The last three days of each session are a crazy, magical, busy, wild and incredible time at Centauri. In programs, campers are busy with tech rehearsals, and setting up for gallery openings. It feels as if everything goes into overdrive, as campers experience all the things they love for what might be the last time in the session. Meals are filled with cheers, dancing, singing, and all the songs that have special meaning at Centauri are requested again and again. Last dorm hours, last bedtime programs, last evening programs and spirit suppers – all are to be celebrated and savoured. Friends cling to one another, eager for laughter, in jokes and final special memories. And amongst all of this, we have our camp traditions – the essential pathways through the final days that mean so much to our returning campers; the treasured ways we say goodbye.
Our final dinner at Centauri is one of these traditions. Our last dinner is almost always perogies, with a dessert of ice cream sundaes and toppings. Dorms always compete to be the first up for dessert. Sometimes, this involves creating skits of their best camp memories. Other sessions, they’ll sing songs, offer tributes to staff members or relive favourite cheers – all good natured and frenzied attempts to get ice cream first. The music for the final dinner has been the same for two decades – the Beach Boys. No one really recalls why, any more than we know why the program directors begin Kokomo with a skit, or why almost everyone forms a conga line around the dining hall while the song plays.
Equally important is that the entire camp celebrates every single final show on dress rehearsal day. We all tour the galleries, listen to the readings, watch the movies and see every performance. That’s about 5 hours of presentations spread throughout the day. One year, we decided to make it optional, figuring that this was a long time for younger campers to sit. Guess what? The campers disagreed. They WANTED to see every show, and even given the choice, no one sat out. It’s all about celebrating the achievements of one another – something Centauri values very much.
Saying goodbye happens through celebrations like the final dinner, and the party at the end of the night – but it needs to happen in reflective ways, too. We all have to take a moment to breathe deeply, think deeply and consider what this session has meant to us. The friends we have made. The ways we have grown. The things we have learned, through experiences both wonderful and – occasionally – difficult. The camper who overcame homesickness needs time to feel proud of the independence achieved. The camper who took their leadership skills to a whole new level needs time to think about what that will mean in the school year to come. The camper who learned a skill that shifted their perspective of their own ability just a little – they need time to recognise the importance of what they have done. And all of us, together, need to celebrate the community we have created, and the link we have formed in a chain going back 24 years, and hopefully at least as many years into the future.
One of the most important ways we reflect on a session, as it comes to an end, is through our Secret Ceremony. This is a starlit, candlelit ceremony that takes place right at the end of our celebratory party, on the last night of camp. The secret ceremony is filled with quiet music, gentle laughter, profound words from both staff and campers, and often tears, too. We hold onto one another under the night sky, around a roaring fire, as we sing the parting songs, light each other’s candles, wish on the stars and ask ourselves what will be left of the session inside each of us, years from now, when the memory or individual events may have faded. A lifelong friend? A feeling of community and connection? A brave new confidence? A life skill? The secret ceremony is probably our most profound and meaningful goodbye, and one of the greatest memories campers carry with them as the session draws to a close. It’s a place where new campers first feel the wonder of what they have shared. And where campers who have been with us for years, and are coming to the end of their journey as campers, can put in words what the journey has meant to them.
Tomorrow, we begin the end of session two, as tech rehearsals get underway, and we enjoy workshops and a spirit supper for the final time. But nothing ends. Not really. As we always say at the secret ceremony, under the grass around our campfire pit you will find layers of candlewax going back more than two decades, and as the months and years move on, you might just find yourself bumping into other people who sat on the very same spot as you, around our fire, just in a different session, year or even decade. We’re all connected to each other in fathomless ways. Without connection, our humanity is nothing – a fact that summer camp teaches young people maybe better than anything else.
Julie Hartley
Director
Centauri Arts Camp