How I Spent My Summer Vacation ... in 1969

Every so often your life collides with a great world event. More often you watch it pass at a great distance, and years later maybe you write a poem.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

One long poem this time — divided into sections for your reading comfort, and I promise the sections are not misnumbered though they may appear so. All will be made clear. Or not, of course, but let’s hope for clarity.

---

Three Days in July 1969


1.

On the day the ship
hauls itself flame-roaring beyond the air
into a brief familiar orbit and then outward
through scarcely charted darkness, on that day
her eleven-year-old self sits coughing
in the camp nurse’s office, sans nurse,
while a brisk counselor rattles through cupboards
and pours out a dose, oily-sweet and menthol, 
for her to swallow -- no protest, only a grimace,
then the thick warm trickle seeping through 
her chest’s familiar ache. She is not sick,
the counselor tells her firmly, she has no fever,
only a cough, the syrup will help, now go
have fun. And true, her eleven-year-old self agrees
in silence, she is not sick, or if she is, she always has been --
always the chubby loud one whose cot collapses
beneath her nightly, always thirteenth in any paired-off group
of twelve, always hiding hunger and the secret shameful wish
to be the group-of-one she best knows how to be, curled 
in lonely comfort around the stories that stir inside her -- 
the wish to be that self, and not the one with chest on fire, 
trailing stiff-backed behind the counselor into uncharted sunlight
along the path to where they say the fun is.


3.

On the day the ship
splits itself in two, steers half itself intact
onto an untouched lifeless surface, on that day
her eleven-year-old self, perched on the back seat
in another family’s car, leans forward
ignoring other giggling back-seat selves,
and listens with the front-seat grownups
to the radio, where tight joyful voices describe
each move, broadcast each muffled word
that floats through space from ship to airwaves.
Over and over those radio voices name the men
aboard the ship, name each next task they face, and never name
the things that could go wrong, each of a thousand accidents,
mistakes, or unforeseens that could incinerate this heroes’ story,
burn ship and crew away in airless silence. Nor
does her eleven-year-old self name these things, the few 
she can imagine, no; she listens raptly as the grownups,
pulls this adventure story round her like a cloak
to ward off the chill of homecoming -- the shaded house,
her mother’s shaded patient smile through a recited litany 
of hikes, crafts, campfires, counselors, twelve days 
of perfect summer cherished by a perfect grateful child 
who never coughs, who tries never to ask
after a father’s growing absence, who tries never to name
the things that could go wrong but lives from one small hazard
to the next, on mission, still broadcasting, still alive.


2.

On a day between, while the ship
spins from one orbit to the next, tumbles
headlong in a measured perilous arc from fire  
into the studied dark unknown, on that day
her eleven-year-old self sits on a log beside the path
that winds between clusters of campers’ cabins,
sits in pine-dappled sun, in blessed solitude,
and sings every song she knows --
campfire ballads her cough has choked until today,
Baptist hymns, Seeger and Dylan from her sister’s albums,
show tunes from Sound of Music and My Fair Lady, 
lyrics and grace-notes tumbling from her throat,
lungs eager, all familiar aches forgotten,
camp life and coming shades of home less real
just now than green pine-dappled heat
upon her skin, less real than the rush of riding
her own voice as it arcs past treetops to the sky,
weightless in flight like the riders in the ship,
like them with risk behind and more ahead, 
like them cocooned in a moment out of time, 
their whole task to be where they are,
alive and present, spinning and still in space.

---

When I was growing up nobody used the word “introvert” about children. We were not madly overscheduled at any time, at least not in my family, but there was a strong belief that group activities in addition to school were Fun And Good For You. I believed that unquestioningly, which made it all the more embarrassing that for years I approached every Girl Scout meeting, and certainly every summer session of Girl Scout camp, with a hum of low-level dread whining away at the back of my psyche. Of course I did have some fun and made a few friends despite the dread, but the dread was real even if I couldn’t name it or talk about it, and carrying it around took more energy than anyone realized, including me.

The summer that I was eleven a combination of quiet stresses, including that low-level dread, landed me with a case of near-bronchitis while I was at Girl Scout camp. This poem is based on three moments out of a handful that I remember from those twelve days. The moon landing featured in only one of the moments, so how that Apollo flight became a through-line for the poem is … mysterious. “It wanted to,” is as much of an explanation as I can offer. I think it works, though; I hope so.

[A brief, celebratory housekeeping note: I’m flabbergasted to report that there are now 100 subscribers to this Substack, with a lot of other friends dropping by for visits now and then. For somebody who started three months ago hoping for a dozen or so readers, this is approaching “wildest dreams” territory. These poems always wanted to be read; I’m so glad that it’s you who’s come to read them. Thank you.]