Even out here in the land of red flannel hats, two-stroke
engines, and perfect starlit skies, occasionally the influence of popular
culture reaches us. It penetrates
the miles of forest like a drop of ink in a mountain stream; shocking in its
initial contrast, but eventually washing into oblivion.
Our most recent drop of ink has been The Hunger Games, and
yes, I recognize that that fad came and went last year in the rest of the
world, but try to think of my world as one of those cool $2 theaters where they
play the movies 6 months late so college students can afford them.
In The Hunger Games, the character Peeta Mellark turns a
corner, both in the eyes of Katniss Eberdeen, and in the eyes of the viewer,
when he insightfully comments that he hopes the games, “Won’t change him.” Under the duress of impending doom, would
his morals flex? Break? Disappear altogether?
The answer, of course, is “no.”
Peeta is a noble fantasy character and his role is to fit
the needs of the story he inhabits – he is adequately just, kind, and needy at
every point in the movie.
Unfortunately, I am not a fantasy character and my nobility
is not a fixed trait. Lets face
it. “adequacy” might still be
something to shoot for as far as my own personal journey goes. But in the face of my own challenge –
the long, continually frustrating existence of summer at a camp insistent on
breaking down, burning up, falling apart and/or stalling out – I sometimes fear the
changes it may cause in my character.
Will I remain patient? Will
I hold my head up high, always working hard and never letting down the staff
members that look to me for leadership?
Will I find a way to shower and shave at least once a week?
The answer to all of these things turned out to be
“no.”
This August, after camp had been running at full steam (though
its various components were trying to not
run on a daily basis) for about 2 months, I gave myself a goal. If I could make it two more weeks, I
could take 2 days off in a row and leave town for a break from the action. I devoted myself to the daily tasks at
hand. I washed dishes. I resolved arguments. I welcomed guests, guided raft trips,
dug trenches, fixed faulty wiring, pleaded with parents to adhere to camp
rules, pleaded again with their children upon arrival, and plunged more toilets
than I care to recall. Did I
mention the dishes? As the date of
my anticipated respite drew closer the workload only grew, and with it, my desire
to find the escape hatch grew as well.
That's when the bottom fell out. My health finally caught up with me, and I got a case of the
flu strong enough to plant me firmly on my tired buttocks for a full day and to
completely eliminate my ability to speak for about three more days.
All the while though, other than my one day in the life of a
sandbag, I picked myself up and went about my work. I even tried hard to do all that “head held high” patient
leadership stuff.
Finally, it was the day before my escape. That's when my backup got sick. The only person capable and available
to run the camp in my absence got blindsided by the same flu that had just had
its way with me. That person also
happened to be my dear wife, M. While
I do ask her to live in this freezing climate and to join me in plunging
unspeakable atrocities in our camp bathrooms, I could not ask her to run the
camp while I frolicked elsewhere and she was in the grip of a nasty
flu.
I returned to work, but my “head held high” attitude stayed
home.
I became furiously defensive of M. Not defensive with a righteous anger, but just angry. I was continually annoyed that she
couldn’t just get the rest she so deserved.
When I wasn’t angry for her sake, I was sulking for my own.
My rage burned against our work. No matter how beautiful the sunset, no matter how thankful
the guests, I felt only bitterness.
My only goal was to leave.
I spent very little time thinking about anything but anger –
at camp, at God, at the gosh-darn ladles in the dish pit.
If I broke a plate, my response was to kick over the nearest
object in hopes of breaking some more.
At one point I had to go fix a problem in a desperate
hurry. I angrily jumped on the
camp 4-wheeler. It failed to
start. After pounding the poor,
aging machine with my fist a few times, I went to a nearby jeep. It wouldn’t start. I left it and slammed the jeep door so
hard the whole vehicle rocked from side to side as I walked away. Finally, I settled on the only
remaining functional vehicle in camp:
A 15-passenger van. I
rattled down the camp road in the massive machine. It is for the best that no one could hear my words from
outside.
I went on like this for weeks. My opportunity for a day off had come and gone and no
similar opportunity was on the horizon.
That's just the way it went this summer. It was bad planning.
Bad leadership. I’m aware
of these things. But when your only
backup is the one person you want to protect more than yourself, what do you
do?
It wasn’t until I really hurt someone I care about that I
realized how much I had changed.
I pride myself on being humble and patient. But all of a sudden now I couldn’t even
take a joke. At our staff dinner
table a dear friend simply poked fun at me. Innocently. My
response? Biting sarcasm. A passive-aggressive beat down that she
didn’t deserve.
I know it seems like a small thing, but friends are hard to
come by where I live, and I had just hurt one of the few. I went home angry at myself. Yes, still unreasonably angry at her
too, but I fell asleep that night
thinking about it. How would I
react when I saw her again? How
would she react? The consequences
of my rage and frustration were now building up.
The 4-wheeler didn’t have feelings, and the dishes could
simply be replaced. This was different. This problem
wasn’t going anywhere until I dealt with it. Not only did I hate my work and so many little trials around
me, now I hated myself.
It had changed me.
I had lost control and become someone else.
Fortunately one of the great qualities of life is that it doesn’t
end with winners and losers. It just
keeps happening; good, bad, or indifferent. This wasn’t the Hunger Games, and when it ended, I was not
to be killed. Instead I was
sentenced to a life of anticlimax in which I had to deal with myself. My anger. My
self-pity. These things were mine
to deal with on my own time.
I had no choice but to start making changes in hopes of
finding the peaceful me again. I visited my friend and apologized. She was gracious and accepting.
My anger didn’t disappear right away, but I began to
recognize the signs of my own feelings beginning to spin out of control. I began to take days off again as they
became available. I slept long
enough to long for something other than sleep in my spare time.
Life just keeps going.
Thank goodness it’s not a concise, well-edited fantasy novel, or I
certainly would have become the villain.
I’m embarrassed by my attitude over the last few weeks, but I’ve also learned from it. I know my own anger better and I can
read the signs of its arrival. I
know how important it is for me to take time off – whatever the consequences
are for camp, they can’t be as bad as being ruled by me in ogre form.
A hard summer changed me, not once, but twice. I became the villain, and then the story
lingered on long enough for me to rejoin the protagonists again. Thank goodness life outlasts a single
story and allows for unedited, imperfect redemption.
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