Burly Enough, Yet?
The answer is no.
Did you have experiences as a child that made you miserable at the time, but served you well in adulthood? I did. I went to Girl Scout camp for four years as a child, from ages 9-12. My sister also went to this same camp. As the older sister she went before I could attend and came home full of stories, camp songs, and plans for me to attend when I was older. She would greet us at the bottom of "killer hill"--tanned, happy, and healthy with huge bicep muscles from swinging her ax, building unit kitchens, and canoeing all over the camp's pond. She would sing camp songs throughout the school year and pine away for summer when she could return to residential camp. I couldn't wait to go to summer camp, just like my sister.
I went to camp, but unlike my sister, I was miserable. I cried every day. It was a little too rustic for me at the time--both in living style and in the expectations of the campers. No flush toilets, sleeping in platform tents, no electricity, strict rules, showering one time a week in cold water with two-three girls to a shower, and no telephone or in-person contact with parents. Two weeks was a long time for me. I would sometimes see my sister in the dining hall, but even if I was crying because I was so homesick, I was not permitted to speak to her. I'm not sure that it was ever explained to me why I couldn't talk to my sister, but the message was clear: This is no place for wimps. This is where girls grow into burly women.
Why I kept going back, year after year, I don't know, but I did. I guess I was sure that I would love it. I certainly loved it from afar; I loved it in the winter when my sister and I would sing camp songs and tell stories of our adventures--raiding units, the talent shows, doing "tippy tests" in the canoes, identifying tree leaves, and learning to rough-it in the wild. I still rely on many of the things that I learned at Girl Scout camp: knife safety, fire safety, water safety, leaf identification, etc.
The strongest girls stayed for increasingly longer period of times each summer, culminating in a near summer-long experience where they went through the training to become Junior Maine Guides. The JMGs operated on different schedules and lived in the unit furthest away from the central areas of camp. They wore green-and-black plaid wool shirts at camp ceremonies, used axes, wore steel-toed shoes, didn't have to obey camp rules but enforced them with younger campers, were fiercely independent--all the while leaning heavily on each other, and had proved their ability to survive in the wilderness. They were honorary camp leaders. In a nutshell, they were burly. This left a deep impression on me and I spent the rest of my childhood wanting to be burly.
I was not a burly child. I really enjoyed watching TV, and music, as opposed to engaging in physical activity, was at the center of my extracurricular activities. My quest to be burly continued into adulthood. I ran a Girl Scout troop, took them camping and did outdoorsy things, went hiking with Neil, fell in love with snowshoeing, but still, not burly.
I started running nine years ago, when I was 31. I immediately took to distance running and by fall 2012 had completed 7 marathons and 1 ultrarun...a 50k (31 mile) race. Now? Nope. Still not burly. That fall I shaved 9 minutes off of my marathon time and for about 7 seconds, I tell you I was burly. But, then I remembered that I still had not broken the coveted 4-hour mark in marathon running. No longer burly.
Sometime in the last year I realized that being burly was like chasing a moving target. The end goal is always changing...thanks to my own doing, I am sure. I'm hoping to break the 4-hour mark on my upcoming October marathon. Maybe I'll be burly then? Or, maybe I'll just keep chasing it...
Did you have experiences as a child that made you miserable at the time, but served you well in adulthood? I did. I went to Girl Scout camp for four years as a child, from ages 9-12. My sister also went to this same camp. As the older sister she went before I could attend and came home full of stories, camp songs, and plans for me to attend when I was older. She would greet us at the bottom of "killer hill"--tanned, happy, and healthy with huge bicep muscles from swinging her ax, building unit kitchens, and canoeing all over the camp's pond. She would sing camp songs throughout the school year and pine away for summer when she could return to residential camp. I couldn't wait to go to summer camp, just like my sister.
I went to camp, but unlike my sister, I was miserable. I cried every day. It was a little too rustic for me at the time--both in living style and in the expectations of the campers. No flush toilets, sleeping in platform tents, no electricity, strict rules, showering one time a week in cold water with two-three girls to a shower, and no telephone or in-person contact with parents. Two weeks was a long time for me. I would sometimes see my sister in the dining hall, but even if I was crying because I was so homesick, I was not permitted to speak to her. I'm not sure that it was ever explained to me why I couldn't talk to my sister, but the message was clear: This is no place for wimps. This is where girls grow into burly women.
Why I kept going back, year after year, I don't know, but I did. I guess I was sure that I would love it. I certainly loved it from afar; I loved it in the winter when my sister and I would sing camp songs and tell stories of our adventures--raiding units, the talent shows, doing "tippy tests" in the canoes, identifying tree leaves, and learning to rough-it in the wild. I still rely on many of the things that I learned at Girl Scout camp: knife safety, fire safety, water safety, leaf identification, etc.
The strongest girls stayed for increasingly longer period of times each summer, culminating in a near summer-long experience where they went through the training to become Junior Maine Guides. The JMGs operated on different schedules and lived in the unit furthest away from the central areas of camp. They wore green-and-black plaid wool shirts at camp ceremonies, used axes, wore steel-toed shoes, didn't have to obey camp rules but enforced them with younger campers, were fiercely independent--all the while leaning heavily on each other, and had proved their ability to survive in the wilderness. They were honorary camp leaders. In a nutshell, they were burly. This left a deep impression on me and I spent the rest of my childhood wanting to be burly.
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| These are the girls who I thought were the burliest people I had ever met. Amazing what 30 years will do to one's perspective. |
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| The coveted JMG black-and-green wool shirt. |
I was not a burly child. I really enjoyed watching TV, and music, as opposed to engaging in physical activity, was at the center of my extracurricular activities. My quest to be burly continued into adulthood. I ran a Girl Scout troop, took them camping and did outdoorsy things, went hiking with Neil, fell in love with snowshoeing, but still, not burly.
I started running nine years ago, when I was 31. I immediately took to distance running and by fall 2012 had completed 7 marathons and 1 ultrarun...a 50k (31 mile) race. Now? Nope. Still not burly. That fall I shaved 9 minutes off of my marathon time and for about 7 seconds, I tell you I was burly. But, then I remembered that I still had not broken the coveted 4-hour mark in marathon running. No longer burly.
Sometime in the last year I realized that being burly was like chasing a moving target. The end goal is always changing...thanks to my own doing, I am sure. I'm hoping to break the 4-hour mark on my upcoming October marathon. Maybe I'll be burly then? Or, maybe I'll just keep chasing it...
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