Important Lessons In Life Can Be Learned At Camp

The Girl Scouts stood outside the lodge, hungry as bears. Two camp counselors began calling the girls into dinner.

“If you have birthdays in March you may go in,” said counselor Franny White (camp name Flower Power.)

“If you are carrying something in your hand right now, you may go in,” said counselor Dawn Crater, (camp name Orion.)

The girls filed in according to these categories and when they entered the eating area, they were instructed to fill in the front tables first. After the girls were seated, they looked around. Most were sitting with girls they didn’t know. At dinner they introduced themselves, and by the end of dinner, they had made some new friends.

As I watched the ritual unfold, I thought to the many conferences and seminars we grownups attend in adult world. It’s often awkward at mealtimes. Who shall we sit with? What table will be the most interesting? Should we sit with people we already know just to be safe? Or should we take a risk and sit at a table where we know no one?

Then I realized that in adult world, we should adopt the Girl Scout way. At conferences and other places, we should practice “table karma.” That means the table you end up sitting at is the table where you are meant to be. Make the best of it. Don’t cling to friends, simply out of security. Sit next to a stranger.

I recently spent a week teaching creative writing at Girl Scout’s Camp Four Echoes on Lake Coeur d’Alene. The camp celebrates its 60th birthday this weekend and many former campers have traveled back to camp to help celebrate.

Lindy Cater, executive director of Girl Scouts Inland Empire Council, said former campers often tell her that many of the things they learned at camp translated well into their adult lives. And during my week at camp, I noted many rituals, traditions and attitudes we could adopt from camp and place into our real lives, both at home and in the workplace.

Table karma is one. Here are a few more:

We should adopt “camp” names.

The counselors assume camp names and reveal their real names to campers only on the last day. So the girls got to know Taboo, Nash, Oshgosh, Pop Tart, Panda and Bambi. Lindy Cater (camp name Chirp) says no one is certain how the tradition got started and it might date back 60 years to the beginning of Camp Four Echoes.

Why not adopt pseudonyms in our workplaces once a week, maybe on dress-down day, or on special occasions such as retreats and workshops? It would loosen things up, and allow workers to have some fun on the job. It might even reveal some deeper (or shallower) truths about co-workers.

We should sing more.

The campers sang before each meal. They sang grace right before eating. They sang after meals for about 20 minutes. Each night, Flower Power and Orion serenaded goodnight the seven girls in our unit. One morning at 2 a.m., I awoke to the sound of glorious singing. A group of older campers and counselors who had been backpacking were returning to camp. They sang their way along the trail like tired but happy angels.

Why we can’t sing more as adults? Most adults I know, unless they are entertainers or in church choirs, feel embarrassed to sing in front of others. They deny they can carry tunes. Yet singing elevates the spirit and alters negative moods. It would be a great stress buster in a tense meeting.

We need more meaningful rituals in our daily lives.

Each morning at 8:15 a group of girls put up the American flag and then the Girl Scout flag. At 5:45 each evening, the flags were lowered in a similar ceremony. The other campers stood in a semicircle, their hands over their hearts. The flag ritual opened the day in a peaceful way and closed it the same. It also anchored the girls in patriotism and Girl Scout traditions. It showed them that in the chaos of life, they could depend on this: The flag would go up each morning and be taken down each evening.

We have lost the importance of ritual in our lives. Schools and churches keep some alive, but in adult world, going for coffee at 10 often constitutes the only ritual still practiced. Creating more rituals in our home and in our workplaces would provide some depth and security in a sometimes shallow and insecure world.

We should sleep under the stars at least once a year.

Most campers experience an “out trip” in which they canoe or hike to a beautiful spot and sleep in the open. We lucked out my week at camp. The weather was warm all night and a meteor shower entertained us for several hours.

It’s easy to disregard the stars. City lights bully the stars out of the night sky. Or we insulate ourselves inside our homes, oblivious to the show the universe provides each night, a show better than any TV drama. The solution? Sleep under the stars at least once a year, even if it’s on your deck or in your back yard.

Have your meltdown, then move on.

During my week at camp, the girls wrote about what I called their meltdown moments. The times they were hot, tired, hungry, crabby. The times they just wanted to go home. The times they felt they couldn’t stand another minute of camp.

One girl was constipated. Another sobbed in fear anticipating the “tippy canoe” test. Another carried up and down a big hill a heavy backpack. Her face turned red with the effort and the other girls, burdened with their own packs, could not help.

The counselors handled the meltdowns beautifully. They acknowledged the struggle the girls were having, and they offered suggestions to ease the situations, but they made it clear they expected the girls to handle the meltdowns and then move on.

“I know they will be unhappy for a few minutes, but I know they will get over it,” said camp director Sarah Betts (camp name Luckie).

And they did. The constipation problem solved itself. The young girl afraid of tipping the canoe in the water did just fine once the canoe actually tipped. The backpack carrier successfully carried her own stuff.

This meltdown-then-move-on philosophy might be a good one to encourage in our homes and workplaces when people are too quick to blame stress, crabbiness and personal unhappiness for not getting their jobs done.

The self-reliance lesson is the main thing former campers remember years later, Cater said.

“One woman told me she was out in a canoe with some other women. The canoe tipped over, but they were all former Girl Scouts and didn’t panic. They knew what to do.”