Singing Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!
It's taken me a few days to find time, brain cells, and distance to write about this year's Eliot, my fifteenth. Of course, some things don't go well into words, and so have been left out. It's mostly an account for myself, so don't feel obligated to read. :)
On Saturday I got home from my fifteenth Eliot Institute at Seabeck, WA. As usual, it was a charmed week - not entirely good or bad, but contained in its own universe. This was my first Eliot after leaving for college, which made the experience a bit different. The first night we had spectacular thunderstorms, the most amazing lightning I've ever seen, illuminating patches of forest and the Olympic Mountains across the Hood Canal. But then it rained for two days. Seabeck is always beautiful, but Eliot in the rain, while still magical, operates at 60% energy level. For the second year I was on MAG staff (the middle school group). They take up more energy and attention in some ways than any other age group on campus, and after the first day Mason exhausted his supply of rainy day activities to keep 31 MAGs contained in the A-Frame. I played my first game of Ultimate that afternoon, wonderful game. The next morning Diana and I taught the MAGs laptag, and naturally they LOVED it. Unfortunately throughout the week we played it often enough that most of them had terrible rug burns by Friday. During capture the flag that day the sun finally came out, and more or less stayed for the rest of the week. Yay!
Oi, see that's just two days and look how much space it took up. There's just too much. Napping with Morgan and Ian, watching Julian and Ian play "Big Booty, Little Booty", Ert and I being eerily on the same brain-wave through many games of Scattergories (all of which we won as a team except for when David and Nic tied us once) AND during the OWL sexual fantasy workshop Monday night. Right, the YA group (all SIXTEEN of us!) did Young Adult OWL led by Jennifer and Ward (and occasionally baby Anson) from 10-midnight. I don't think I got to sleep before 2 or 3 any night, only the MAGs kept me waking up at 8 every morning. the MAG scare was fun, although as Mason said, there really should have been a blooper real - Skyler falling out of his hiding place, Robbie running through us and straight off the path, David's car alarm fail. That night during the MAG overnight in Upper Coleman, Rob and I went outside to supervise some of the MAGs and look at the stars. They were so, so bright, you could see the Milky Way clearly. For 45 minutes or so we lay out there and talked to the MAGs about star things, and I fell asleep a few hours later calculating how many miles light travels in a year to answer Althea's question.
Thursday was the Talent Show, in which I played with a clarinet quartet we spontaneously formed during the week. I hadn't played clarinet in months. who knew what I'd been missing? It was a lot of fun. The whole week was sci-fi themed, which was hilarious, and at the Talent Show a bunch of people got up and performed a piece that I'm not sure how to describe - it used themes from many well-known sci-fi-ish movies and hammed them up - Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Close Encounters, etc. Ert did an excellent slam poem by Shane Koyczan, Rob and Mason emceed. After the show there was a scheduled Youth/YA Silent Football game, which failed quite impressively. So around 1 the YAs went to Spruce and had our own game. 11-person silent football, when more or less everyone knows what they're doing, is great, great fun. Ian started out as Mr. High Inquisitor Sir and ended up as Mr. Not-So-High-And-Mighty-Now-Are-We? We played until 3 (at which point Sasha lost), then Nic, Ert, David, and I went down the the boat dock and were stuck between looking at the stars and watching the phosphorescence. I played not one but two games of Ultimate that week, got toasted by the sun, got amazing bruises. Friday Ert left early, YAs planned Youth Bridging, Nic, David, and I went to ice cream for Nic's birthday, Rob, Morgan, and I processed to the Salmon Bake arm in arm singing When the Saints Go Marching In. At the Salmon Bake, I first sat with the MAGs, then went over to where the older YAs were eating. They were drunk. Mai Tai friday had done them in the one time they went en masse to Happy Hour. So funny, Ward was giggling and talking about how his wife wouldn't let him near Anson because she said he was a bad influence, I kept tossing rocks into Soren's tray where he would pick each one up, look at in it in a confused manner, and toss it away without looking for the source, and Ian was giggly and paranoid, reassuring us repeatedly that he was not in fact going to take his shirt off. OH! Ted and Debbie Kaye were NOT AT ELIOT. They were in Japan. So Michael Sturrock was alone (well, Ray G and Paul Blackburn played with him) at firelight. So he started the singing after most people had finished eating, and Diana, Morgan, and I went over to sing. After Sloop John B (harmony much? wowza) we requested Rise and Shine, and the three of us went up and sang with hand motions. Michael's voice is significantly higher than Ted's, so even Morgan the soprano was straining to sing clearly. Oi. But that was, as always, great fun. Then Country Roads and we had to go to Bridging. Bridging was nice, simple, we welcomed the new group of YAs ("may we present, your Young Adults") then went to play frisbee. We had between 15 and 20 people in a circle on the field playing frisbee - you could throw it almost any direction and get someone, which was almost unheard of, and half of the players were very tipsy. Epic amounts of fun. Then the dance. First of all, Mason was completely wasted - we found out later he hadn't had anything to eat all day - and just made everything great. They did Wagon Wheel and he kept repeating verses. As per usual, the dance upset me, fun as it was, and I was relieved when it was over (after an encore of Wagon Wheel), and the YAs went to closing circle. We affirmed that as a group, we are a positive influence on the community, that we ARE a strong group, and that the community as a whole is a rock in our lives, anchoring us. Then most of us left, and Rob and I ended up sitting and talking for a while - we haven't had all that many "real" conversations in the 12ish years we've known each other. then we went back to Spruce and sat with a bunch of the other YAs. I played with Baby Anson, which was great fun. Blah blah blah went back to Madrona, etc...
Saturday with people leaving, closing ceremony (Cryfest 2009). Paul David standing up and saying he feels blessed to be alive to do the things he loves and be with people he loves (tears all around). What is there to say about Saturday? Mom told us she didn't want to be the last people to leave, then we were literally the last people to leave. Rob and Mason even left before us. Oh, and on Friday at lunch August and Liam got up for announcements, asked MAG staff to stand up, told us we were wonderful, gave us a round of applause. Teary-eyed much? Oh yes. So many new friends (Lila, Kira, Nic), a few let go (Julian and I will probably never be friends again).
The ebb and flow of years through the Eliot lens is breathtaking in its rapidity, in the changes that occur in one year, the ones that we recognize as the product of many years, and in the consistency of our existence in this made community that forms its own universe; a step out of normal time-flow, a time to catch your breath before being whirled by your bootstraps around the wheel to another week at Seabeck. How else to explain it?
On Saturday I got home from my fifteenth Eliot Institute at Seabeck, WA. As usual, it was a charmed week - not entirely good or bad, but contained in its own universe. This was my first Eliot after leaving for college, which made the experience a bit different. The first night we had spectacular thunderstorms, the most amazing lightning I've ever seen, illuminating patches of forest and the Olympic Mountains across the Hood Canal. But then it rained for two days. Seabeck is always beautiful, but Eliot in the rain, while still magical, operates at 60% energy level. For the second year I was on MAG staff (the middle school group). They take up more energy and attention in some ways than any other age group on campus, and after the first day Mason exhausted his supply of rainy day activities to keep 31 MAGs contained in the A-Frame. I played my first game of Ultimate that afternoon, wonderful game. The next morning Diana and I taught the MAGs laptag, and naturally they LOVED it. Unfortunately throughout the week we played it often enough that most of them had terrible rug burns by Friday. During capture the flag that day the sun finally came out, and more or less stayed for the rest of the week. Yay!
Oi, see that's just two days and look how much space it took up. There's just too much. Napping with Morgan and Ian, watching Julian and Ian play "Big Booty, Little Booty", Ert and I being eerily on the same brain-wave through many games of Scattergories (all of which we won as a team except for when David and Nic tied us once) AND during the OWL sexual fantasy workshop Monday night. Right, the YA group (all SIXTEEN of us!) did Young Adult OWL led by Jennifer and Ward (and occasionally baby Anson) from 10-midnight. I don't think I got to sleep before 2 or 3 any night, only the MAGs kept me waking up at 8 every morning. the MAG scare was fun, although as Mason said, there really should have been a blooper real - Skyler falling out of his hiding place, Robbie running through us and straight off the path, David's car alarm fail. That night during the MAG overnight in Upper Coleman, Rob and I went outside to supervise some of the MAGs and look at the stars. They were so, so bright, you could see the Milky Way clearly. For 45 minutes or so we lay out there and talked to the MAGs about star things, and I fell asleep a few hours later calculating how many miles light travels in a year to answer Althea's question.
Thursday was the Talent Show, in which I played with a clarinet quartet we spontaneously formed during the week. I hadn't played clarinet in months. who knew what I'd been missing? It was a lot of fun. The whole week was sci-fi themed, which was hilarious, and at the Talent Show a bunch of people got up and performed a piece that I'm not sure how to describe - it used themes from many well-known sci-fi-ish movies and hammed them up - Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Close Encounters, etc. Ert did an excellent slam poem by Shane Koyczan, Rob and Mason emceed. After the show there was a scheduled Youth/YA Silent Football game, which failed quite impressively. So around 1 the YAs went to Spruce and had our own game. 11-person silent football, when more or less everyone knows what they're doing, is great, great fun. Ian started out as Mr. High Inquisitor Sir and ended up as Mr. Not-So-High-And-Mighty-Now-Are-We? We played until 3 (at which point Sasha lost), then Nic, Ert, David, and I went down the the boat dock and were stuck between looking at the stars and watching the phosphorescence. I played not one but two games of Ultimate that week, got toasted by the sun, got amazing bruises. Friday Ert left early, YAs planned Youth Bridging, Nic, David, and I went to ice cream for Nic's birthday, Rob, Morgan, and I processed to the Salmon Bake arm in arm singing When the Saints Go Marching In. At the Salmon Bake, I first sat with the MAGs, then went over to where the older YAs were eating. They were drunk. Mai Tai friday had done them in the one time they went en masse to Happy Hour. So funny, Ward was giggling and talking about how his wife wouldn't let him near Anson because she said he was a bad influence, I kept tossing rocks into Soren's tray where he would pick each one up, look at in it in a confused manner, and toss it away without looking for the source, and Ian was giggly and paranoid, reassuring us repeatedly that he was not in fact going to take his shirt off. OH! Ted and Debbie Kaye were NOT AT ELIOT. They were in Japan. So Michael Sturrock was alone (well, Ray G and Paul Blackburn played with him) at firelight. So he started the singing after most people had finished eating, and Diana, Morgan, and I went over to sing. After Sloop John B (harmony much? wowza) we requested Rise and Shine, and the three of us went up and sang with hand motions. Michael's voice is significantly higher than Ted's, so even Morgan the soprano was straining to sing clearly. Oi. But that was, as always, great fun. Then Country Roads and we had to go to Bridging. Bridging was nice, simple, we welcomed the new group of YAs ("may we present, your Young Adults") then went to play frisbee. We had between 15 and 20 people in a circle on the field playing frisbee - you could throw it almost any direction and get someone, which was almost unheard of, and half of the players were very tipsy. Epic amounts of fun. Then the dance. First of all, Mason was completely wasted - we found out later he hadn't had anything to eat all day - and just made everything great. They did Wagon Wheel and he kept repeating verses. As per usual, the dance upset me, fun as it was, and I was relieved when it was over (after an encore of Wagon Wheel), and the YAs went to closing circle. We affirmed that as a group, we are a positive influence on the community, that we ARE a strong group, and that the community as a whole is a rock in our lives, anchoring us. Then most of us left, and Rob and I ended up sitting and talking for a while - we haven't had all that many "real" conversations in the 12ish years we've known each other. then we went back to Spruce and sat with a bunch of the other YAs. I played with Baby Anson, which was great fun. Blah blah blah went back to Madrona, etc...
Saturday with people leaving, closing ceremony (Cryfest 2009). Paul David standing up and saying he feels blessed to be alive to do the things he loves and be with people he loves (tears all around). What is there to say about Saturday? Mom told us she didn't want to be the last people to leave, then we were literally the last people to leave. Rob and Mason even left before us. Oh, and on Friday at lunch August and Liam got up for announcements, asked MAG staff to stand up, told us we were wonderful, gave us a round of applause. Teary-eyed much? Oh yes. So many new friends (Lila, Kira, Nic), a few let go (Julian and I will probably never be friends again).
The ebb and flow of years through the Eliot lens is breathtaking in its rapidity, in the changes that occur in one year, the ones that we recognize as the product of many years, and in the consistency of our existence in this made community that forms its own universe; a step out of normal time-flow, a time to catch your breath before being whirled by your bootstraps around the wheel to another week at Seabeck. How else to explain it?