During my week at survival camp, the assignments came fast and furious: make a friction fire, build a debris shelter, track creatures of the forest, learn to trap and skin them, cook a fish over campfire coals – and struggle mightily. But the take-home lesson turned out to be singular: remember how it feels to slow down, look around and soak it all up.
It struck me a few days in, what was different. Of course, it was all different – the endless sandscape of the New Jersey Pine Barrens; sleeping in a tent for a week alongside 90-plus strangers; the almost-forgotten feeling of being a student out of her depth, a freshman trying to get her bearings.
But...