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June 19, 2016May 8, 2020 • Summer Camp • Christena Swartz

Lollipop Moments

by Chrissy Swartz, Waterfront Director

RBC started off our lazy Sunday with a full extra hour of sleep and a special treat of Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast. The girls came to the dining hall in their pajamas, and then returned to their lines after breakfast to tidy up both their cabins and themselves in preparation for Cabin Inspection and Chapel. Chapel at Rockbrook is always a meaningful experience full of sharing communal values in a supportive, safe place.

Today’s theme, goodwill, promoted feelings of kindness and awareness towards others, in addition to being the namesake of one of our oldest buildings on the property—the home to our camp library and the activity K.I.T. (Keep In Touch).

Girls from every age group volunteered to share stories and sentimental objects that they believed symbolized goodwill. Many of the stories focused on the idea that a small act of kindness towards someone else can start a domino effect of good deeds. No matter how small an act of goodwilll is, its impact can be monumental.

One counselor shared a story she remembered from a TED Talk, an organization devoted to the spread of ideas in Technology, Entertainment and Design. The video of the talk is below, filmed September 2010 at TEDxToronto. I highly encourage you to watch the short video for the full story. However, I have also included the meat of the transcript below that I felt connected well to our chapel theme. This is the story of lollipop moments.

Drew Dudley: Everyday Leadership [transcript]

I went to a little school called Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. And on my last day there, a girl came up to me and said, “I remember the first time I met you.” And she told me a story that had happened four years earlier. She said, “On the day before I started university, I was in the hotel room with my mom and dad, and I was so scared and so convinced that I couldn’t do this, that I wasn’t ready for university, that I just burst into tears. My mom and dad were amazing. They were like, “We know you’re scared, but let’s just go tomorrow, go to the first day, and if at any point you feel as if you can’t do this, that’s fine; tell us, and we’ll take you home. We love you no matter what.'”
She says, “So I went the next day. I was in line for registration, and I looked around and just knew I couldn’t do it; I wasn’t ready. I knew I had to quit. I made that decision and as soon as I made it, an incredible feeling of peace came over me. I turned to my mom and dad to tell them we needed to go home, and at that moment, you came out of the student union building wearing the stupidest hat I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“It was awesome. And you had a big sign promoting Shinerama,”—which is Students Fighting Cystic Fibrosis, a charity I’ve worked with for years—”And you had a bucket full of lollipops. You were handing the lollipops out to people in line, and talking about Shinerama. All of the sudden, you got to me, and you just stopped. And you stared. It was creepy.”
“Then you looked at the guy next to me, smiled, reached into your bucket, pulled out a lollipop, held it out to him and said, ‘You need to give a lollipop to the beautiful woman next to you.'” She said, “I’ve never seen anyone get more embarrassed faster in my life. He turned beet red, he wouldn’t even look at me. He just kind of held the lollipop out like this.”
“I felt so bad for this dude that I took the lollipop. As soon as I did, you got this incredibly severe look on your face, looked at my mom and dad and said, ‘Look at that! Look at that! First day away from home, and already she’s taking candy from a stranger?!'”
She said, “Everybody lost it. Twenty feet in every direction, everyone started to howl. I know this is cheesy, and I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but in that moment when everyone was laughing, I knew I shouldn’t quit. I knew I was where I was supposed to be; I knew I was home. And I haven’t spoken to you once in the four years since that day. But I heard that you were leaving, and I had to come and tell you you’ve been an incredibly important person in my life. I’m going to miss you. Good luck.”
And she walks away, and I’m flattened. She gets six feet away, turns around, smiles and goes, “You should probably know this, too: I’m still dating that guy, four years later.”
A year and a half after I moved to Toronto, I got an invitation to their wedding.
Here’s the kicker: I don’t remember that. I have no recollection of that moment. I’ve searched my memory banks, because that is funny and I should remember doing it and I don’t. That was such an eye-opening, transformative moment for me, to think that maybe the biggest impact I’d ever had on anyone’s life, a moment that had a woman walk up to a stranger four years later and say, “You’ve been an important person in my life,” was a moment that I didn’t even remember.
How many of you guys have a lollipop moment, a moment where someone said or did something that you feel fundamentally made your life better? All right. How many of you have told that person they did it? See, why not? We celebrate birthdays, where all you have to do is not die for 365 days. Yet we let people who have made our lives better walk around without knowing it. Every single one of you has been the catalyst for a lollipop moment. You’ve made someone’s life better by something you said or did. If you think you haven’t, think of all the hands that didn’t go up when I asked. You’re just one of the people who hasn’t been told.

Rockbrook is full of lollipop moments shared among campers and counselors alike. So many of our values at RBC encourage us to share and support and grow alongside each other while at camp. I truly believe every Rockbrook girl has a lollipop moment in mind when she immediately begs to sign up for next summer as she waves goodbye to this year’s cabinmates and counselors. And I also truly believe that we have all inspired those moments in others, whether we are aware of our impact or not.

It was very fitting that our afternoon culminated in another Rockbrook special event, Miss RBC, which asks each cabin to collaborate on a skit of some sort. Remixes of traditional Rockbrook songs, rewrites of chart-topping hits, and some groovy dance moves were only a few of the highlights of the skits. Other girls chose to make their own music with their hands and feet and voices, or with props, including pots and pans.

This event always challenges the girls in some way or another. It requires teamwork, communication, and compromise. But in the end, every skit comes together to form something beautiful that includes each and every camper in some way. It’s a celebration of taking a chance, of getting up on stage in crazy costumes to perform in front of a lot of other people, knowing the whole time that you’re not alone, that the girls on either side of you are also wearing a similar goofy costume and singing their hearts out about muffin breaks in harmony with you.

The entire point of Miss RBC is to be confident while looking and acting silly, together. That’s pretty much the goal of camp in general, too.

“There’s power in looking silly and not caring that you do.” –Amy Poehler

Having the confidence to laugh at yourself for wearing three pairs of sunglasses and a pink boa inspires others around you to be confident and goofy. It lets our true and authentic selves shine through. I can think of no better place than Rockbrook where we can explicitly recognize these lollipop moments, and also intentionally create them. We pay it forward at camp; and in return we receive encouragement, love, and friendship.

My parting words this evening, then, are as follows: Peace on earth, goodwill to men, and pink boas for all.

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June 14, 2016September 10, 2020 • Summer Camp • Jeff Carter

The Struggle of Camp

It might sound strange, but when you think about it, one of the reasons we send our children to camp —and I’d say this is true for my own girls who attend Rockbrook later during Third Session— is to have them struggle. That’s right; just as much as we hope they’ll have fun, a few bumps in the road is important as well. Scanning through the Rockbrook Web site you won’t see this exactly emphasized, of course. Instead you’ll see girls having the time of their lives, smiling while rock climbing, horseback riding, flying through the air on our zipline course, and working the pedals of an antique floor loom. But we know that attending summer camp is more than just fun, more significant than visiting an amusement park. We know that camp is good for kids in important ways, and we hope the experience of these days away from home will be meaningful and formative long after they return. And, learning to deal positively with difficulty is one clear area of growth.

The word here is “resilience,” that ability to recover from setbacks, to solve everyday problems, to be strong when met with disappointment. We want our kids to be more resilient when they encounter frustration, and when they get upset that something isn’t going exactly right. After all, life as an adult is often colored with those sorts of challenges— traffic jams, bureaucratic obstacles, mean-spirited colleagues at work, etc. As we work to improve things, strive toward goals, there’s bound to be some struggle. So what do you do when things get difficult like that? Get angry, start blaming, crumple into a heap? Or do you reapply yourself, navigate the problem creatively, look for solutions? What do you hope your kids will do when they’re older?

It turns out that camp is a great place for kids to become more resilient. Life here is chock full of opportunities to learn that problems can be solved, obstacles overcome, and setbacks endured. With the encouraging environment combined with so many positive role models at camp, especially at Rockbrook, the inevitable challenges of something different— a new activity, unfamiliar food, unsettling creature like a “spricket” (which, by the way, look like monstrous combinations of spiders and crickets that love to find their way into the cabins… aka, camel crickets) —isn’t as overwhelming. The strong community of camp provides the support. It pulls us all along, bolstering your girls’ confidence at the top of sliding rock, inspiring them to try again when they can’t make a climbing move on the alpine tower or center their clay on the potter’s wheel. There’s a power to the collective experience of camp. When everyone has to walk down the cabin line at night to visit the bathroom, when everyone lives essentially outside with no AC, or when everyone has to help keep the dining hall clean, it’s easier to handle what’s uncomfortable. At camp, we simply don’t stop when we struggle. Supporting each other, we try harder.

You might even think of this as the essence of camp; it’s inherently different from ordinarily life. Away from the comforts of home, living with new people, being immersed in nature, camp requires girls to adapt, to meet those (and other) differences and despite any initial uncertainty, carry on. If we could somehow lessen those differences, add AC and bathrooms to the cabins for example, or serve only familiar foods, something important and valuable would be lost. It would mean lessening the challenges of camp, taking away some of the struggles, and thereby reducing the opportunities to develop a healthy habit of resilience. If we made camp completely comfortable, it would cease to even be camp, and this important opportunity for growth would be diminished if not lost altogether. Plus, I suspect, camp would be less meaningful for the girls. Attending would be reduced to mere amusement, and something easily forgotten.

Yes, we have fun at camp. And yes, we sometimes struggle with the challenging differences we encounter here, but together it’s great.

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August 10, 2015May 8, 2020 • Summer Camp • Grace Wallace

According to the Campers

Once again, I thought we could publish a few pieces written by the campers themselves, telling us what Rockbrook has meant to them, and what they might have learned this session. We asked a Junior, and three Seniors (writing together) to share their thoughts, and these are the results!

Kate (9)–South Carolina
Rockbrook is a great place because it’s a place where girls can learn. They don’t just learn they become stronger people. When I first came to camp, I was not a really strong person. I did not make my bed, or clean much.
Then the day of camp came. From that second ’til now, I can tell all the girls and I have become stronger people and friends. I think that Rockbrook can make you meet a pal for life. I did, and we have told each other many secrets.
I also think my counselors are right about the saying “FFF” (Fierce Fabulous Females). That’s what you will become if you come to Rockbrook.

Rachel (14)–Virginia; Sanders (14)–Texas; Emily (14)–Georgia
When the three of us, Rachel, Sanders, and Emily, volunteered to write a snippet of the camp blog, at first we were unsure of how to put our thoughts into words. Should it be funny, formal, poetic, etc…? But, as we talked about it, it seemed to write itself:
To us, Rockbrook is waking up with a tangle of signatures strewn above your head. It’s coming back to friends you haven’t seen in a year, and feeling like you never left. It’s the deafening crunch of gravel at rest hour, and star-gazing on the Hill when you’re supposed to be asleep. It’s the nights when the sky is within your reach, and the darkness is your blanket.
Rockbrook is arguing with your counselor over the existence of a Fairy Party [editor’s note: just a dream…], and redetermining what “dry” means. It’s days in which laughter’s as constant as breath, and the cardinal’s glow stays with you all year. It’s the smile on your face when you’re singing your favorite camp song at the top of your lungs.
Rockbrook is home.

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August 9, 2015May 8, 2020 • Summer Camp • Grace Wallace

Going Old-School

On Sunday, our campers took part in a longtime Rockbrook tradition: Miss RBC. Judging by its name alone, you might think that Miss RBC is just a regular, run-of-the-mill beauty pageant. You might also wonder, then, why it has any place at a summer camp that doesn’t tend to glorify those things that are glorified in typical beauty pageants.

Not to worry, though—our Miss RBC is a glorification only of the most Rockbrook-y values: silliness, fun, crazy costumes, and teamwork. The “contestants” (one from each cabin) put on their craziest costumes, parade around the gym doing their funniest beauty-pageant walk, and answer questions such as “Would you rather get to school every day riding an elephant, a dragon, or a witch’s broom?” (The answer that was given to this question, incidentally, was “elephant,” though I myself would have chosen the broomstick—the relative discomfort is outweighed by the fact that it can neither step on you, nor set you on fire).

Girls that, at school, might only be praised for their looks or their popularity, are celebrated here for the size of their sombrero, or for the fact that they knew that the only logical response to the question “What is something that should never be vacuumed,” was, “The fur of a medium-sized squirrel.”

Why was that the answer? Who knows. But the response was hilarious, and the whole gym applauded hard and loud for that contestant.

Still, the contestants’ question-and-answer portion is only one part of the Miss RBC process. The part that the campers (and staff) look forward to the most is definitely the talent portion. In the talent portion, entire cabins take the stage to perform something together—sometimes it is a dance, or an original song, or a skit, or anything else that they can think of. In recent years, the campers have tended to focus on elaborate dances, set to their favorite songs, which we play over the loudspeaker.

This session, however, we decided to throw a twist into these usual proceedings: no pre-recorded music. That’s right, we went old-school. We were a bit nervous, when we made this announcement, that it might throw the girls off and make for a less exciting talent show; as usual, however, we shouldn’t have doubted that our campers would rise to the occasion.

What unfolded Sunday afternoon, was absolutely the best Miss RBC I’ve ever seen. Cabins wrote and performed songs, sang in a cappella, performed beautiful dances while one cabinmate sang a pop song into the microphone, and one cabin even brought out pots and pans from the kitchen and performed a percussion piece. The talents were imaginative and daring, and all were incredibly impressive. We were so proud to see our campers rise to this new challenge and put on such a great show!

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July 27, 2015May 8, 2020 • Summer Camp • rbc

Getting into the Groove!

The first full day of camp is always a mixed bag of emotions for our campers. For campers young and old, new or returning, there’s a lot to process throughout this day. New activities to try, new people to meet, new friends to make… It can seem just as overwhelming as it is exciting. This is the day that marks the start of the few weeks these girls have waited 12 months to experience again, and that knowledge carries a lot of anticipation and anxiousness as the girls leave breakfast to enter a day of fun, creative activities.

Our staff are very attuned to the first-day jitters. We encourage everyone to wear their name tags to make the introduction to new peers as easy as possible. We also make sure to cater to all experience levels in each activity, helping a novice pinch-pot maker feel as comfortable as an expert wheel thrower. This is integral to our philosophy behind activities at Rockbrook.

We’re also so excited to start this day because the girls have each customized their own activity schedule. This independence isn’t easy for every girl. Sometimes it’s more comfortable to do what someone has told you to do, but taking the braver step to choose their own activities is a huge sign of growth and maturity. Rockbrook encourages our campers to lean into the discomfort of trying new things, and to create a “new normal” for themselves where they achieve things they may have never thought possible.

One particular group of campers experienced a Rockbrook milestone they have probably been looking forward to since their very first day of camp ever, driving up the gravel hill years ago. The two cabins of CAs—the second-oldest group of campers—proudly announced at lunch that Banquet is coming and that they are pumped!

The CAs ventured after breakfast with Jeff into the DuPont forest on a hike that mirrored their brainstorming process. On the drive there, the girls threw out as many ideas of potential Banquet themes they could think of, many of which I suspect they’ve been dreaming up all year long. Upon arrival in the trail parking lot, we read aloud every idea to give the girls a chance to begin to sift through themes they really liked. Throughout the hike, Jeff stopped the girls three times. At each stop on the trail they discussed pros and cons of certain themes, each time eliminating a few as they went. The group engaged in good discussion, honoring each individual’s thoughts and ideas. The energy in the air was palpable and the collaboration between the girls was inspiring.

Finally, as they reached the peak of the mountain, the 2015 Third Session CAs emerged from the forest with a Banquet theme that all girls were excited about. They’ll spend the next few weeks hard at work in their secret, off-limits “Cabin 9” at the end of the lower line working with paint and glitter to transform the Dining Hall into a whole new world. Get ready, folks, because these CAs are going to put on a show!

Dinner tonight was the best representation of camp really being in full-swing. We thought yesterday was grand, having so many new arrivals and feeling the camp filled with fresh excitement. However, at tonight’s pizza dinner, the Dining Hall was roaring with happy conversations and enthusiastic (and loud!) singing. We cheered, we requested so many songs, and we sang our hearts out. As fun as yesterday was, we can now say that camp has officially started. Our Third Session 2015 campers are finally here, immersed fully in camp life. Let the games begin!

— Chrissy

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July 19, 2015May 8, 2020 • Summer Camp • Grace Wallace

As Though All the World Saw Us

On Sunday, the Juniors put on a beautiful Chapel for all of camp, on the theme “Integrity.” Though I shouldn’t have been, based on the campers that I have the pleasure of getting to know each summer, I was surprised by how firm a grasp many of these girls had on a concept that can best be described as, “You know it when you see it.”

Oftentimes, in thinking of integrity and in striving for it, I find myself mired in complexity. Integrity, after all, is composed of a hundred different qualities that are, in themselves often difficult to achieve. Honesty, industriousness, moral fortitude, and trustworthiness are all components—but which are the most important, and which can I fail to achieve from time to time without losing my integrity?

As I so often realize in my job, even the most daunting and complicated of topics can be made simple by the solid logic of a child. Integrity, as was expressed many times throughout Chapel, is achieved when you “do the right thing, even when no one is watching.”

One after another, campers explained that this is the standard that they set for themselves: not only to do the right thing, but also to do it for the right reasons. To clean up the dinner table for the cabin-mate who forgot, and keep it to themselves. To pick up the trash strewn around the over-full trashcan in the empty lodge. To take just one muffin during muffin break, even though the Hi Ups’ backs are turned and they could easily take two. To do all of this without asking for praise or recognition—to do it only because it is the right thing to do.

The Juniors were also quick to acknowledge that it is impossible to live up to these standards at all times. A significant part of integrity, to them, is falling short of these goals and owning up to it afterwards. The example that stuck with me was a camper who took a nice pen from the lost and found at school, then returned it a day later. Nobody would have known that the pen had been taken or who took it, but still she returned it so that it might still have the chance of being reclaimed by its owner.

I like to think that camp is the perfect environment in which to develop integrity. This kind of close community living helps campers to feel accountable to their peers and to the camp as a whole—they learn quickly that if they are not behaving well, then their actions will have repercussions that affect many others. Likewise, good deeds tend to be recognized and appreciated more often here than in the real world. Even if campers are not behaving well specifically for attention, that attention still might find them, and teach them one of the many rewards of integrity.

Sarah pointed out at the very end of chapel that, built into the routine of camp, is a daily reminder of all that having integrity entails. Every night before bed, campers of all ages recite the Rockbrook Prayer. Conceived ninety-four years ago as a Christian prayer, and changed in later years to reflect the disparate religious beliefs of our many campers, the prayer is essentially a challenge to every camper to be a better person tomorrow than she was today. In it is outlined the behaviors and qualities that give a person integrity, even though it doesn’t say so outright. Countless alumnae have told us that this prayer has stayed with them throughout their lives, and that various lines will come floating up out of their memories in moments when they need reminding of the sorts of women that Rockbrook has helped them to become.

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June 21, 2015May 10, 2020 • Summer Camp • Grace Wallace

Sunday Slow-Down

Sundays at Rockbrook give us all a chance to slow down. We put aside the exciting pace of camp, in which we have dozens of activities and events to choose from every day, and allow ourselves to take each moment one at a time.

The first of these moments came this morning at 9 AM, when the rising bell rang. We all jumped out of bed, refreshed by the extra hour of sleep that we get every Sunday at camp, and made our way down to breakfast in our PJs. We skipped the chores. Those we’d save for later. We all enjoyed a breakfast of Krispy Kreme Donuts (a Sunday tradition) in our PJs, robes, and slippers.

The hour between breakfast and chapel was spent in cabins, hanging out with friends, and changing into whities. By the time all of the campers arrived on the Hill for the flag raising, teeth had been cleaned, hair had been brushed, and whities had been donned. We were all relaxed and happy as we stood in the sunshine and watched the Hi-Ups raise the flag.

Chapel this week was put on by the Juniors and Middlers, and the theme that they chose was “Fearlessness.” Sarah, as has become a tradition in the last several years, read the camp a book pertaining to the theme: “Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: A Cinderella Tale from Africa.” The heroine in the tale wins the hand of the king by braving a series of tests that prove her worthiness.

Inspired by the story, several campers arose to tell the group what fearlessness means to them, and how they have experienced it in their time away at camp. Interestingly, the stories that they told were not so much about being entirely without fear, but rather about fully experiencing the various fears and anxieties that come along with being away from camp, and then conquering them. Campers talked about fearing homesickness, until they realized how much fun it is to experience the independence of camp; about fearing the water slide, until they got up the nerve to step off that platform, and felt the exhilaration of speeding down the chute and out into the lake; about fearing horses, until they finally sat upon a gentle horse, guided by an experienced hand, and learned that there was nothing to fear.

Chapel was followed by Assembly on the Hill. The Middler counselors started things off with a hilarious skit in which they all played personifications of “Rockbrook Villains” (Snake, Heat, Poison Ivy, Moisture, Lost Crazy Creeks, etc.), trying to determine which of them had failed to replace their buddy tag after leaving the lake. After the presentations of the weekly “Mop Awards” for cleanest cabins that followed, counselors from each line represented their age groups in a water balloon challenge. The camp water balloon catapult was placed on the porch of the Junior Lodge, behind the campers. The challenge was for one counselor to attempt to shoot water balloons over the heads of the crowd, to where their partner was standing on the road. The counselor who hit their partner with the most water balloons would win. The Senior counselors won, and quite a few members of the crowd got drenched in the process.

Camp needs to have these slow days once in a while. We have to have days in which we all take our time, get a little goofy, and allow ahead, a week that, in this case, will involve Banquet, the play, a horse show, Spirit Fire, and Closing Day. Today was that last deep breath we all took before the end of camp.

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June 15, 2015May 10, 2020 • Summer Camp • Grace Wallace

Creating Their Own Fun

Schedules are useful. Schedules let you know the shape of your day before it even starts. They tell you that that appointment you’ve been dreading will be over by ten, and that restaurant that you love will be seating you at seven. Here at Rockbrook, we know and appreciate the benefits a schedule, and stick to one (with a few daily adjustments) nearly every day of the week. Rising bell at 8 AM. Lunch at 1. Dinner at 6:15. Four activity periods, two snack breaks, and two Free Swims a Day. The schedule allows both campers and staff to slide into a rhythm, and know what to expect out of their days.

But our campers are used to schedules. In some ways, they are too used to schedules. Their days throughout the year are filled top to bottom with school, tutoring, music lessons, sports practices, and homework.

This overabundance of stimulation in their everyday lives is one of the reasons that I think the absolute most important part of our daily schedule are the times that we schedule… nothing. No activities, no events, nothing at all but the space around the campers, the people they are with, and their ability to use their imaginations to create their own entertainment.

Free Swims and Twilight are largely left up to the campers. They might find themselves at the beginning of a Free Swim taking on the risk of boredom that has become all too rare in modern life. There are no phones or tablets to captivate them with mindless games and social media; no TV or Netflix to keep them entertained and sedentary. There is only forty-five minutes to an hour of staring at a wall, unless they and their friends can come up with something to do.

And, boy, to our Rockbrook girls rise to the challenge. Just in today’s Second Free Swim, I saw girls racing stray flip flops down the stream, circles of hair-braiding-chains on the Hill, and signs up on bulletin boards advertising auditions (“open to all ages”) for a band that some campers are putting together.

With ample free time, and the risk of boredom, comes startling creativity, openness, and boldness. Girls who might shriek at the sight of a live crawfish in the winter find themselves poking through streambeds in search of them during Twilight. Girls who perhaps have only ever played card games on computer screens, learn that by far the best use of real playing cards is building them into elaborate houses with their friends. Girls who reach instinctively for technology at the first sign of a quiet moment, might discover that it is far better to reach for a book, or even for the hand of a friend as they jump into the lake.

With unscheduled time, of course, comes the risk of boredom, and the twiddling-of-thumbs. What it also brings, however, is an agency over the use of their own time that our campers might not often see in school-days. At camp, this time is given to them in abundance, and it is a beautiful thing to see our campers take it and run with it.

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June 8, 2015March 24, 2023 • Summer Camp • Grace Wallace

Jumping Right In

Every summer, on the first full day of camp, it strikes me how little time it takes for the “spirit of Rockbrook” to take hold on our campers.

Within the first 24 hours, our campers transform from the quiet, polite children who arrive on Opening Day into true Rockbrook Girls (who, while always polite, are rarely quiet). Through the courage of jumping into the lake for the swim demos yesterday, the creativity of planning and performing skits with their cabins last night at Evening Program, and the sheer adventure of setting out this morning for the activities that they themselves chose, those handy manners that school instills in them are stripped away in preparation of three weeks of carefree fun.

Gone too are some of the inhibitions that might hold them back from taking fun and crazy chances in the “real world.” Girls who have been nervous around horses their whole lives chose to step into the barn this morning. Girls who swore up and down all year long that they wouldn’t do the camp swim demo completed it yesterday afternoon and earned their green bracelet. Girls who dreaded opening day all year long, sure in the knowledge that they would be homesick, began to realize that they are strong enough to make it through, and even enjoy, nearly three weeks away from the comforts of home.

Most wonderfully, though, campers are putting away their self-consciousness and desire to “fit in” with the crowd, and have begun to let their inner zaniness shine through. They are realizing that camp is a place where “weirdness” is not only tolerated, but welcomed and encouraged—a place where differences are celebrated. Silly songs in the Dining Hall? No problem. Creating a skit about Cinderella and Hannah Montana starting a dance party on the moon? Totally normal. Wearing pants on your head to dinner? All par for the course.

There were three Juniors in particular who embraced that philosophy last night, when they stood up and made the announcement at dinner that, “Rockbrook is all about having fun, and sometimes to have fun you have to get a little weird.” They then challenged their fellow campers to dress as weirdly as possible for today’s meals. Our Rockbrook girls, new and returning, rose marvelously to the challenge. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were populated by walking bananas, ketchup bottles, aliens, pants-on-head wearers, giant sunglasses, and more.

It is amazing to see the transformations that only a single day at camp can bring about; and even more amazing to consider how our campers will continue to grow and change between today and Closing Day.

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December 16, 2014May 13, 2020 • Summer Camp • Sofie Ehlinger

Firecrackers and Confetti: Resolutions for Happy Girls

A happy girl’s guide to this year’s New Year’s Resolutions.

1. I resolve to go on at least one adventure a day.

Adventures of the pack-up-your-suitcase, walk-in-the-woods, live-by-the-seat-of-your-pants persuasion are lovely and, very often, inaccessible. Climbing Mt. Everest is hard, but big adventures are everywhere- unopened doors, questions just waiting to be asked, roads less traveled. A right turn instead of a left, can begin a grand adventure!

2. I resolve, everyday, to learn one new thing about my family.

Engage with the people you love. Ask them about who they are. Ask them about their day, their passions, their history, their successes. Give your family the opportunity to share their stories.

3. I resolve to find gratitude for at least one thing that did happen and one thing that didn’t happen.

Psychologist Chris Thurber tells us that just as important as it is to rejoice in what you have, life also moves forward when you acknowledge what you don’t. For example, you weren’t expecting a fire today and be thankful there wasn’t one.

4. I resolve to burn fewer cookies.

Thurber also points out, when you throw a batch of two dozen cookies in the oven and twenty of them burn, savor your four successes. Then, consider how you can recalibrate to burn fewer of the next batch. Life requires a few tweaks now and again.

5. I resolve to let the sky be my limit.

Once a day, aim to see things not how they are, but how they could be.

6. I resolve to go where there is no guarantee.

Share yourself with the world. Never hold back, even when your efforts have no guarantees.

7. I resolve to start every day believing that I am a somebody and end each day as a better somebody.

Start each day believing that you are somebody- you are worthy of love and connection and you have amazing things to offer. Then, let each day change you for the better.

8. I resolve to be a tough cookie.

Set backs, scraped knees, a scraped ego. A life filled with challenge is a life filled with color and possibility. Be tough enough to absorb life’s lessons.

9. I resolve to be astonished.

Stay amazed. Life is an endless journey of firecrackers and confetti.

10. I resolve to give.

Your value increases in proportion to how much of it you give away. Holding tightly to your time and money can, ultimately, narrow your wealth.

11. I resolve to be a party animal.

The world is a party and you can be the life of it! Life is like a stick of gum- you can simply chew it or you can blow bubbles.

12. I resolve to never stop making mistakes.

Mistakes are open doors. Mistakes are proof that you are as alive as you’ve ever been. Mistakes mean that you are a take-risks, sing-out-loud, love-with-your-whole-heart, share-what’s-on-your-mind, change-the-world, happy girl!

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