Page 204 of Camp Bliss
Then she pushes me back just as quickly and snags a harness from the five gallon bucket at the foot of the zipline platform. She steps into it and has the straps adjusted in about ten seconds flat, but even though I know she knows what she’s doing—and I know she wouldn’t put herself at risk—I can’t help it that I double-check.
She’s gotten used to it. I’ve double-checked it since the first time she climbed the dual catwalk. That day we first kissed. The day everything changed.
As if I’d break a streak like that.
She pulls on her light blue helmet and clips it under her chin before arching a brow at me. “Satisfied?”
I roll my eyes and make sure none of our guests or employees are watching as I smack her lightly on the bottom.
“Bad boy,” she mutters, clipping into one of the belay ropes. Again, I double check the screwgate before taking up the slack.
“On belay,” she says clearly, the way we teach all of our campers to do.
“Belay on,” I answer.
“Climbing.”
“Climb on.”
And then she’s up the pole faster than a black bear before mounting the zipline platform and greeting little Naomi with gentle and encouraging words. The way she talks to all our campers.
Since we opened two years ago, I’ve watched her reach kids I thought couldn’t be reached. Kids whose parents are incarcerated. Kids who are gang affiliated. Nonverbal kids with autism spectrum disorder. Kids who’ve lost a parent or a sibling.
Nine times out of ten, she talks them through their fear when they’re up on the course. Ten times out of ten, they feel proud of whatever they accomplish, even if they climb down before they finish the challenge.
Watching her has taught me so much. Including that she was born for this kind of work.
She’s not the only one who’s discovered exactly what she was meant to do. My specialty? The lake. I can’t get enough of the look on a kid’s face the first time he or she catches a fish.
And the first time a kid from the Boys & Girls Club—this tough kid from the Moss Street Development with a piss-poor attitude and a scar down his chin—caught and cleaned his own fish, you’d think I had performed a miracle.
I will never forget what he said, looking up at me with awed realization.
“I can catch my own food, Mr. Z.”
This job is a hell of a lot of fun most of the time. And other times, it’s completely humbling.
I sent that kid home with his own pole, spare hooks and floaters, a whole tub ofGulp! Alive!,and instructions for how he could find his own bait when he ran out.
And as soon as we opened for campers, we started seeing what kids needed. Not just the underprivileged kids or the ones with developmental delays. But all of them.
Swimming lessons. Mountain bikes. Fire safety knowledge. CPR training. We offer more now than we ever imagined when Camp Bliss was only a concept.
Not just for kids, either.
We’ve gained a reputation as a reasonably priced wedding venue. That is, after we tied our own knot in a dockside ceremony in October a year and a half ago. The pictures of our sunset nuptials got so much traction on social media, we started getting calls about our wedding packages.
So then we came up with some wedding packages. But only on Fridays and Saturdays after four p.m. two weekends a month. We’re now booked six months out.
The corporate retreat service was, honestly, our least favorite corner of Camp Bliss until we hired Jade. Now they run that aspect of Camp Bliss in its entirety, and while our booking dates have some availability, it’s getting harder and harder for businesses to nail down the dates they want. And forget about company picnics. Spring and fall weekends disappear fast.
And I’m grateful.
Because all of that allows us to have moments like this.
“Naomi, we are going to do exactly what you want to do,” Greta says, secured into the tandem harness and basically wearing Naomi like a high-riding jetpack. They’re both still sitting on the platform, but Naomi can see everything over Greta’s shoulder, and the kid’s eyes are as wide as sand dollars. “You are the one who saysgoorno-go,okay? You’re in control.”
Naomi’s party guests on the ground are getting impatient… or bored. One little guy is standing at the foot of the rope ladder picking his nose. Her mom has her phone poised to record the momentous event.
