Perpetual Youth

When people ask me where I’m from or where I grew up, there is always a pause before I answer. “Growing up” is a very ambiguous concept and it is hard to define at what point of one’s life was when they grew up. The pause is also to consider my audience and how they will react to the answer I end up choosing. I know that if I say “Long Island” I will get the same response: a prejudged eye roll and the end of questioning. Recently, however, I’ve thought a lot about what it means to pin point the act of growing up, and what it means to say “I’m from” wherever.

This mini identity crisis can probably be accredited to the fact that I’ve lived in seven different houses and have attended four different school districts since I was born. I was born in Newark, Delaware, and lived there for the first year of my life before moving to Salisbury, Maryland. After first grade, my family relocated again to Elkton, Maryland, which is a few hours from Salisbury. Half way through third grade, we moved again to the next school district over, North East. Finally, the summer before sixth grade, right after I got my tonsils removed, we moved up the east coast to Long Island where I finished out my grade school career. All the moves had something to do with my father’s job; promotions or transfers, all things I was too young to care about or even understand at the time.

Through my first three years of college, I instinctively told people that I met that I was from Long Island. After all, when I went home for Christmas break, it was to Long Island, and I had spent seven years there, which was the longest of any of my childhood homes. Going to college in upstate New York, I started noticing that there was a typical reaction to someone who is from Long Island. There is a definite negative connotation and people automatically become half as interested as they were before they heard the words “Long Island.” Frustrated at the prejudgment applied to me, I made the concrete decision that I am not actually from Long Island. Most Long Islanders are born and raised there, following many prior generations. Me? I’m from south of the Mason Dixon line.

Since I’ve started telling people that I’m from Maryland and Delaware, I have actually been thinking about what it means to say that. I want where I say I grew up to be where I was molded and shaped as a human being. Since the Long Island stereotypes don’t apply to me, I’ve counted it out definitely.

Having a lot to do with my father’s involvement in the Boy Scouts, one of the houses we lived in was a year round residence at a Boy Scout summer camp, Camp Rodney, in North East. A few miles past the entrance of the camp, down a long, red dirt road was the small three-bedroom cabin in the middle of the woods that I lived with my parents, two sisters, and brother. In an otherwise relatively suburban part of Maryland, we were isolated by acres and acres of trees and hills and a piece of property situated on a large stretch of beach along the Chesapeake Bay.

Our nearest neighbor was never even close enough to measure how far away they were, so we were on our own. For two years, my older brother, Eric, older sister, Karen, younger sister, Emily, two Labradors, Hero and Bear, and I explored Camp Rodney from acre to acre together. When I think back on it, having the hundreds of acres of forest with trails beaten down by years and years of Boy Scouts was such an amazing opportunity for us as kids. Having this experience in my life probably has something to do with the fact that I never owned or desired any game system more advanced than a GameBoy.

The part of the forest where my siblings and I spent most of our time was actually right near the house. We were within earshot of the house so it pretty much developed into home base. In this area, Eric and I made a fort for ourselves around the natural formations of the birch trees, using logs and broken branches to highlight our domain. To officially make the fort ours, we carved our initials into a tree with Eric’s pocketknife at the entrance. In response, Karen and Emily made their own password-protected fort nearby. The sibling and boys vs. girls rivalry never resulted in much past the inevitable denial of each other’s company in our respective forts, so we took to exploring elsewhere. We never figured out each other’s passwords.

Just past our fort area, a little deeper into the forest, there was a series of deep ravines. As if the forest was built for the sole purpose of our entertainment, there were thick vines hanging down from the canopied ceiling in the perfect spot to swing across to the other side of the ravine. For Emily, who was too little to swing across the ravine, there was a large fallen tree for her to balance herself on as she walked across the gap. As we made our way deeper into the forest, past The Forts and past The Ravines, there was a swampy area. The Swamp was a landmark that meant we were close to the Bay. It was a great place for a game of Tag or Follow the Leader because of the level of skill and concentration it took to leap across the muck from rock to log to rock and back again without losing a shoe to the Swamp Monster.

Emerging from the depths of The Swamp was a sandy path leading to the bay. The beach at the Chesapeake Bay was a playground in itself. Eric, Karen, Emily, and I would often race from the house to the sandy shore and spend an afternoon swimming in the chilly water or wading in the shallow parts with small nets trying to catch minnows. Down the beach a little ways were cliffs that were made of red clay. In addition to climbing the cliffs, we would harvest chunks of the clay and use it to make sculptures and trinkets, some of which are still on display at Grandma’s house. As the sun began to retreat over the Bay, we took a quick dip to wash the crimson color from our hands and feet that had been submerged in clay before racing back down The Beach, through The Swamp, over The Ravine, past The Forts, emerging from the tree line and sprinting the last hundred yards to the back door of the house.

It was in that house, where I shared a room with my brother, where we lost power during a winter storm on my birthday, where a six-person family shared one bathroom, that I developed an identity and an appreciation for family. Secluded in a piece of paradise, I was able to unleash my imagination and sense of exploration with my sibling companions where there were no boundaries. So where am I from? I’m from where I learned how to play outside and where I learned to love my brother and sisters. Where I can always go back in my mind and relive the glory days of my childhood, visualizing walking down the once beaten path, touching the initials “EF” and “JF” on the trunk of the birch tree at The Forts, tugging the old vines that will no longer carry me over The Ravines, walking the safe path through The Swamp, and sit in the coarse sand and watch the choppy water of the Chesapeake.