Skip to content

Zoe JDP: Departure Day, Vermont ~ NBTSC 2024

Departure Day

I woke up on the floor 

Snuggled under a fuzzy blanket

To the sound of Valentina playing ukelele 

Saying goood morning campers, the time is currently 7:29 am. Please wake up your friends and bring your bags and mattress down to the lodge. 

While campers chattered lightly and signed directories

Some of them had been up all night

I walked up to my cabin, said goodbye to it for the last time, carried my bags down

And helped a friend bring down her mattress

My bag went on the porch 

the mattress went on a 7 foot tall stack in the lodge

I went to Will, the medical moose, to pick up my pills and check in about my arm. 

That part was quick, but I stayed an extra fifteen minutes talking. 

Short last morning meeting

Sang Look at What the Light Did Now

Hug number 478

People already crying

Waving off the first group to leave for the airport

Crying laughing hugging on the porch

Gathering on Carl one last time until next year 

Making our way down the hill with all our bags to the pickup area

More crying, more hugging more people goodbye 

Figuring out what car I’m in

Talking about what friends to bring next year

Eating sandwiches 

Asleep for four hours in the car

Waking up seeing Orthodox Jewish kids on scooters

And then a grown man playing with a water fountain outside a brick apartment complex

Flaky paint and shiny cafes

I am undeniably in New York City now

Sister opens door

Hugging family

Holding cat

Spilling all my luggage onto the floor

Leave it like that for a day or two

Seeing friends and trying so hard to maintain that sense of community

Tell yourself to never forget how you felt at camp

Close your eyes and think about 

the warmth of the campfire and 

angel walk and 

bonding night and 

sleeping on the porch 

and when you sit alone on the blue subway on the way home from film class 

remember you’ll be at camp again and get share with everyone what we’ve created while we were apart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a picture of me on departure day on my walk back through the woods from a kybo

My name is Zoe or Zoe JDP or just JDP

I live in Brooklyn New York 

I am 18 somehow

I’ve gone to Not Back to School Camp in Vermont in 23, and 24, Oregon 22, 23, and 24. 

I like to improvise through dance, vocalizing, acting, and drawing. I also like to make films. As with most unschoolers, I do lots of many different things that are too many to name 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Loading...