Camper Blog Contest: Featuring Matt D’Anieri

Thank you Matt D’Anieri for your phenemonal submission for the camper blog contest! Your BH family knows that you would be a great counselor one day (soon)! You ROCK buddy.

Over my last six summers, Camp Birch Hill has become so much more important to me each year, and has continued to become a bigger part of my summer and my life. Camp is a place that I think of every day, and it means so much to me because of the relationships and the memories that I have created there through its unique experience. There are so many characteristics of camp that play a role in bringing all kinds of people together.

One of the biggest reasons why camp is so good at building friendships is how socially accepting everybody is there. Out in the real world, I feel pressured by my peers to not express too many emotions. However, at camp, the whole community is so encouraging and friendly that I have no problem with yelling “I LOVE CAMP!” at any given time. Also, at morning cove, it’s totally okay if someone squeaks in the middle of their announcement out of pure excitement for the day ahead. I would be totally ridiculed at my school if I were to wear clothing of all the same color, yet I feel great about myself when I show up at cove decked out in all yellow because that’s how we’re dressing today in hopes that the sun will come out. In other settings, it would be considered weird to cover one’s body in blue paint, but at camp, it’s a completely normal way to dress up for evening program. There is a certain “too cool” attitude that I think most people have outside of camp. I feel like people, including myself, sometimes don’t participate in activities out of fear of being negatively judged by others, and that the cool thing to do is to not participate. But the great thing about camp is that the environment there is always so positive towards everything and everyone that no matter how bizarre an activity is, I feel welcome doing it. There is no judgemental presence at Camp Birch Hill that will make me feel hesitant to take an arts and crafts class because I might be seen as less cool for it. This is why unusual games (the best type of games) like greasy watermelon or cereal wrestling survive best in the Birch Hill environment. Everybody inspires each other to express themselves however they want.

In addition to the friendly social scene, the lack of a rigid structure or boundaries of what campers can do at Birch Hill also allows for campers to form unbreakable bonds with one another. The very strict team building exercises that I’ve seen some camps force their campers to do is just not necessary, because at Birch Hill, relationships develop without any real effort needed. The priceless camp friendships come so naturally, because the whole experience of being in a cabin away from your parents with kids your own age is its own form of team building. Campers become close with each other because nothing brings people together more than dressing in matching costumes and performing a dance in front of hundreds of other kids. Nothing shapes friendships better than racing together down to the waterfront at dusk to jump off the dock and watch the sunset from the water tramp.

It’s also the simplest moments that create the memories and friends that make camp so important to me. One of my favorite things to do at camp is to have long, late night conversations with my fellow campers, as well as my counselors. We have held these discussions while out on the lawn snuggling under the stars, gathered around the stoop with a flashlight, sprawled across the backseats of the van, or lying in the total darkness of the cabin. We have talked about everything. During those talks, I became friends for life with a lot of kids in such an unforced and natural way. There weren’t any counselors prompting us to talk to each other and spend extra time together, we just chose to stay up and talk, and the discussion evolved on its own. Anyone who has gone to Birch Hill knows that the content of those talks can get so deep and personal that they build great trust between campers. Those nights at camp that I spent staying up late with the rest of my cabin were the nights where we shared things with each other that we could never share with anybody else.  The feeling that I have of freedom and confidence to say anything in those conversations reflects just how comfortable I feel around the friends that I’ve made at Birch Hill. I will never forget how content I was amidst those long talks. I’ll never forget how alive I felt on that baby blue court during the camp dodgeball tournament, or as I danced out of the rec hall and into the night after my last lipsync. I cherish these aspects of camp because of how they caused me to grow so close with other people. Thanks to the one-of-a-kind summer camp experience at Birch Hill, I carry so many aaaahmazing memories and friendships, and I’m going to hold onto them forever.

Submitted by Matt D’Anieri