...and come September.

My Autumn Office.

Okay. So I know it’s well into October, but I’m borrowing the title of this post from one our favorite camp songs, and using it in a slightly less-than-literal way.

When we get to that part of “Linger”, I never think of right after labor day and the first days of school when everything is still warm and green, I think of right now. To look around Camp there is no doubt that it is no longer summer, and fall is here in full force.

What’s different about camp in the fall? Well first of all, camp is like fall all over the rest of New Jersey...only more so. Way more so. Fall shows up here a little earlier, and goes a little slower, a little bigger and a little brighter. The trees that all summer long live as a reliable and uniform green have went their separate ways and now live out there last in vibrant yellows, oranges, reds, golds and every shade or color in between. None choose exactly the identical color and you can spend all day looking tree to tree without every seeing the same thing twice.

There are leaves in the spillway. There are leaves on the road near the craft-shop, on the porches of the cabins, the roof of the rec hall, surrounding the flagstones, on the ground around the White-House. This is to say, there are leaves everywhere. If you were for a moment to forget what season it was, you’d instantly be reminded every step you took by the fresh and crisp crunching and crackling beneath your feet.

Everywhere.

I mean. Everywhere.

In some ways, Camp is a wholly different place in the fall.

And yet.

Yet, if you stand just right, out of the shade where the sun can quickly warm you, stay still enough to hear no crackling, and squint past the dull autumn rainbow concentrating on a spot that remains pure green, it is summer still. You can hear the shouts and cries of Octopus tag (fishy, fishy, come into my...), smell the smoke (too much smoke, sometimes) of opening campfires, and see the cabins lining up in eleven not-so-straight lines in front of the dining hall porch.

Fall is beautiful here. It’s the very first step toward it being summer once again.

In the same way Camp seems to keep part of summer at it’s core as the seasons change, I hope that as your seasons change you’re able to keep what you love about camp close as well. I hope that if you stand just right, you can hear, smell and see the summer still.

Anyone out there (in internet land) have any good tales about how your time at camp changed, shaped, or affected your Fall or first few months of school? If you do, how about you type it up and email it over to me at summercampben@gmail.com?  Maybe I’ll pick a couple of my favorites and post it on this here internet-bloggy thing. Cause that seems like the kind of thing it’d be good to do if you happen to have an internet-bloggy-thing.

Which, conveniently, I do.

Happy October.