Tag Archives: paleontology camp

~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ favorite college professor

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~June 23 to July 23, 2020~

Dinosaur Discoveries virtual camp

Since camp was during the day, we moved our noon video call to 6 pm for camp week. He was animated! I wasn’t sure if it was the time of day or due to camp, but he was ON FIRE in his nerdy mind. I got on the call on the first night to him frantically spinning his cube into an alternating colors pattern and he held up the blue-and-green side to the camera and said, “this is like a nerve check for me because I have to do the opposite of what I’ve trained myself to do,” and then babbled for the whole hour about phylogenies and homologies.

That day they made a tik tok, a google slideshow, did an interactive (video game) learning module, read and discussed a scientific publication. They talked about how paleontology, biology and geology relate to each other. They used starburst candy to illustrate the rock cycle (melted by microwave onto cardboard: igneous.) Two of his buddies from camp last year were in attendance, and he added seven new teens and two new instructors to his paleontology community.

The theme for day two was “geologic context of the Mesozoic,” because isn’t that what we all think of in our summer camp memories? They did a Pangaea puzzle, read about and discussed some contemporary dino fossil discoveries, met with a real paleontologist, sifted a bag of sand to find a whole bunch of fossils (24 sea snails, 17 amber pieces, no trilobites, 3 squids, gastropods, ray teeth, shark teeth – some of them not yet counted).

Day 3: biologic context of the Mesozoic. Mass extinctions, why birds are the only living dinosaurs, why Triassic animals were just the weirdest, a handy paleontology database. This was a dress-up day and Quinn chose to wear his “brambleproof” long-sleeved shirt, his Indiana Jones hat, and a rock pick. He worked on his dino diorama, which they made in the box that the camp supplies were shipped in.

Day 4: Reading the fossil record! Quinn finished up counting his sifted fossils and had 32 pieces of amber, 25 Sahara gastropods and 3 fragments (so at least 28 individuals), and he mentioned both Devonian squid and a Devonian fish called Dunkleosteus, but I’m not sure if they were included among his fossils. His knowledge on this subject has far exceeded mine and I can no longer keep up! He discovered he did have half of a Trilobite. On this day he was set the task of writing a scientific report of one of his fossil finds, and he came up with this:

“A new genus named a Trilobita was discovered to have lived about 520 million years ago and though not all measurements are available the specimen is certainly unique. The front half of this almost crab-like creature has been preserved in its 3-D structure representing a very small creature living in the Upper Cambrian Lodore formation.”

“I made up the part about the formation that it was found in, and I approximated on the million of years ago. Also I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing Trilobita correctly. Trilobita?” (Think: kilometer/kilometer.)

Quinn has a theory on Trilobites; that they were the first sentient organisms, and that they traveled in groups. I let him talk that night and recorded some audio after he introduced his Trilobite theory. These are just some segments I gleaned from a twenty minute treatise:

“To me it looked like in our fossil record, all of the things in that time period look practically the same almost, like really really similar, so it makes me think there was one kind of first species that evolved and then that evolved into a whole myriad of other things that evolved into a multitude of different things. Each species branching as it goes. To me the length of a species is determined by when it branched off the thing behind it to when it branched into multiple different things itself. That’s how I think of how long a species lived… when did it come into being from the thing that branched to BE it? That’s the start of it. and then the end is when it branched into multiple things itself. And everything kind of looks really similar that we have from back then. So it kind of looks like everything is one thing. And then that thing splits into several similar things. I mean a bird doesn’t look anything like a whale. But if you trace the two back far enough, then like a chickadee and a humpback whale, were once the same species. It might be somewhere back in the Mesozoic or before the Mesozoic, it might have been different things already when the dinosaurs were alive but if you trace them back far enough, everything has a common ancestor with everything else. So my thing is I’m thinking of like the ultimate common ancestor. I think of a trilobite.”

“Like someone looks at a rock on Beverly beach and is like, “there’s a clam shell imprint here,” but you can only see this little imprint for a bacteria if you’re looking at it micro microscopic. Attach several microscopes to your eye and walk around Beverly beach.”

“Soft parts still fossilize is my thing. If you think about it, it’s not the meteor strike that wiped everything out. It incinerates everything in one small area. Back then we happen to know that there was pretty much one continent with several large islands around it, maybe? And even when that was the case, that all the water that had life in it, was all one thing. You can swim from any point in it to any other point that has life in it. and so the biodiversity wouldn’t have been the greatest…”

“A meteor hits. let’s just say at the time trilobites are alive a meteor hits and we don’t know about it- it doesn’t deposit what it usually does or whatever. Let’s say that’s what wiped out the species then except for what evolved into what we have today… If there were bacteria I think they would have fossilized, because in the water, their soft forms would slip between molecules… If you’re willing to actually be really careful and chip them out of the rock, I think that you would have ended up with (and this is all under a microscope that’s under a microscope that under possibly another microscope.)”

“Even so I think that then that would have been like I don’t know like thinking… I think that that would have been like … I think that that would have fossilized” (I’m including this verbatim to illustrate his words trying to keep up with his brain.)

“If a meteor had struck, pretty much the whole earth is covered in possibly a mile thick cloud of ash just hovering above the earth or like encasing the earth. If you think about the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, the story goes: meteor hits earth. Ash cloud for several million years, meaning all the plants couldn’t get sun because of the ash cloud so all the plants died meaning all the herbivores died meaning all the carnivores died. Mammals survived because back then we were scavengers right? We were able to eat survive in pretty much any climate. So we were able to just eat dead stuff which there would be plenty of, so we survived.”

“The producers are subsisting off of sun, like just subsisting off of some non-living thing, like eating rocks, or filtering sand through itself, photosynthesis, like it’s always there. And if you use it, it’s not like you use it and some of it goes away. You’re done using it, and you get the energy from it, but it still has just as much energy on itself to give as when you picked it up and used it to give yourself energy. So what the meteors do when they hit is they take away that thing in some way or another. So meteors take away the producers source of energy.”

Day 5: Dinosaurs in pop culture and media! They met with another real life paleontologist, this time one who works on prehistoric penguins, and specifically the plumage – the colors of fossil feathers! Fossils can tell us about the evolution of the shape and color of penguin feathers! And other dinosaur plumage – they learned about a Jurassic bird that had iridescent feathers. The camp kit included (modern) feathers that they had looked at in preparation for this segment. Maybe not all the mamas have gathered piles of feathers for their kids.

This day’s topic on pop culture and media and dinosaurs (and misconceptions about them) was fascinating for Quinn. There were lots of links and resources provided, which were fun things like Jurassic Park and Disney’s Dinosaur.

Here is our conversation about the 1914 animation of Gertie the dinosaur:

“A sauropod eats a boulder and the top of the tree, sees a sea serpent in the lake next to them, starts dancing, eats the other half of the tree, tosses a mammoth into said lake, the mammoth swims back over and blasts the sauropod with water, and then swims away, a mammoth can swim, then the sauropod picks up a boulder and hits the mammoth, and then the sauropod takes a drink and drains the whole lake…”

“When were mammoths and when were sauropods?” His scientist/writer mom replied, modeling her grasp of both science and grammar.

“Sauropods were in the Jurassic period. Mammoths weren’t around until after the Cretaceous.”

“Are you saying it would be anachronistic for a sauropod to toss a mammoth in a lake then? And throw boulders at it?”

“I’m saying that a sauropod wouldn’t have lived at the same time as a mammoth. I’m saying that sauropods can’t toss mammoths by the tail…”

“Even if they didn’t have to time travel in order to do it?”

“If they didn’t have to time travel in order to do it, and they were capable of doing that time travel, and they could actually get a mammoth, they still physically could not pick up a mammoth by the tail and throw it five miles into a lake, and then accurately hit it at that range with a boulder.

“Are you sure? Aren’t you being kind of a party pooper?”

~

The two camp instructors and both guest visitors were women. I love that this camp group makes a strong effort towards inclusion and is working hard for fair representation for all in a science that has historically been exclusive to white men. I like that my white man-to-be is surrounded by all other types of people in these camps.

Q and I watched an episode of PBS prehistoric road trip together that night.

Day 6 was the final day of Dino camp, and they presented their Dioramas and played games.

On his diorama presentation, Quinn was complimented that he must have done a lot of research because of how his time period aligned with the species of dinosaurs and plant life represented. Here is his spiel:

“This is my museum diorama of the K-Pg extinction which is extremely late cretaceous. So the meteor is still in the sky yet it has already struck, so all of the grass has been burned off, and the rocks are bleached because of the immense heat. there is a river running through here, and there is a velociraptor pack here attacking this herd of triceratops, and all that’s left of these trees are small shrubs, which the triceratops herd is taking cover in trying to save themselves, however the raptor pack has expertly sent in an ambusher from behind. there are also a pair of tyrannosaurs attacking these two ankylosaurs, because big predators like tyrannosaurs assuming they were predators and not scavengers, would probably hunt in pairs or trios rather than full packs. there’s a quetzalcoatlus up in the sky looking for food, and there’s a volcano that’s erupting.”

He told me that night:

“For our final meeting they gave us like traditional class clown, most likely to become a rock star awards. Except they were specific to us regardless of the traditional ones. Frizzie got most likely to lead a paleontology expedition while wearing fancy clothing. Lead got most likely to draw the most scientifically accurate drawing of a T. rex. I got most likely to become everybody’s favorite college professor which I think is extremely accurate.”

Extremely!

~

(slightly modified by mama)

 

 

In which I realize why this post incubated a while…

I revisited my educational priorities for Quinn during this month. This was motivated by looking ahead to the 2020-2021 school year and grappling with which path to choose: hybrid online/in person public school, fully online Edmentum public school, or fully homeschool. Because I am writing this as we approach the end of 8th grade, I know what was chosen and how the story turned out to not be about what I would choose at all. It’s weird to have been thinking about things like scaffolding removal and then realize – oh we’re done with scaffolding. Now he’s taking charge of his own path. He chose Edmentum, and has handled his schooling. It turns out the scaffolding was even more temporary than I realized, and I was slow to take out the final pieces despite my awareness that removal was the goal.

Since I’m writing this later, I have control over leaving out the awkward and tense discussions of pros and cons, of offers on my part to advocate, which he kept gently but firmly turning down. I can see now that he was telling me he’s got this. If we had homeschooled, it would have been something he was doing to please me. (I cannot ensure that he did not choose his path out of wanting to please his father but that is out of my control. )Yes, I know it would have been odd to homeschool remotely – him at his dad’s but with me facilitating learning. But that would have worked, in fact I’m confident we would have slam dunked it, if it had been what he wanted and needed. It’s just that it wasn’t. It’s just that it was hard for me to hear that at first.

When I wrote the priorities, consent took up more of the bandwidth than it had in the past, though I could see it was there all along when I wrote the original mamafesto when he was six. It just wasn’t named quite as directly – it was emergent curriculum, choice, opting in. Looking through a 2020 teen parenting lens, consent rose to the surface. As I rewrote, I was thinking about how he needed to have autonomy in body and mind in the learning context. Keep those outside influences at bay and let him decide for himself, follow his own compass. But I was still a little bit holding onto some need for control over his learning in that way we have as parents of operating from a blind spot. The cliché about practicing what we preach. The cliché about 2020 and hindsight. Again.

So I’m leaving the awkward, tense conversations in my private journal, with this mile marker placed here from my somewhat expanded perspective of months. A reminder, an honest reckoning with yet another thing that was tough about the past year.

~

Quotable Quotes of Q:

“Flight was not why things evolved feathers… feathers were why things evolved flight.”

“When overwhelmed thinking about covid, I distract myself. Like, I think about how to write pi in binary.”

“An Illithids mindflayer is like a dementor possessing Davy Jones, but purple.”

Literature

We spent time in Rohan this month, and by the time we ended the month were reading the Appendices.

Q read the Monkey Wrench Gang this month.

We discussed the pronunciation of pronunciation.

One evening I just sat for a while, listening to the sound of popcorn popping upstairs, and the pages of Calvin and Hobbes turning on the other end of the video call.

Math

“Volume of a warbler” and “how many warblers on earth?” Oh, the things you google. These were inquiries during Quinn’s quest to remix Vi Hart’s binary tree of birds – her turducken-en-ducken-en…. but with 13 birds nested inside each other bird, in a long list of types of birds.

Which brought him to the question, “How many birds in the world?” So he could compare to how many in this thirteen-to the eighteen factorial power bird stuffing scheme. The 200 billion birds in the world seems like a big number, however, >121 quintillion is way bigger!

He took this ridiculously high numbers of birds even higher and google calculator eventually returned the result, “Infinity,” and he was laughing so hard at breaking google again.

Honorable mention to, “how many square feet is New York City?” and an ensuing discussion of area codes.

Nature

He was visited by a grouse in the pile of firewood he has been using a splitting maul to help create. He also used the hatchet to strip small branches off limbs, and off one cedar sapling they used to make a railing. He helped replace deck boards and build a deck addition. The seeds from Sam’s garden box were beginning to sprout – he described the sunflowers “busting out” of their seeds, and the pea “vines” that were starting to lengthen and reach out curling tendrils. He saw the comet on a few different nights, explaining to me the best time to see it at sunset and how the remaining light on one side of the sky made it shine brighter against its darker corner of the sky.

 

 

More dinos

This is Q’s giddy anticipation the night he unveiled his plans for what we would do after we finished reading the appendices.

He recreated the dinosaur game he made up on graph paper where I had to build my own Jurassic park role-play style, in a google sheets version for us to play together remotely!

Another memorable quote for the month came a few days later, “oh my god, oh my god, I’m so excited about this dinosaur game.” And we did start in before the end of this month, by the end of which I had collected three different ceratopsians and some stegosauruses.

Oh, the dinos you’ll know!

 

~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ existence

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Christmas was just the three of us. We were sick so I called off plans and visitors. There was something sweet about it, and though we missed our family we know we will see them soon. For me it resembled Rew Christmases of days of yore; we took turns opening presents and took time to express our thanks. We sank into the slow simplicity, Quinn explored his gifts and learned some html on the side; learning extra as he does when he has a break from school. Speaking of school, this fall has been pretty laid back; comparing in retrospect to sixth grade, seventh grade has been a breeze.

Quinn made me a trio of origami dolphin ornaments, which I adore and will treasure for years to come.

 

Quinn is rocking the texting this week! I heard from him tonight and the last few days and he’s been gone over a week so this is a big deal. getting closer to italy so the timing is perfect of course. putting in his paleontology camp application tomorrow for the first round deadline, and some of the texting was about getting letter of rec from his teacher and he texted me back “i did it” and I’m just feeling proud of the kiddo.

Quinn had a tearful moment writing his letter of intent for his paleontology camp application. He was bogging down and asking for wording suggestions… a wall went up when I suggested he not only say why he felt the camp would be fun for him, but also why he would be a good candidate for the camp – why they should invite him, why he would be a great addition to the group. It took some time to see behind the wall, but ultimately what was bugging him was trying to say he was any better than any other kid. At first he was phrasing it that he didn’t want to “make the decision for them” with his letter, and then I explained all kids applying would be writing similar letters, and the admissions people would have to make a tough decision if more than enough kids applied… well, he was just hating all of this information, but it was presenting more like anger or just simply aversion to “having to” write the letter but I didn’t go there… and then I finally got it. “Are you picturing the kids who don’t get to make it into the camp?” and the tears spilled over. Oh, not stubbornness, resistance, or aversion. Just empathy. Just intensity of emotions. That’s my kid. I finally got him convinced that most kids got in, that if there were kids who would cause problems, they’d figure it out from their teacher letters or things like that and maybe not invite those kids, and that worst case scenario, worthy kids who didn’t get in this time around get put on waiting list and get in next year. He still had scenarios he needed to cover, “what if this year would have been their only chance?”

“You mean if they’re a senior in high school?”

“Yeah.” We talked through all the scenarios, and how the instructors want for all the kids to go, and that’s why they have been expanding these camps (there are a whole panel of new ones this year- more fossil prep, one on illustration, etc.). I had been giving him words like “positive attitude” and “making contributions to group work” and he hadn’t been able to start typing yet but then I said let’s think of a time at last year’s camp when you showed these qualities… and tell it that way, like a story (finally a good idea) and he ended up using the story of last year’s camp having rainy weather and how he maintained a positive attitude and they still found fossils, and even pitched in to redo their instructor’s tent that flooded.

Since last time he was here, we have been playing lots of double nine dominoes (the game called chicken foot that Aunt Margie taught my brothers and I as kids). I guess I got a set of dominoes at the thrift store a while back and forgot about it, but they have been so fun. Funny when all the new Christmas toys are sitting here and we’re playing the 50 cent game. Hid play with his new stuff too, but playing games together might be his love language.

All the dinners last night. I made pizza for third dinner for everyone. He ate lots of pieces while playing dominoes. I am bragging about winning at point accumulation (which means I’m losing). I had market today, and while I was gone, he ate breakfast and more pizza, and by the time I got home he was back in bed asleep! He never does that. He slept for a couple hours and I woke him up at 4:30 to play more dominoes and eat more pizza.

We giggled a lot about contranyms.

As we played dominoes I would ask him one of his spelling words (on our list from words he had been misspelling that I gathered from his homework) every so often. One was field (he was writing feild). I told him about i before except after c, and then showed him, “except when your foreign neighbor Keith receives eight beige counterfeit sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters.” because that also made him giggle.

He wasn’t ready to sleep last night at 10pm because of his nap, so I left him with headlamp and magic cards (his dinosaur themed deck needed some rearrangement to add in his new rampaging brontodon card from his christmas stocking) and went to bed.

I did a free two week trial of the headspace meditation app. Originally it was to help me kick off my new meditation habit, but it ended up being a help to Quinn in a few difficult moments. One afternoon, overwhelmed about his homework piling up from not being up front with his dad about how much work he had, I encouraged him to take a break and listen to his favorite song. When seven nation army didn’t do the trick and he still wasn’t feeling able to get started, I asked him to come do a five-minute meditation with me. He was still grumpy after that but no longer flopping around refusing to even start, and was able to make some headway on his work. At bedtime I told him that headspace has sleep meditations and he said, “yes!!!” with both arms thrown up in celebration. I let him choose from the options, one of which is “sleepcast” which is “storytelling in a range of soothing voices” and he scrolled through and found one with an owl icon called “sleeper mountain” and he fell asleep that night listening to a 45 minute sleep story about the mountain and meditating with crickets and forest sounds.

In thinking over what to do about Quinn’s homework stress at his dad’s, I do think something will need to be said, but I think it’s going to have to come from Quinn. I am trying to keep my eye on the long term goal of Quinn self-advocating, even with his dad. The short term fix of me bringing it up to coparent could risk a blow up and I already told Quinn I wouldn’t. I’m having an ongoing conversation with Quinn about how preventing his dad’s anxiety attacks is not his job, and that it is causing his own anxiety to increase when it gets in the way of him getting his homework done for a week at a time.

He was doing better a few nights later… mostly caught up, and in pretty good spirits.

I have always sort of figured I should be able to meditate yet I have never done it. On the other hand, I realize I actually do it all the time, just not for very long. I quiet my thoughts, focus on my breath, when I’m feeling like I need to re-center. I also do it with Quinn, so he’s quite familiar. Another morning I gave him another 5 minute headspace one and he just sat on the couch with it and it’s a beautiful thing to see him sitting with his eyes closed just breathing. What do I want for him in life? That. Being ok in there.

Q asked me for a snuggle today after school and he had me sit on couch and laid himself on my lap with two fuzzy blankets over him (he was basically in egg configuration but didn’t play the egg game just then) and then Lisa kitty came right over and climbed up on top of him and curled up and we sat that way for ten minutes. I kind of want to brag on facebook about my kid, but not necessarily that he is in bed reading statistics right now, but, “my son, age twelve years ten and a half months, five foot eight inches tall, still asks to get on my lap.” It’s mildly painful but it is so sweet at the same time.

He is writing something but I don’t know what, and when I asked he wouldn’t tell me but said, “when I’m done you can read it.” I told him I totally get that, I am the same way! The apple doesn’t fall far.

~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ quercus quetzalcoatlus

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paleontology camp!

there was quite a bit of sand spilling out of the lint trap in the dryer as i restarted the bulging load of size 14 clothing for another cycle. Every pair of underwear but the two extras were worn; all socks; all shirts and pants; when the second batch of instagram photos of paleontology camp came across my feed, my very first thought, “look at his big smile!” was immediately followed by: “he’s wearing a different shirt!”

i got to hear a lot about the people he spent his week with on the ride back from camp, in between him tuning me out to participate in the group text chat the six campers had set up with each other. Conveniently for the purposes of this blog post, they had given each other nicknames. Quinn had become quetzalcoatlus, then morphed into pretzel. The others were bob (previously known as D from L.A.), remus (also CA), frizzie (WI), lead (WA), and k.k. (WA). The leaders, birt and kamel, had also taken on camp nicknames. Frizzie plans to specialize in birds and pterosaurs (such as the aforementioned quetzalcoatlus), bob is headed into paleobiology, but the common theme was that all six of them plan on getting PhDs, quinn’s in dinosaur paleontology. He recalled remus’s question about how many PhDs one could accumulate before getting kicked out of school. Kids on fire to learn!

Their days structured themselves around hikes and museum forays, with a clear division of labor in camp. The leaders prepared dinners, while the campers made their own breakfasts and lunches. bagels and cream cheese for breakfast; for lunch, sandwiches or wraps, goldfish crackers and granola bars. The van became known as the fishbowl, and the six campers themselves as the goldfish, for the sheer number of packages of goldfish crackers they consumed. While leaders prepared dinner, the campers set up all the tents, including those of the leaders. Quinn shared a tent with bob. Among the fossils he brought home was a plain old rock, “my stake-pounding rock!” The campers were also responsible for washing the dishes after meals. Quinn talked about this without any hint of resentment over “chores.”

“Did you know that only one single dinosaur fossil has ever been unearthed in Oregon? And it was a toe from a madrasaur? And it was found by Thomas Condon? He is who the Paleontology Research Station in John Day is named after.” I asked quinn how he was feeling about how the study of paleontology is not limited to the study of dinosaur fossils, the topic of a heated moment we shared a few months ago. At the time, he had felt devastated that his understanding of his dream job was all a lie, and his future was now ruined. It passed. Now he has seen fossils from turtles, plants, mouse deer, “and a very old pig!”

Day 1 Sunday

They drove east that first day into the mountains and hiked somewhere near Sisters, then camped. Before leaving the museum, they had to find one scientific name in the collection sharing the first letter of their name; quinn found Quercus, an oak leaf.

He said the hike that day contained more wildlife than paleontology, and they learned some of the plants currently flowering in the region: beargrass, lupine, and another pink flower whose identity they weren’t sure of.

Their cooking device was missing the correct hose, so they needed to cook dinner over a fire that first night. The kids decided pinecones might work well as kindling, and they lit right up!

Day 2 Monday

They would spend the next two days in the John Day fossil beds/painted hills area of eastern oregon. They finished the drive there, set up camp, and hiked and visited the Thomas Condon Research Center that day.

Day 3 Tuesday

John Day all day!

Day 4 wednesday

They finished up in John Day and packed up, spending a long driving day to Newport, set up camp in Beverly Beach and explored for fossils.

“By the way, mama, we are going to need to get a trash bag or something capable of holding large fossils and take it back to beverly beach to collect my fossil deposit.”

Day 5 Thursday

This was the day they had been planning on going to Florence to see Kamel’s research on fossil pinnipeds (floppy-swimmies) but it was raining and they decided to stay at Beverly Beach. Birt’s tent flooded so they needed to re-do her tent set up.

“Birt slept well that night.”

They went to the aquarium that day instead, communed with modern floppy-swimmies, and took showers back at the state park.

Day 6 Friday

This was the last day of camp, and they woke up, broke camp, and drove back to Eugene. They went on one hike on the way which culminated in some sand dunes where they played on a rope swing (this could have been somewhere around florence, but quinn didn’t know for sure.)

the folder quinn returned home with contained a bundle of good reading material about fossil formations, geologic processes, and animal phylogenies. i know it will be a resource he will look at later! the pile of rocks that came home provides another tangible reminder of camp!

the other kind of tracks

The goldfish made up several songs during their time together. A reimagining of from now on from the greatest showman turned into “And we will go back home, and we will eat these fish. Gold….fish….”

They rewrote hakuna matata using “the Birt will Durn,” the phrase uttered by Birt which earned her the nickname, because of the sausage that fell in the dirt on the first night, and her justification for going ahead and eating it anyway after re-exposing it to the flames.

A whole new world was in the process of becoming a song about basalt. “Unbelievable rocks, indescribable basalt…. A Very Old Rock…”

Finally, there was a song being written by Remus about bagels and cream cheese.

~~~

While paying half attention to a tilt podcast, i was directed to this thought-provoking ready for adulthood checklist from the author of the book happy campers.

in that regard, i see how camp encouraged his growth towards independence and self-responsibility. It gave him a taste of being truly responsible for himself in a way he hasn’t experienced before. i also appreciated how the group took care of each other (tent set up, dish cleaning). He may not have packed each day’s outfit in its own gallon ziplock bag the way i did when i went to camp, but he went ahead and wore the clothes anyway! It may seem like i’m making a big deal about his clothing changes, but i witnessed him wear the same shirt 3 days in a row for outdoor school just last month; and that was with a mama chaperone in the live studio audience, letting him know i saw that he was still wearing the same shirt again and reminding him to think about changing it at his earliest convenience.

Summertime learning

Quinn’s adventures in learning tag program day camp ran for two weeks, and we managed a carpooling arrangement that got him to the OSU campus each day. His chosen class schedule included united we solve, mathcraft, lego robotics, and create your own country! I think he enjoyed them all; at first create your own country was his favorite, but when the novelty wore off and the countries he and his classmates created had all cornered the market in the various limiting resources, he began saying more things about lego robotics in the evenings. I know the puzzles class was right up his alley as well!

Swim lessons – 4 of the 5 summer swim lessons took place this month. We will pick up again when school starts with one every other week so he can keep building skills!

I took quinn with me this year to oregon country fair – it has been a while since he was there! He experienced it through a much different set of more grown up eyes. At the same time, the magic of fair elicits from each of us the wonder of a much younger child no matter what age we are. We stopped in our wanderings to watch a parade go by and attended a concert by the march 4th marching band. We became absorbed for quite some time at an interactive musical art installation consisting of the innards of several pianos bolted to a structure; an assortment of the hammers were available for use around the panels of strings, waiting for passers by to experiment with sound by tapping on them. Food was a big focus, and quinn enjoyed a strawberry lemonade and a kabob (he thinks meat lollipops are yum) for lunch while rich and i shared souvlaki. Quinn mostly absorbed quietly and did not express many desires for most of the day while we walked around, but i coaxed him into trying out the handmade marimbas, and a young dad nearby broke into a grin and bopped his head to quinn’s rendition of take on me. While we watched another concert (the shook twins and john craigie) he was having to dig for the stamina to carry on with standing in the crowd, but the simple distraction of putting on my overshirt, tying knots in it, and letting me dance him around, was enough to lighten his mood. Late in the afternoon he finally made his requests known: ice cream, and to watch “one of the plays.” We had walked past several plays in action throughout the day, but he hadn’t shown any sign of wanting to stop, so by this time of day, he had to settle for some acrobatics performances, which he felt was suitable. After his raspberry ice cream, we ordered burritos for dinner, and it was time for us to make our way homeward with just one more stop to buy three sets of fairy dragon wings for our three pancakes.

At karate, he started learning green belt techniques this month. Our sifu’s sifu visited, and quinn wanted to maximize his time at the dojo to overlap with his time here. Sifu Diaz always remembers quinn each time he visits, and is so warm and friendly to all of us. He wanted to watch the kids’ activity known as jump tag (something he hadn’t experienced) before we got down to the business of belt testing. This was my turn to test, and quinn attended as a spectator, and turned out to have observed quite a lot of details about my test, in spite of sitting on the floor in the back with his face in a book. Our dojo marched in the local summerfest parade again this year, and that night rich, quinn and i watched fireworks together.

family firework gazing

family cloud gazing

In usual summer fashion, quinn spent a few days in “office camp” at my work, armed with audio books (he got caught up on wings of fire) and khan academy (he worked on programming, but also thinks he might be interested in the chemistry course, since he can see that the “balancing chemical equations” and “periodic table” units are near the beginning). He also figured out how to watch naruto episodes that aren’t found on netflix, by you tubing them in japanese and reading subtitles. I asked if he was learning any words and he said no, because he had determined that the words are all in a different order from english! Something tells me that if he is determining the order of the words, it is only a matter of time before he starts translating… i love the unexpected learning that can take place in the unstructured pockets of summer.

~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ connections, finding eggs in unusual places, and the oxford comma

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camp boss verbosity warning: please excuse the verbosity of this end-of-schoolyear/start-of-summer month of lifelong learning and grab a cuppa!

pizza rolls and rubik’s cubes

quinn and i solved his christmas stocking rubik’s cube this month! He is pictured showing the initial progress just after the first step of solving one side (the green one, of course.)

he wants to know more about tides (the math of how they work) and the oxford comma (i gave him the zombie dinosaur spiel but he wants more details).

after a sleepover at aragorn’s house he reported that pizza rolls are yummy. the next time i made pizza for dinner i gave him some dough to work with. we ended up with a few odd attempts and some awesome commentary about pizza blobs, pizza nuggets, and a meatball pizza taco!

he procrastinated on social studies homework- he had to make greek mythology trading cards (rich laughed, “he put that off?”) chalk it up to perfectionism. he wanted to do some seriously intricate drawings, the tradeoff being he handed them in over a week late.

perfectionism likewise struck in his band assignment to record himself playing a few songs for placement next year, but these he managed on time!

middle school band concert! hard to capture great photos of percussionists, as they stand in the back!

he helped me plant impatiens for grammy.

You find an egg… in a tidepool

we went tidepooling on a drizzly day. he had so much homework that i almost called it off but he expressed really wanting to go. we mostly hiked and didn’t peek into many tidepools. there were lots of seals in the areas we might normally explore further and we didn’t want to disturb them. a baby seal was right in the path to get around the last headland, so we didn’t go any farther. on our way back we found an egg (!) in a tidepool… it was so out of place, it did not immediately compute what it was. both of us had “you find an egg” thoughts like “is it a dragon? a dinosaur? A pokemon?” before returning to reality. it was a seabird egg, but had obviously been laid in the wrong spot or had gotten moved or washed out, so it was in the water, with a little sculpin treading water next to it. The bizarre context stopped us in our tracks and made us think impossible thoughts.

We saw lots of fossils on the beach, and with his upcoming paleontology camp they stood out to me. each time camp dawned on me i would get excited all over again.

 

Starlight parade

On the way to the parade, it was shouted around the bus “band attention! it is tradition to play living on a prayer when we are halfway there!” thus was bon jovi the 27th singalong of the trip. Most of the singalongs were crazy train, because that was one of their chosen marching songs, and the best thing about singalongs on band trips is that they sing their individual instrument parts.

when the instantly recognizable (or so i thought) intro to dream on started playing and several kids asked, “what song is this?” the other mom sitting kitty-corner from me on the bus exchanged extremely amused glances with me. We had the same reaction about them not knowing jump!

 

 

We chaperones marched along with our kids in the Starlight Parade, wearing “i’m with the band” t-shirts. some of the parents had squirt bottles of water with which to hydrate the kids in between songs; the three doctors among the chaperones were especially good at inserting water into kids without making them choke or gag, or soaking their uniforms.

 

I stuck with photo documenting. i overheard some choice quotes from the crowd of spectators and saw some killer dance moves as the evening light dwindled towards the end of the second mile of marching. The whole experience was magical. As I heard one little girl in the crowd say, “I can feel my heart vibrating!” Indeed.

 

 

at the end of the parade quinn was very tired. we got back on the bus and he got out of his uniform top and said, “mama can you hold this because i feel like i want to just drink water, and sleep. sleep while drinking water. yeah.”

And also, this was quinn’s shoe! his band teacher encouraged me to document this to show people why we need fundraising!

on the way home, we took the band to the zoo! quinn loves penguins.

outdoor school

day 1

the sixth grade outdoor school trip started with a climb up the dune at camp kiwanda state park. Highlights from day one included an after dinner beach trip for nature/sensory immersion and some capture the flag; meeting silvana and her mom, the girl quinn brought up in this post whose inspiring mom bonded with me throughout the trip; her story is so relatable, advocating for a differently wired child; also memorable were campfire and s’mores and camp songs!

it is also necessary to mention a boy (not actually) named pippin who is the second example of a new kid at school whom quinn has been the first to befriend this year. Pippin sidled up to me and laid the story of his life right on me at the start of the trip. his mom had died less than a month before. three weeks before, he had started school here, having moved from vegas with his three year old sister to live with his aunt. the day before i met him, he had received his mom’s ashes. “i think i want to get one of those necklaces where you can put some of the ashes in it to always have a part of her to carry with me.” the stories of these kids’ lives crack my heart open.

I told quinn how much i appreciated his way of welcoming newcomers, and quinn went the extra mile with pippin, changing cabins and leaving behind the rest of the fellowship (in sleeping arrangements only, but still) so that pippin would have a friend in his cabin. The teachers seemed to find it helpful that he had connected with an adult who would support him (he and quinn both gravitated to me at meal times) and who was also able to redirect him when necessary (he was frank about his adhd and that he had already gotten to know the principal pretty well in his short time here.) we found out we have martial arts in common and i invited him to come check out our dojo!

 

day 2

Tie dye art class with our group turned out to be a personality test… quinn needed his own space so no other dye mess got on his fabric, and he wanted to make a perfect spiral but was upset about his folding job, and wanted to make perfect pie slices of each color but he felt he was messing up… many pep talks and he was the last one to unfold his, but he got it done and was happy with the result. pippin was the first one done, all blue, with a few red spots, and he had left a big puddle of dye on the plastic tablecloth.

then our group walked to the lake and fished. a few volunteers who knew fishing were there to help keep lines untangled and reels working properly, and each kid was issued a rod and stood on the edge of the lake and fished. Some kids knew just what to do, like quinn, and others had never fished before. Some required a quick lesson, others an in-depth confidence boost: “you’re doing something that takes ton of coordination and some kids have done before but you’re brand new to it and it’s hard! but ‘we can do hard things’” (glennon doyle’s words came in handy a few times this week.)

Back at the lodge for our next art session, we laid on the floor and made big banners with the sharpies. “outdoor school 2019” block letters got written and filled in with doodles, and kids all added their personal touches. quinn declared “fractals!” and did a bunch of his math doodling in lime green. as most of the kids began to lose interest and wander back outside, quinn and i and the art teacher stayed and kept doodling for a while longer. quinn and i were our normal selves and the art teacher said, “i am really enjoying listening to the conversations you two have.”

while the kids did skit practice with counselors, i had break time… i filled up my coffee cup and i wandered off to one of the camp areas we weren’t using and sat in a pavillion out of the rain and read my book. at one point i laid my head on the book and power napped. in spite of the coffee, i was pooped. The quote at the beginning of the book i brought to read, unsheltered by barbara kingsolver, read:

“after the final no there comes a yes

and on that yes the future world depends.”

~wallace stevens

this spoke to me, echoing how i feel about these 12 year old people as they mature, the unfortunate state of the world they are inheriting, and how they are rising to the occasion against the odds.

At dinner i was again joined by quinn and pippin, who talked my ear off. then ran off. then ran back and checked in. he asked me for a hug and i said of course! motherless boy asking me for a hug. what am i going to do, say no? i don’t have it in me.

after dinner we went back to the campfire pit for skit night. more songs were sung, each of the six cabin groups did their skits, and smores were consumed. i sat with silvana and her mom a few rows behind quinn and friends. (he was with pippin and eomer, goldberry, aragorn and legolas.) one of the songs that was sung all week was boom-chicka-boom (with all the variations “janitor style” broom-sweep-a-mop-a-sweep-a-mop-a-sweep-a-broom…  valley girl style, taco bell style, emo style “boom chicka rocka chicka MOM GET OUT OF MY ROOM” which both quinn and silvana thought was HILARIOUS and would look at their respective moms and sing loudly. all through the week, i loved hearing the sound of kid groups marching through the forest echoing repeat-after-me-songs “what can make a hippopotamus smile?”

 

day 3

there was unstructured time while the counselors had the kids cleaning and packing. quinn and a few of the kids were sitting around playing the one word story game. i went off to my own zone again for a bit with my coffee, as well as a short walk to the beach by myself. as i was walking through nature, i saw a flower i haven’t seen in almost 20 years called a “single delight”. it is tiny and appears to me to be rare (i had no idea it even grew in oregon and only saw it once or twice in olympic national forest) and has a lemon-lime fragrance. it was a lovely surprise to find them all over my own little adopted corner of the camp.

We made one stop on the way home at the tillamook cheese factory for a tour and ice cream. q had cookies and cream. i had hazelnut salted caramel.

 

starting to feel like summer

weekends… pizza and family movie night… watching the hobbit. filling up his plate with pizza 4 times. We launched our free family boating season on a beautiful sunday, kayaking for an hour.

He worked on his travel hacking assignment; the final 6 week grade was all one project, a “dream trip” itinerary and budget (they had $10k to work with). he had the itinerary roughed out but he needed to put some time in on the budget. all the googling “public transportation in perth australia” and “are there any restaurants on penguin island” and prices of admission on whatever museums and parks he would visit. he did well on his own, pricing out airfares and hotels. the small details bog him down because it feels never ending to him. i sat with him and talked him through some steps when he was really despairing of ever finishing.

 

Grammy and grampy!

on the last day of school, i picked quinn up at noon and he spent a good part of the afternoon watching pokemon. we started gathering materials for a journal project. i took him to karate that night since his belt test would be the following wednesday.

Grammy and grampy arrived around midnight. The next morning quinn woke up and asked for grammy to come in for his wake up. aw. they were hugging and smiling at each other, so happy to see each other. There was a visible shock reaction at how big he has gotten since last year.

We sat outside any chance we got, quinn played uno with whoever would play (always grampy, sometimes others). Grammy and grampy took walks in the morning together while i went to work to feed fish, and when quinn woke up would hang out with them. some days camp boss and kids came to bounce.

That week q had his first swim lesson. He put his face in the water more for his teacher than he ever has for me in one half hour session. she also saw the challenges he faces, and when we talked afterwards she said, “i really like him. and i think this is exactly what he needs.”

I had to take quinn to karate right after getting back from swim, and he was very put out. His prevailing feelings were, “i just need more down time,” But he also doesn’t want to not do any of the activities. i let him know how hard i had to work to get him exactly 5 lessons scheduled for the ENTIRE summer. once i got my point across i think he calmed down a bit. i can’t expect him to know what it takes for me to arrange these things to enrich his life, unless i explain. So i explained, not to guilt him into feeling grateful, but so he could understand and relax and realize it wouldn’t be every day that he would have swim/karate back to back.

One day camp boss and i packed hot dogs and snacks and all the kids in their swim stuff and we brought chairs and sat by the river in the sun-dappled shade. We enjoyed the relaxing sound of the water and kids splashing in the creek, the sight of kids with caterpillars crawling up their hands, kids throwing rocks in the water, and kids being kids.

Grammy, grampy, rich and i all went to quinn’s belt test. Quinn did very well. He received compliments from multiple people, including sifu in front of the whole group, for how well he did and how much hard work he has been doing. He was again asked to demonstrate techniques and forms the others had forgotten or didn’t know from memory, so he really got to showcase his skills. he was the only one testing who could remember kick set from start to finish and he got to lead them all through it. also he did long 2 form, which is the highest form he has learned, and did it by himself, so he got all his stripes on his belt for forms. he did GREAT for the kicks, and did not flinch! I was so proud! And i think he was even prouder of himself. After the test and pictures, he came right over to grammy and grampy and hugged them both. they were very proud and told him so. then we went home for nachos.

at lunch one day quinn saw grampy spreading liverwurst on his bread and asked, “what’s that?” he wanted to try it and gobbled up a whole sandwich of it. If grampy likes it, it must be good.

dishes washed by quinn

That night we had a very small party in the back yard. Rich had made a nice campfire, so the kids all ate smores.

on Saturday after market, quinn and i painted plywood for the band haunted house fundraiser.

that afternoon all five of us were sitting around the backyard and mom and dad were telling family stories. Quinn got to hear about grampy’s summer trips to his grandpa and grandma’s house (my great grands, quinn’s great great grands! This is the grandma from whom we got our typewriter). He described their house in Gowanda, NY, and its long, narrow yard with vegetable garden, raspberry bushes, and fruit trees, extending “all the way back to the crick.” He told how it was odd to be away from his brother tom, but grandma and grandpa took them for a week each, one at a time.

One time Uncle Tom built himself an airplane, an inventor then and to this day. it was all going great as he ran it off the edge of the hill, until the wings folded up. Dad just laughs when he tells about their childhood… one time tom was trying to get him to play ball (dad was reading his book) and since dad refused, tom put a wasp on him! it stung dad, he chased tom around and then finally decided he’d play ball after all.

Dad remarked that he might have a touch of ADHD in the sense that he cannot Just Sit. He spent his time visiting us in constant engagement, or asleep; he read books, split firewood, went for walks, fixed things, played guitar, did crosswords and sudokus, and instigated philosophical discussions. Thinking of his brother tom, i mused that if the two of them were children now, he’d also likely have a diagnosis; perhaps ADHD or asperger’s. i think it is possible they both fall into the same category as quinn, and their “challenges” are mostly a result of the intensity that goes hand in hand with giftedness. This article about overexcitabilities and the gifted explains the different forms this intensity takes, and it is easy to see how certain intensities can be confused with other types of challenges, a topic covered in depth in the misdiagnosis book i read earlier this year. If i were to make a table for the overexcitabilities (OEs for short) in our family, it might look like this:

 

Overexcitability Me Quinn Dad Mom
Intellectual *** *** *** ***
Sensory ***
Emotional *** *** ***
Imaginational ***
Psychomotor *** ***

 

Or how about:

 

Overexcitability Me Quinn Dad Mom
Intellectual makes grids to understand a topic studying calculus and the periodic table at 12 writing book on the electoral college apple variety identification autodidact expert
Sensory sound, touch, smell, taste

blenders made him cry, toothpaste was too spicy
Emotional overthinking, perfectionism and existential depression, oh my! perfectionism; refusal to throw away sentimental objects like dryer lint my first call when i have something big to process
Imaginational you find an egg
Psychomotor gardening when not hauling water or slinging veggies splits wood for fun

 

Intellectual OE is not just being a little bit intellectual, it is being intensely insatiable in needing to know every detail about a topic, to always be absorbing information and engaging the brain, to be asking questions, interpreting data, proposing new ideas. This makes for great lifelong learning potential, but also means we handle anything, from a hobby to a diagnosis, like a college course. Likewise, with each of the other OEs, there can be a next-level intensity in some people. There were key imaginational intensity components to some of the difficulties of quinn’s early elementary education, though i would never trade the sparkling magic of his imagination for all the world. Learning about these intensities has helped me understand myself better, for example, how my friend in high school pointed out that I never just felt medium about a song, I either LOVED this song or HATED this song… intensely. It’s not a bad thing, it just is a thing about me, but it can pose challenges if one is too intense for others’ comfort. It also means we have the potential for extra insight and strengths in these areas; emotional intensity, with awareness and seasoning, can go hand in hand with empathy and compassion; my mom was the long-time prayer-chain coordinator at her church, and couldn’t have been more perfect for that (intense) role of receiving the heft of other peoples’ gravest concerns. This handy exercise with the grid also illustrates how, while the rest of us have a grab bag of intensity, Quinn has collected almost the whole panel!

Speaking of really liking songs, through Grandma rew’s sister ida, dad received old 45s from the jukebox in the hotel she ran and was introduced to a wide variety of music. One that he recalled fondly was “highway 101” by the cheers, and he quoted parts of it, and it is of course a funny coincidence because highway 101 runs through our coastal town. And since we live in this fascinating modern age i went ahead and looked it up:

black denim trousers and motorcycle boots by the cheers

All five of us played uno in the backyard that night. It had gotten to be routine for quinn to bring out the cards, fetch the card table out of the shed, set it up, and get grampy to play, but this time he got us all involved, it being his last night before going off to camp.

Quinn spent some of the day packing; he handled it mostly himself (12 really is sublime!). We had gotten him a sun hat, clip on sunglasses, a head lamp, and work gloves, to fill out the list. He counted the exact numbers of undies, socks, shirts and pants the list told him to bring.

Once he was mostly packed, he and i spent some time together while he glued the quotes i had printed for him into his journal. We had done little parts of the journal book making throughout the week. We layered alternating graph and lined pages and sewed them in bundles; i carved four dino skull stamps at his request (t-rex, triceratops, mososaurus and pteranodon), and he stamped them on the cover; we added a green ribbon for a bookmark. My hope is that it inspires him to journal a bit on some of these trips he will be taking, with paleontology camp for starters, and on to italy next spring!

As he glued, he mentioned some anxiety about never having been away from “both parents” for this long. i said i remembered the first time i went to camp i had felt that way and wondered if i would make it or if i would need to come home the first night, but i had stayed and loved it and by the end of the week, didn’t want it to end and couldn’t wait for the next year. i said he would feel that way too, i was sure of it. we talked about each quote and how it applied to his situation. discussing the mark twain quote “you’ll regret more not going” and also how he was like a hobbit was going out his door on an adventure, his anxiety seemed to dissipate pretty quickly.

Grammy and grampy said goodbye to quinn before everyone went to bed, since we’d be leaving before they had to get up in the morning to take him to camp. I know he thoroughly enjoyed having them visit to launch his summer vacation!

 

Paleontology camp

We woke up early the next morning and took him to camp! Day one of camp was 6-23, the last day about which this lifelong learner post is concerned, so stay tuned for the next post where all the juicy camp details will be posted. Sharing about camp was one of the most effective motivators for catching up on these backlogged posts. this amazing opportunity seemingly manifested itself in quinn’s lifelong learning path because of how perfect it would be for him. several years ago when i signed up for the e-newsletter from the university of oregon’s museum of natural and cultural history, the day camps in natural sciences (including paleontology) never felt practical due to our distance from the museum. I have to applaud their targeted marketing because I have not felt inundated with emails from them, but this winter when the email subject heading read: “you might be interested in: middle school paleontology explorers camp” i thought, “heck yeah i might be interested in that!” (search terms for anyone else interested: sternberg camps, through fort hays state university’s sternberg museum, who partnered with university of oregon for the inaugural oregon camps this year.)

Quinn had to write a letter of intent and request a letter of recommendation from a teacher as part of the application process; the very first of probably many in his lifetime. It turns out that the paleontology explorers: kansas camp has a waiting list each year and is fairly competitive, but as this was the first year of paleontology explorers: oregon, there were six kids who applied, and all got in. you might be hearing more about kansas next year!

The six campers were instantly absorbed into helping their two instructors load gear into their van, with which they would be traveling around oregon to various sites of paleontological interest. Rich and i mingled with some of the other parents discussing all the dinosaur t-shirts our kids had packed.  Then the leader of the program spoke to the parents while delegating the van packing to the staff and kids.

he talked about why he started these camps in 2014. he sees mentorship as a huge focus (this was obvious…  even in the simple things like the layering of staff – lead instructor, t.a., high school assistant, students… for example, empowering the high school assistant figure out coordinating the middle school kids carrying gear from point a to point b… “got a plan? ok go for it.” he talked about connections and how there is a guy he was a counselor with when he went to camp, who is now the head of paleontology in eastern kansas, and this great connection is part of why this program is successful. It was amazing to think of these camp friendships about to form, and how they can have lifelong impacts (i know this very well as applied to my own life, as i obtained a sister-in-law from summer camp!) i had told quinn that when i went to camp i wrote down each of my new friend’s phone and address to send letters – we didn’t have email or text yet. I encouraged him to do the same (or the modern equivalent) if there was a new friend with whom he wanted to keep in touch.

The Sternberg program is running another first-time trip this year at the high school level; paleontology explorers: Australia. I get chills just thinking of this, as Australia is a place Quinn has always dreamed of going. i asked about the probability of the australia trip happening again in future years he said, “well, i have 3 kids on the wait list for next year already.” i said, “quinn is saving up for it,” and he said, “i now have four kids on the wait list.” Ha! He encouraged him to come to kansas next year, as most of the australia-bound students were repeat students from paleontology: kansas.

he also mentioned his philosophy on outcomes/jobs and how not only is this kind of program good for resume/college application building but also the actual skills they learn on the trip prepare them well- very hands on, it shows them not only the “college professor” option of this line of work, but that there are many other ways to be in the work force besides that – everything from grant writing to lab and field technical work to scientific illustration.

the kids all popped out of their gear organizing and said to each of us, “i was told to come and say goodbye to you. goodbye!” after a quick hug, they all went cheerfully off to camp. it was just awesome to see him blend right in.

rich and i mused on the way home how it’s like hogwarts and camp halfblood becoming reality for him, but in his favorite subject.

~summer shorts~ striking out

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a scrap of green t-shirt sleeve, followed by the brim of a floppy, khaki hat wobble out from near the front of the line of campers, the one glimpse i’ve caught of quinn on his very first sleepaway camp experience. the t.a. and videographer is bringing up the rear behind the six campers attending Paleontology Explorers: Oregon, and after they take a few steps, the camera pans over the white tufts of beargrass flocking a stark high elevation flatland studded with snags spearing the sapphire sky, an inverted green bunting of young conifer triangles painted across its mid-section.

he is up front behind the leader, hopefully too out of breath to be talking her ear off. the group is already cohesive, one entity moving with brisk purpose in an intentional direction toward a common goal. the sense of anticipation, ownership, and belonging seem palpable, even through the filtered lens of an instagram feed. the one other boy on the trip, D from L.A., is at quinn’s heels, the four young women comprising the rest of the group of six campers marching along in step. i think i spot the one he first introduced himself to, R from california, who, like quinn, has a dinosaur pillowcase. shedding her NASA sweatshirt as they team-carried gear to the van, she revealed her next layer of a harry potter t-shirt. As quinn and D carried either end of a duffel, i overheard a snippet of conversation about “ender pearls,” and i felt it all sinking in – these were quinn’s people. this was him finding a few more of his tribe. The other ones for whom dinosaurs were not something they grew out of, nor got over. the other ones who may possibly be more proud of achieving a grade point average of 3.14 than one of 4.0. the other ones who might see HGTV through the lens of house flipping to afford more expeditions and more plaster. the other ones whose bed stickers may have been classified at age 6 into jurassic and cretaceous species. The other ones whose parents stood around awkwardly at camp drop-off trying not to let on how relieved they were that our kids are finally finding one another.

somewhere in the eastern cascades, a boy is laying his head on his dinosaur pillowcase, among a pack of campers each with their own heads on their own dinosaur pillowcases, out in a big world doing his thing.

 

 

 

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