“Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin flowers. And the frisky ones – inkberry, lamb’s-quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones – rosemary, oregano. Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.”
-Mary Oliver Upstream: Selected Essays
I’ve found myself returning to this passage again and again over the last year.
I first read it in late August of 2024, just a few days after the whirlwind of summer had finally calmed down. I remember sitting on the shore of Smith Pond. The air was surprisingly cool for late August, and a thin layer of steam rose from the water as the pond released the last of the heat it had soaked up over the summer. It was a rare, quiet moment at the lake.
These words have stuck with me.
They reminded me of my own summers as a camper, of the leaders who didn’t just supervise me, but believed in me. They cared about who I was, and who I was becoming. They invited me and my fellow campers to fall in love with the world around us. It hit me just how lucky I had been to have adults who deeply understood what Oliver says so well. Kids grow best when they are given space, trust, and the natural world as a classroom and, honestly, a kind of cabin mate.
To me, this quote connects deeply to our values here at Chimney.
At camp, childhood can be full of wonder, of peppermint tucked in pockets, mud on knees, learning the names of stars and plants, and maybe even discovering new things about ourselves and others.
With our campers – we strive to “stand them in the stream” both figuratively and sometimes literally (even if the “stream” is the shallow bin at Smith Pond). We help them through challenges that nudge them upstream towards growth and resilience. We cheer them on as they make friends, solve problems, and learn to be themselves. We do it because, as Oliver puts it, they matter, their joy, their safety, their growth, their sense of community and belonging.
Thank you for sharing your campers with us. We really love watching them explore, grow, and create their own moments of camp magic, moments we hope they carry with them long after summer ends.
