Narrative Essay about My First Camping Trip

I took my first camping trip the summer before my senior year of high school. The trip marked nothing significant other than a respite from the annual beach trips my family typically took during the summer, and I hardly minded that; if our “new normal” was divorced from sand, so much better for me. But despite the trip's apparent insignificance, I found myself in a unique phase of my life. I was coming of age. My journal from that year documents movie lists, love letters, places to travel, and embarrassingly angsty poetry, but also a growing awareness and concern for the nation’s political and cultural landscape. I was on the cusp of adulthood but hadn’t yet made the plunge. This camping trip would prove significant when it prompted me to make it. 

I traveled with my parents and the Sanders family, a married couple we had known since I was in Pampers. These fifty-something “boomers” are considered ignorant and insensitive by my “woke” generation. They’re labeled angry followers of outdated ideals, unequipped without a proper college education. Somehow, their life experiences are overlooked, yet these lent to the incredible stories they told around the campfire on starry nights. Anna Sanders often regaled hilarious tales of her Italian mother, ousted from the church choir for belting the wrong words to “Holy, Holy Holy”, and her Irish father, who drove his wife to practice promptly each day regardless. Charlie Sanders animated stories about his vagabond boyhood spent roaming the streets rather than the web, and my goofy dad’s oddly extensive arsenal of old commercial jingles was an education. 

I devoured these stories of joy, struggle, and adventure and still craved more. They were relics of simpler times, preserved from the political turmoil that had infringed upon my life for years. These adults - wise sages - seemed as stoic and immovable to me as pillars, and I think a part of me naively assumed they would shield me until the world sustained some kind of order.

Though I assumed I could burrow my head in the sand and live my life unburdened by conflict, it caught up to me one evening. The campfire camaraderie drew to a close as my mom read aloud a news article announcing that the organization Black Lives Matter was trying to cancel Mary Poppins owing to the fact that the chimney sweeps sported “black face.” 

At this, I raised myself from the comfy position I’d assumed in a chair by the fire and blurted out, “It was soot! They’re chimney sweeps!”

But my shock soon gave way to an overwhelming sense of foreboding. While the adults discussed, I slipped into the tent, burying myself under the covers of the makeshift bed with my journal. 

“Mary Poppins is too close to home,” I scribbled, fighting back tears,” As silly as it sounds, taking her away feels like another piece of my security blanket being ripped from my hands.”

That trifling, little article shattered my illusions about ever "returning to normal". The canceling of Mary Poppins represented something irrevocable. After a long time spent contemplating my "ignore it until it goes away" philosophy, I came to the realization that I couldn't watch while others fought for the things I loved. Taking a deep breath, I dried my eyes and pushed myself out of the tent, determined to be stronger, smarter, and more tenacious.

I’ve since learned that enjoyment of my family’s stories pales in comparision to the satisfaction and security gained from understanding truth and articulating it. At seventeen, I feared my lack of understanding about the issues I heard about and read, not the issues themselves. Now, each day I go to class or devour another book, I am forging my armor and preparing to enter battle, as is my responsibility.