Undertow

A voice swirled through the trees, deeply harmonizing. I saw a young kid—a kid my age—strolling down a diverging dirt path, passing to my left. His eyes gazed upward, his throat vibrating in a steady rhythm that seemed to match the confidence in his eyes. He wasn’t aware of me and I couldn’t place the song. Maybe it was Boyz-to-Men or All-4-One, but if I had closed my eyes when he passed, I would have thought he was a recording. He moved past in a few seconds and I was alone again.

I walked down the dirt path of the camp, plain Georgia trees spread before me, revealing an event horizon that was only more Georgia trees. I couldn’t say their names and I couldn’t care if they had names. They were just a framework to me, one that I had no choice but to walk through. I was looking for something that stood out, something that would move my mind in a direction with momentum. 

The 4H camp was in a buried part of the state. We were hauled in by the busload, little sardines, packed together, wet and smelly. There was a general optimism on the part of the educators and a precise ignorance on our part. The schoolteachers couldn’t say, “This is as good as it will get for most of you. One day, you’ll be cogs in the machinery, little gears that will be easily broken by the big gears unless you spin in perfect timing.” They couldn’t say it because they weren’t really aware of it themselves. And thankfully, neither were we. We were just the nerds in the Latin Club, happy to be doing anything other than homework. 

I walked several paths that day, including one that rose like rainbow fire on a blanketed hill. Brown was the burning base, the little unnamed flowers were the crackles and pops, and my feet felt the soot as I pressed upward. I walked without regard, lacking destination, unsure of any purpose in my motion other than to move because moving didn’t feel wrong. I’m sure I walked two or three hours worth of miles, how many ever that may equate to at the age of fourteen. I walked as far as I could in order to get back to exactly where I started.

When I sat in stillness in the confines of the camp, I found myself adopted by Griffin High School in an informal ceremony led by a young blonde girl. She put a purple hat on my head and said I could be one of them. Their energy was magical to me, something alien from the closed-quarter walls of my own school. They moved quickly, deliberately, erupting in smiles and laughs, pouring a sense of community and belonging into the air. I thought then that I should have grown up in the country. I should have had a childhood with more rides in the beds of old rusty pick-up trucks. I should have learned how to ride a horse rather than work on a Honda. A cold iced tea, hot fields, a few cows, a country girl with stiff boots and a wild southern smile—I was certain it was all part of a past I lacked. 

At night, I walked through the camp with Brandon, Russ, and Tara…and some other girl I can’t remember. As we sat on the bridge that extended over the lake, Russ had his arms around Tara, while she looked at and talked to me most of the time. I didn’t understand why. Neither Tara nor I knew it, but a couple of years later she’d be a waitress at the Steak and Shake on Barrett Parkway. And after midnight when the Rocky Horror Picture show was over, she’d stand at my table and still talk to me. Russ wasn’t there. 

Later in camp, when I was alone, I made my way back out toward the lake. I found a dry woody spot, elevated from the main path, where I could sit and stare at the moonlight in the rippled flow. I don’t remember what I believed then or what spirit I spoke with in my isolation. But after a time, a girl interrupted my thoughts. I’ll call her Robyn. She was masked by the absence of light, showing only a thin frame, as she moved towards me. We talked for an hour at least, but I can’t recall anything of what was said… except that we’d meet the next day. 

The day we left the camp, Robyn and I met and exchanged a few sentences; they were meaningless words, the kind adolescents say when they know they have nothing else to reach for. But I told myself it was fine because Tara’s smile was still on my mind, because I could still hear that kid harmonizing, and I had been adopted by the Latin Club of Griffin High School. 

The bus ride back to Atlanta was an undertow. I was no longer walking alone, but I was riding alone, further from the lack that lacked what I couldn’t find. We were driving straight, sixty-five miles per hour, but if I closed my eyes, I felt myself moving in a circle. I was in the current of the swirl, being pulled toward the center, down to the sandy bottom.