The forest life

It's finally morning, nearly seven am, and hiking home after a night of nocturnal adventures with the latest group of teenagers experiencing this specialized camp. A rich golden glow floods the forest, sending sun rays between the small gaps in the trees somehow managing to light this entire arbor-ous world. The gentle magic of the earlier morn gone leaving that Ernest promise of a new day, although mine will be shrouded in sleep. 

    I apologize for not writing sooner, for not recording every detail of a summer so worthy of being recorded, and yet... While I tried the experience was to intimate, to deeply rooted in the dregs of my heart to share with world until today. It's Thursday not quite the end of the week, but the end of all night hike, that turn where get the kids completely nocturnal.

    I talk about these events matter of fact now, but months ago when this craziness began it was like stepping into a book, an old story. I began to work at Glen Helen Outdoor Education Center, a summer camp for children and teens, the very camp my parents worked decades ago summer after summer, year after year until their eventual marriage. Not sure the exact time line, but I've felt like these woods, this place is such an integral part of who I am as a person and to now work here just a few years younger then my parents when they did. Now the summer is nearly concluded only a week to go, a summer of constant waves of children coming a going, of loud meals I the dining hall, sleep interrupted nice, peace under the trees, sunsets filtering through the forests, late night bonfires, celebrations and outings with coworkers become friends on the weekends. It is defiantly a summer I will never forget whether I come back or not again. 

   Being here has put the rest of my life on hold, a lack of working internet, seclusion from old friends, family, normal activities, an entire life caught up in the present. I moved my horse, Mara here for the summer and spend an hour or two with her each day for my personal sanity. Besides that though life is contained within the friendly hade of forest-camp life, a camp that while exhausting, stressful, a life that takes you and chews you up, still manages to leave you so satisfied with each day, knowing you are doing something right.