into my head–full blown and ready to go. Not only did Joanna teach it to me, I in turn taught it to hundreds of girls in turn as a CIT and counselor.
Linger
I want to linger
a little longer–
a little longer here with you.It’s such a perfect night;
it doesn’t seem quite right,
that it should be my last with you.And come September,
I will remember
my camping days and friendships true.And as the years go by,
I’ll think of you and sigh.
This is goodnight and not goodbye.I want to linger
a little longer–
a little longer here with you.
“I like The Linger,” he says to me when I finish it. “How do you know that song?”
“I learned it at summer camp.”
“I will go to summer camp.”
“I hope so, baby. I do.”
A few moments later, I closed the door and I realized several of the lullabyes I sing, I know from Joanna. They’re so much a part of me, I’d forgotten where they came from.
Dig deep to find what, from your childhood, you still know from heart.