T.S. Eliot was right: ''April is the cruelest month ... mixing memory
with desire.'' Especially true this April as I go blind skimming summer
camp brochures and grow cold wondering which bank will refinance the
house to pay for all those priceless summertime memories.
Honestly, will they even remember how we sacrificed for
the self-esteem-boosting rope courses, the sports camps, the
back-to-the-land farm programs and all those s'mores by the campfire?
Youth may or may not be wasted on the young, but I'm pretty sure summer
camp is. And anyway, it's a well-known fact you can make s'mores in the
microwave in a fraction of the time it takes to build a campfire.
I know it may sound rash, but you don't have to send the kids to camp. You could let them send you.
Don Siegel, chairman of the department of exercise and sports studies
at Smith College, has witnessed this very phenomenon countless times
over the last quarter century. Siegel is director of the Smith College
Adult Sports and Fitness Camp.
It started 26 years ago as a
health and nutrition clinic of sorts, but it fast became clear that the
participants knew their Plato and Siegel gave in to the notion that
''life must be lived as play.'' The clinic turned camp and that's when
the fun really began, he says.
''I think what happens to a lot
of people they're engaged in physical activity till their early 20s
when they have to get a job and start their families and grow up,''
Siegel says. ''A decade or so later they're wondering where the fun
went and so they take a chance. They say, 'I really like physical
activity and for once in my life I'm going to focus on myself. ... I'm
going to try something new or take up something I haven't done in 15
years.'''
The Smith College camp couples classroom tutoring in
fitness, stress management, and nutrition with a lot of time for play
in yoga, hiking, biking, swimming, climbing, tai-chi, canoeing,
running, squash, tennis, and numerous other activities I'm too out of
breath to list.
For the typical family woman or man, all this
focus on the self can be downright unsettling at first. ''When they
come for the first time they think 'This is weird. What am I doing
here?' And then they meet people who have the same questions, the same
calling, and it's all OK,'' Siegel says.
Before long, all those
selfless wage slaves are having fun, or at the very least keeping busy
with offerings like tennis, orienteering, hiking, squash, swimming,
karate, water skiing, mountain biking, kayaking. And all before
cocktail hour which ends the day. Siegel boasts of a 50 percent return
rate.
The 2005 session runs from June 12 to 18 and costs $1,150.
For more on the Adult Sports and Fitness Camp, call Michelle Finley at
585-3971 or go online to www.science.smith.edu/exer_sci/camp.
If
we grownups didn't have our noses stuck in all those kiddie summer camp
guides, we'd know that there are plenty of camps and organizations
offering relaxation or recreation in adult sizes. GrownUpCamps.com at
www.extremeathletics.com/ can help. The web site has a searchable
database of adult camp options, from fantasy baseball to race car
driving to women's surfing.
Here are some other close-to-home options.
The Appalachian Mountain Club offers outdoor camping programs and
workshops throughout the year. Most cost close to $100 a day and the
outings range from one-day trips to week-long excursions. For more,
call the AMC general information line at 617-523-0636 or go to the AMC
web site at www.outdoors.org.
The National Audubon Society camps
range from Hog Island, an island off the mid-coast of Maine, to a
sky-high ranch in the Wind River Mountains of northwestern Wyoming.
While there's plenty of opportunity to romp in the forest or scramble
up a mountain path, Audubon's camps have a certain cerebral appeal.
Outdoor activities are accompanied by classroom lectures given by
expert naturalists. The interdependent web of life is the overarching
theme.
The week-long camps for adults at Hog Island all hover
around $1,000. For more information, call (207) 781-2330 or visit the
web site at www.maineaudubon.org/explore/camp/descriptions.shtml.
Ride Noho Bicycle Racing Camps are for all levels of rider, novice
through racer-wannabe. For more information, call (888)-817-NOHO or
visit www.ridenoho.com.
The Sierra Club environmental
organization runs adult camps that combine work - restoring rain
forests and mending the club' s near-endless network of fences in its
Western U.S. preservations, for example - with outdoor recreation and
environmental education. Run since 1901 by seasoned Sierra Club
volunteers, these week-long adult adventures have made base camp
everywhere from the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to Mount Desert
Island, Maine, to Nepal. Cost per adult range widely, from about $500
for an Arizona fence-mending trip to well over $1,000 for restoring
rain forests in Hawaii. For more information, call 415-977-5500 or go
to www.sierraclub.org/outings/national/.
Unitarians run a fairly
traditional adult summer camp at the Star Island Religious and
Educational Conference Center in New Hampshire, but with a spiritual
flair. The island is one of the historic ''Isles of Shoals'' off the
New England coast. Adults can choose among several ''theme weeks''
focused on the arts, international affairs, nature, spirituality, and
the like. Downtime activities (apart from the summer standards of
boating, fishing, hiking, swimming, tennis and softball) include art,
writing, yoga and chapel services. Call (603) 430-6272 or visit
www.starisland.org/StarIsland/Conferences/Calandar.htm.
Jo
Glading-DiLorenzo of Northampton, who writes a biweekly column about
sports, can be reached at glading-dilorenzo@crocker.com.
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