Blue Earth Camp

Sunblock-nosed Michelle stopped Evan on his way to the recharging pads. “Don’t go on the mail run just yet. We need to go down to the beach and get Granola.”

Because he was new and Michelle was preoccupied with planning rainy day alternatives to every Blue Earth Camp activity threatened by the three day forecast, Evan electric-motored them down the winding path, expecting a delivery of grain snacks. He did not expect to see a barefoot, gray haired woman dragging a canoe out of the Mississippi river.

He felt he should offer to help, and began to get out of the car to do so. “Parking break!” Michelle snapped, and Evan reddened and engaged the pedal. When he looked up the woman had completed the task alone. Now that she was walking toward them, he could see how. Her unashamedly bare arms belonged on an Olympian, not a woman who would never see fifty again.

“Granola!” Michelle squealed, and darted toward the solemn woman, just refraining from bear hugging her at the last moment. Instead she clasped Granola’s weather beaten hands and squeezed them.

“Hello, Michelle.” Granola’s voice seemed hesitant, but only at first, and out of disuse. “You’ve grown.”

“Yes! I’m a counselor, now.”

“Ah. And what age group?”

“Third graders. Or, they will be in September.”

Granola turned to the other counselor, but Michelle had forgotten her manners.

Evan offered his hand. “Evan York. Swim instructor. And windsurfing, supposedly.”

The woman’s mouth crinkled at the corners. “The wind here may surprise you, Evan. It still surprises me, sometimes.”

The car ascended the path with their extra passenger and her small duffel bag. It was slow going, and Evan felt obliged to break up Michelle’s chatter when the young counselor paused to take a breath.

“So.. Will you be teaching canoeing, Ms. Granola?”

Granola propped one bare foot against the electric car’s low hood. “No, that boat’s just my ride.”

Michelle inhaled and let loose. “She’s the camp naturalist, Evan. The main reason why most of us come back year after year. It’s because she’s…” The girl faltered, as if just realizing that the object of her adulation was less than an arm’s length away, and finished with a scarcely audible murmur. “She’s… beyond authentic.”

The woman stirred slightly, but otherwise allowed the uncomfortable moment to drift away from the car. “It is kind of you to say it, Michelle. But you should give yourselves more credit. The campers have me as a source, but they are always the leaders of their own journey of discovery.”

Michelle looked as if she were about to say something else, but Granola heaved a deep sigh and lowered her eye lids. They continued on in silence to the circle of bunkhouses and on to the administrative office, where the first busload of campers was due to arrive in less than an hour.

:

Two weeks passed before Evan talked to Granola again beyond the perfunctory hello, how-are-you, what’s-the water-temperature small talk that he made with everybody else. It was the first day the wind felt strong enough to even attempt windsurfing, and so he stood still on the fiberglass board. He moved with the too-gentle breeze and tried to conceal the trembling in his muscles, all from the fatigue of dropping and pulling the sail out of the water many, many times. It was all for the benefit of the three oldest campers, who had all dropped the sails for the last time. They clung to the boards and panted heavily, scowling at their teacher as they soured on the windsurfing experience as a whole.

Granola’s technique was so quiet, he almost didn’t hear her coming until she curved the stroke and used the broad blade of the paddle to apply the brakes.

“Hello, Evan,” she said, and he struggled to maintain his balance. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but the wind speed is rising fast. You should probably send them in.”

Evan chuckled. Surely she was joking. And just then he saw ripples through the plastic window. Small, but getting bigger. He turned the pole gently, and the gust lay into the sail and filled it. Not so suddenly that he couldn’t hold it up, but abruptly enough that he had to tighten his grip. He began to surf away, then faster, and he grudgingly turned the sail again to lessen the wind’s thrust. Where was this coming from? And did he really have to stop, now that it was finally getting good? He tacked around and settled into his stance, determined to enjoy the short run back to the group before he would drop his own sail and bring the fun to a halt.

The naturalist in the canoe recognized his dilemma before he got there. “Go ahead,” she called. “I’ll take them in.”

That was all he needed to hear. Evan adjusted sail and stretched to his limits, ignoring every protesting muscle and savoring his newfound wake.