Community Guide 2017
Carrying by Sara Tolchin
From Forest Farm Camp to Serenity Knolls by Judy Voets When I was 7 years old my parents told me that I was going to Forest Farm Camp for a week. I was told that the camp was near Camp Taylor where we went with many family friends for giant picnics and got to play capture the flag, and get wet in the creek and eat lots of yummy food. When we got to camp my dad parked the car in the parking area located just after we entered Forest Farm property driveway. Just like we do today. My mom got my duffel bag out of the car and we walked down the driveway to the buildings that we can see today. The dif- ference was that then we were met by Chiefie (Frances) and/or Hal who were the owners of Forest Farm at that time. I knew them from my school in San Francisco and they were friendly acquaintances of my parents. We were shown to my tent. The tents were in the same places that the cabins are presently—going down the hill. The upper camp had not been developed then. We then went to the dining area for snacks and to meet other campers and parents. The dining area was where the dining area is now except that its shape went back alongside the kitchen and was a giant deck with many tables on it. The kitchen was in approximately the same spot it is in now. We ate all our meals there and food that we didn’t like we threw over the side of the deck to the oxen—yes, there were two of them. So, you know where the room is that we meet in presently? Well, that area when I was 7 was the arts and crafts space. We did everything outside but all materials were stored inside something—I can’t remember what. The swimming pool had not been built yet . . . not for a couple more years. We went in a HUGE truck to WIC for swimming and to a stables in Forest Knolls for horseback riding and in the huge truck to Camp Taylor for barbeque and games. The biggest difference between then and now is that there are no children at Serenity Knolls.
Spring comes into our valley along the deer paths, unpinning birdsong as she walks;
she is the best dressed and the kindest; we all want to invite her to our homes and have her stay among us.
I cannot resist stealing along her nights with their lovely dark, songs to the moon and the youngest stars, the wash of the dawn on every leaf, the grace. It was a Spring like this, I was with my daughter on the mountain; I let her go where she would among the wild iris and the blue-eyed grass; she filled her basket, she was overflowing.
Those were the days when her thoughts were still written on her face,
when I began at last to understand my own mother’s sleepless nights and the fury of her love. And though the past is a dress I’ll always wear, I am putting on a new one, letting the old threads fall to the grass, free as the hills. On the trail home I drink from a stream as though thirst had just been invented. Beneath the crowding of the leaves and the cries of birds
the stillness holds, and into the stillness comes my knowing: we carry our daughters until they are too light to bear, then we carry our mothers; they are heavy as air.
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SGVCC
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