I've been part of Faith and Light for twenty years now, and in the early days, summer camp was something I never missed. Then came marriage, and especially two pregnancies, which kept me away from those gatherings that once meant so much to me. I assumed a camp with young children would be too exhausting, and that I'd probably just get in the way. But meanwhile my mother friends were having beautiful experiences, and the children, it turned out, were often a source of real richness.
Years went by. Sara is nine now, Francesco is six, and I kept finding reasons not to go: the pull of travel, camp dates that clashed with my vacation time, logistical headaches. When friends and the young people would ask directly—"Why don't you come to camp?"—I'd stammer that I was burned out from a year of Faith and Light responsibilities, that I needed a real break, at least during the holidays. I'd convinced myself that the energy and enthusiasm for a new year of work at Faith and Light would come from distance rather than closeness, from a separation more than from daily sharing.
And yet how much I missed it when I saw the photos and heard the stories—all those funny and moving moments that only happen at camp! So I began taking small steps back, attending the first planning meeting and then, with the children, the opening day at Marzocca. I'd run out of excuses. This year I signed up right away for the July camp. I tried backing out until the last minute because of all the logistical complications, but my friends wouldn't let me. So I thought: to make sure the children had a good time, I should bring along a friend of theirs too. As if the young people and all the other children weren't enough! So I also invited Anna, a ten-year-old from our community, on her first camp experience as well. As the planner I am, I thought through every detail so everything would run perfectly—Nutella and a Nintendo in the suitcase, naturally. On July 23rd, we set off for Bicoca.
I was happy to be there. It felt like stepping back twenty years to my first camp. It was all there: the planning meetings, the handbook arriving just the day before, the chaos of arrival, camp cooking, tents for some friends, the young people euphoric and some wanting to leave, Paolo's birthday with a candle instead of candles, twenty-year-olds at their first camp, songs, circles, evening meetings, all the delays. Only one thing was different from my first camp: the children—nine of them!—a sign that time had passed, that my generation of friends had grown up and our communities with them.
At the end of the first day, Sara told me she wanted to leave. Maybe she'd expected something different, and I felt myself falling into a pit: "How is it possible she doesn't love this?" I gave her time to discover what a camp actually was. Apart from the community moments—the circles and activities—she was free to experience what she wanted. In the end, she surprised me by throwing herself into everything. She even skipped a swim to do her turn in the kitchen, or accompanied Maria Cristina to her room with Anna, matching her slow pace and chatting along. Francesco was different. He lived the week as something to endure if he wanted to be with me. But he too conquered his shyness and grew close to our vulnerable young people—he even went alone with Valerio to bring food to the wild boar.
It was beautiful to discover that he thought of Giovanna, the young woman assigned to me, as his babysitter, his anchor when I wasn't there. Or that he worried about Corrado when he was hospitalized for a small accident, and couldn't wait for him to come back. The days flew by—making cheese and jam, packaging lavender sachets, horseback riding, trips to the thermal baths and the lake—all of it lived under the light of a theme from Jean Giono's book, "The Man Who Planted Trees." Andrea and Pietro, magnificent in the lead roles, gave us a precious lens for discovering the beauty of nature against the perfect backdrop of Bicoca. Before I knew it, I was driving home listening to Sara and Francesco happily singing the songs they'd just learned.
A few days later, Sara asked me anxiously: if our pilgrimage next summer kept us from coming back, could we at least not miss this? She absolutely didn't want to skip it. Caught up in my children's reactions, I asked myself: "What did my first camp as a mother give me?" The love and enthusiasm from those early days. The energy that comes only from being close to our young people. The rediscovery of Faith and Light's richness, seen now through my children's new eyes. And one regret: all the time I lost before I said yes.
Angela Gattulli, 2010
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