I take the hands of the two people next to me, as they do the same. There are about forty of us, all holding hands to create a circle of unity and safety. Four days ago, we arrived at a The Outdoor Academy in the mountains of North Carolina. In about thirty minutes, we’ll be getting on buses to go to a place in the woods to spend the night on an orientation trek.
I look to my left. A tall boy with blond hair stands still and looks straight ahead. He has an ugly grey sweater on, and it looks scratchy. What is his name? John? Will?
To my right, a small girl with mousy hair taps her foot silently. Her hands are clammy. I want to say something comforting, but the layer of sweat in our hands separates me from this thought.
“Black Bears, stand to my right,” calls Emily, one of the teachers. She speaks with the voice of a babysitter, and seems nice, but you still can’t get over the idea that she actually deep down might want to strangle you.
My group, the Black Bears, includes ugly-sweater boy and clammy-hand girl. I know I have no real reason to hate them, but the truth is that before I get to know someone, I don’t have a choice but to judge them on the small things. And right now, since I can’t even remember who they are, the hokey nicknames are going to have to work.
“Hop in, you guys,” says Martin, the other teacher. Clammy-hand girl and I start for the door at the same time. We stop, back up, and move forward again before pausing to bask in the awkwardness.
Once we finally were able to enter the van, I look around and try to decide where to sit. There are three people in the van, each in a different row and leaning their heads against the windows, breath fogging the glass. I choose to sit next to a girl who I found earlier was from near Atlanta. The van starts moving, and I lean over to start conversation with her.
“So, you’re from Roswell?” I inquire politely. She slowly lifts her head up and looks at me.
“Yeah.”
“That’s so cool, I’m from Atlanta too!”
“Cool,” she mumbles, straining to sound interested, but obviously not trying to continue the conversation.
I doze off and wake up when the van stops in front of a trail. We hop out, stretch, put on our packs, and start up the winding mountain. No one speaks, and we look at the ground as if the mountain is the one keeping us quiet.
Arriving in camp is one of the happiest moments in backpacking. The relief of removing a heavy pack always puts people in a happy and energetic mood.
I observe the people walking around the campsite. Up the hill, two kids who know each other from Florida collect firewood. We need water. I ask the Atlanta girl to help me, hoping that we can strike up a conversation.
“What school do you go to?” I ask, thinking I might know some of her classmates.
“I’m home schooled,” she replies quietly. No wonder she’s so socially repressed, I think to myself.
I spill water on her shoe accidentally. I guess that’s strike one against me in her book. Or maybe she’s nice and doesn’t judge people on the small things like I do.
It’s starting to get dark, and half of us work on making dinner with Emily. We chop onions and boil spaghetti in the receding sunlight until we can use the light of a warm, crackling campfire to cook with. It’s the best feeling in the world to end a day of tough backpacking and frigid temperatures with warm food and a fire to talk around. Once the huge pot of food is eliminated, we can begin our evening activities.
Emily has a hat that she passes around with little slips of paper and pencils in it. We are to write down two wishes or aspirations on these slips of paper and toss them in. Out of the many things I have planned to do with my life, I choose joining the Peace Corps and hiking the Appalachian Trail. Once everyone has done this, we pass the hat around again, this time taking out a slip of paper, reading it aloud, and trying to guess whose wish it is.
Clammy-hand girl draws first.
“I want to be a pilot,” she states quickly. “Harry?” she guesses.
That’s his name! Harry! We all look at the boy in the grey sweater as he silently shakes his head. She places the slip of paper back in the hat and passes it to the left.
Now it is my turn to draw. I pull it out, read it in my head, and pause. I want to join the Peace Corps? But that is my slip! This one, however, is in a different handwriting. I read it aloud, cautiously.
“I want to join the Peace Corps. Megan?”
Megan, or Atlanta girl, looks up, smiles, and says yes. It’s amazing how only five minutes ago, I thought we had nothing in common other than our hometown.
The game continues on until all the slips are read, I know everybody’s names, and we create a symphony of yawning. I volunteer to wash the pot from dinner, and Megan says she will help. We walk off into the woods and talk for a while about the places we want to visit in the world in our future, while the pot drags behind us on the ground like our impressions of each other from before the trek.
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