Making Memories

If I was going to think of my least favorite tones to set in writing, wistful would be right up there with the absolute worst. It's such a strong dislike that I've been having difficulty sticking with the Boys of Summer, which is a seminal baseball book, but whose tone is so wistful that it's hard to get through a page without my skin beginning to crawl off my body.

So in as wistless way possible, let me recount some thoughts and memories.

There's a lot of stuff I'll remember fondly from the strip. Some of them involve the group, like singing Shehechianu (and you can't begin to imagine what autocorrect did to that), and some of them are solitary, like my bike ride up to the top of the suspension bridge and my supine float from the bay back into the cove on a longboard.

I think one of these reasons that these memories feel so precious is that they involve doing something that I never in my life thought I would ever do. If you had told me 15 years ago that I would enjoy going to the beach and staying in a cheap hotel in with 60 teenagers and five other adults, all of whom I like to varying degrees, but none of whom are among my best friends, I have told you were nuts. But I really truly did enjoy myself. I liked being with the kids, even though I was in a semi supervisory role of all time, which is I guess what I always am when I'm with a group of kids.

It all seems paradoxical to me, my job. In many ways, I'm a loner. I don't mean that in the sense that I hate people or strongly prefer being by myself all the time, but I am perfectly comfortable being myself most indefinitely.

Another thing that's always fun is the chance to get some unstructured time with people I know from around school, but never have much of a chance to talk to. Last year, they were only three of us and it felt pretty close in a good way; this year there were six so it was a bit different. But it's still kind of analogous to the experiences the kids have- the chance to spend some nice unstructured time together. The chaperones walked the boardwalk as a group, we sat on the beach, we paddled. I feel really lucky to work in a place with so many people that I genuinely like.

One thing I'll remember fondly is a byproduct of my taking pictures. Although I knew most of the students on the trip, this wasn't a class that I knew especially well. Gathering people for pictures and getting their attention gave me a little bit of a window into the kinds of people who are graduating this year. For the most part, there isn't a lot of one-on-one interaction between the chaperones of the students, but I did get a chance to talk to a few people more than I normally have.

This was my 6th senior trip and it felt less awkward than some of the past ones. I really have no innate idea how to conduct myself in public, so to successfully negotiate hanging out with 60 people as a group for 3 days was very gratifying.

At one point, some of the kids were talking about how they weren't sure why they acted differently with different groups of people. This touched on one of the great realizations of my life, as far as dealing with others is concerned. My natural state is basically happy, but completely disengaged. So as a person I tend to be neutral out in the real world.

And I did definitely notice when I was in my teens that I acted differently with different groups. And I had two distinctly, non-overlapping groups of friends in high school. I had the nerds, the honors math and science kids, with whom I had most of my classes. And I had another group that would best be described as nondescript. These are the kinds of people who could slip through high school almost completely unnoticed. Neither especially good looking nor hideous. Neither popular nor shunned. More athletic than average, but not at any kind of varsity level. Never causing trouble. Most of the time I spent with this group was during summers, when we'd play basketball most of the day after we worked in the daycamp.

And in middle school I hung out with almost everyone in small groups. And I remember at one point noticing that I talked like the people I was hanging out with, even though I don't normally talk like that or think like that. And it took me a while, but at one point I distinctly remember thinking that I could tell who my friends were because I like the way I acted when I was with that group. Considering I lack any sort of natural sense about personal relationships, this was a very important observation. And I've been lucky or smart enough to make a pretty good choices most of the way.

And I have to say, in spite of the work aspect of it, which was really pretty tiring when I look back on it, I was able to relax a bit and just enjoy myself. Ocean City is a pretty pleasant place to stay. The hotel is cheap in every sense of the word, but it's right on the beach and convenient to all kinds of things, so why the hell not?

I was pleased with myself for remembering to bring my Nok-Hockey and shuffleboard games. Seemed like people enjoyed them. Hopefully I'll remember next time I do this. I was also very pleased that I brought my bike. I rode 20 and 25 miles the 2 days, and it was head-clearing and relaxing.

And of course I'll remember the Java Metallics, our van group. I know that most of them didn't really want to be there as opposed to the rest of the group on the bus, but we made the best of it. Fun trip.