LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
StudentCAMP: Spiders and Adorable Topless Boys |
by Adam |
(Which sounds like the name of a bad cover band, but in fact is not) Rather, it is the description of a company picnic I went to just yesterday with my mother. First off, to refresh everyone's memories, as well as recap for those who do not follow my column (to those I say: "What are you thinking?!"), I recentlyas in about two weeks agocame out to my parents. One of the hardest things since then has been regaining some sense of normalcy at home. Because when you come out, literally everything begins to take on the connotation of sex and sexualitythe most benign conversations have a tendency to take bizarre and uncomfortable twists that can be both impractical and embarrassing. An example: I recently got a new job. The day I was hired, I came home to discuss the job with my parents, who thought it great that I would finally be working and making money. So we were all talking about scheduling and such when all of the sudden my dad proclaims, "Adam, your mother and I feel that the homosexual lifestyle is something which a person actively chooses." How exactly this shift occurred is something which still bothers me (though only on particularly boring afternoons). Anyway, you get the idea. And so I've been working very hard to shift the focus of our household away from my sexuality. (I have a real problem with my parents thinking about my sex life more than I do.) In order to accomplish this task, I have been making a special effort to do very normal, unthreatening activities with my parents. My mother's company picnic was a fantastic opportunity to do just that. And so I wentif only I had known what I was getting into! The picnic was at Killen's Pond State Park. First, let me say that my mom and I are neither one of us particularly enthralled with water parks. If I want to swim, I do so in the ocean. Otherwise, I'm really just not interested. Go figure that her entire company went to the water park. Thus, we found ourselves sitting alone in a pavilion, accompanied only by a relative zoo of multicolored coolers filled with a variety of picnic classics (including at least a hundred different varieties of salads, all of which taste the same as far as I'm concerned). At which point we came up with the idea of taking a walk on one of the many lovely paths which the park rangers have graciously cut through nature in order that you can enjoy nature (do you sense cynicism here?). So that is what we did. Everything began very well. We walked for about a half-hour, enjoying the trees, flowers, and flies. Then, at some point, we came to a fork in the path. We decided to take the left-hand path, which we deduced should follow along the water, thus making for a nice view. And indeed it did follow along the water. However, there was one problemjust onespiders. There were spiders everywhere. They were having a World's Fair, stringing webs in every imaginable shape and size right across the increasingly narrow path. Finally, after running through more spider webs than I care to think about, we made the collective decision"we" being: my mom, myself, and the spidersthat it was best if the humans turned around and headed back. And that is what we did. Except that at some point on our way back, we got kind of turned around, so that we just kept walking and walking but never quite passing the same place twice. Finally, we came out in a clearing, much resembling a field, only to learn that we had somehow ended up in the campground (for those of you who don't know, this is quite some distance from the pavilion where we had started; in fact, they are practically separate parks). This was bad, because by this point we were both tired, cranky, and very much ready to return to the pavilion as well as civilization in general. After examining in great detail a mapwhich recommended returning down the Spider Trail as the quickest return routemy mother and I mustered up all of our determination and bravery. We then walked down the highway back to the front entrance of the park and finally back to our pavilion, safely avoiding spiders, biting flies, and annoying/frightening campers (the last being the worst, of course). Overall, despite the bitter defeat of getting lost in a park designed for people who have never seen a tree before, it was a genuine bonding experience for my mom and I. If nothing else, we at least got a good laugh out of it. And you cannot imagine how very happy we were to finally get back to the pavilion, where we sat in padded lawn chairs, ate synthetic food, and drank pretreated bottled spring water (like a good queer, as my Kentucky friend Jake says). To sweeten my trailblazing victory, there were a handful of rather cute, topless boys walking around, playing volleyball, and otherwise amusing themselves (now don't get sick on me!). And while I did feel rather weird flirting with my mother around, I was at that point really just too tired to care. So that is the story of the Spiders and the Adorable Topless Boys. If there is, by chance, anyone interested in starting a Doors cover band by that name, please let me know. I'd be happy to supply the pretreated bottled spring water and padded lawn chairs rehearsals and performances. Adam is a senior in high school. In his free time, he enjoys studying and writing poetry, playing the piano, acting, and reading anything and everything. He welcomes email at admcrow@zdnetmail.com. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 9, No. 10, July 30, 1999 |