By Erika Grumet
As a teenager, I spent several summers at a creative and performing arts camp. The weeks I spent at camp were a respite from trying to fit in during the school year. Camp was a place where my awkwardness didn’t make me stand out, but was embraced as a part of me.
The camp’s rules and routines were unique. Rather than all being scheduled as a unit, we picked our own activities. So, we built friendships not just based on who happened to be in our age group, but on who we met in our chosen activities. One of my favorite places to spend time was the Pub (Publications) Shop where aspiring writers worked on creative writing.
Sprawled in a chair in front of the shop, working on an article, I began talking with a girl I’d noticed before—Rosalyn’s abundant curls made her hard to miss. But now I was close enough to notice the brightness in her eyes and smile as we chatted. Close enough that, as I looked at her, I felt all-too-familiar feelings. Feelings I denied with a well-rehearsed script: It isn’t okay to feel this way. I shouldn’t be thinking these thoughts about girls. Focus on something else. I felt blood rush to my face as I tried to bury my feelings under shame.
Camp rules state: “Camp is for community and not for pair-bonding and exclusionary relationships. Campers cannot pursue physical relationships, nor are they permitted to have platonic, physical contact without consent.” We often joked that the counselors carried around six-inch rulers to make sure campers stayed far enough apart, and teased each other that, rather than a traditional camp anthem, we could call out to each other: “It’s not that kind of camp!”
Adolescents will find ways to pair-bond, whether it’s permitted or not. There were plenty of trips to hidden make-out spots, even as the patrolling counselors wandered around with flashlights to find canoodling couples.
Rosalyn and I talked and worked and talked some more. The gong rang to signal snack time, and we paused for juice and cookies. I admired the skirt she was wearing. We discovered a shared affinity for The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Indigo Girls.
We began to spend time together in and out of the Pub Shop. We’d sit on a secluded rehearsal stage with friends and a tape recorder, telling stories, taking turns, then making everyone a copy of the tape. On movie night, our separate groups of friends sat near each other, but did not share blankets. And one seemingly ordinary day we were hanging out in her bunk, sitting on her bed and talking.
She kissed me.
We were sitting on her bed, doing the things teenage girls do: complaining about our hair, talking about music, eating snacks from the care packages sent from home.
She kissed me. I liked it.
She leaned in, her lips on mine, her hand on mine. Her tongue pushed gently against my mouth, and I let it in. It wasn’t my first kiss, but no kiss I’d ever received made me feel like that. There was a softness to her face as our mouths came together. Her kiss made me feel like lightning was shooting through my toes; or made me lose my stomach in the riding-a-great-rollercoaster sort of way. Her kiss excited the secrets inside me.
I didn’t want it to stop. Nor did I know how to keep it going. Did kissing girls come with the same expectations as kissing boys? I had no idea how long to wait before reaching out to touch her, or how to be sure that I was sending the right signals myself. And I definitely did not understand how to navigate the shaky adolescent understanding of consent with another girl.
I sat in the shadowy corner of her bunk wanting more. Excited. Frightened by how much I liked this feeling. Confused. Ashamed.
I kept returning her kisses.
Soon, the squeak of the door caused us to spring back from each other. The “no dating” rule might be in writing, but there was another, unwritten rule that we were breaking. Violating that rule was a far bigger deal: getting discovered by friends in our own bunk would be uncomfortable. Embarrassing. Shameful.
And what if we got caught by adults? Exactly how far would the consequences go? Would they call home? Out us to our parents? Kick us out? I could only imagine catastrophic scenarios. The idea that it might be treated the same way as making out with a boy was inconceivable. Fortunately, I never found out because we were never discovered.
Meanwhile, not being found out was its own kind of bad. When you’re excited about a new relationship, you want to talk about it. Especially when that relationship comes with the extra adrenaline-rush of rule-breaking. When you’re in a place where pair-bonding is forbidden, telling a few close friends is part of the thrill. And your closest friends cover for you if you get caught sneaking out for a late-night tryst. That’s what friends do. That’s what summer camp romance is about. Ironically, the success of our pair-bondings usually depended on the support of our “community.” Camp life means relationships happen on fast-forward. That’s true for friends and for pair-bonding.
This kiss, this relationship, broke too many rules to tell my friends. Even my best friend: someone I’d known since we were three. Someone who had introduced me to this utopian summer camp where, up until that kiss, I’d felt like I fit in.
One kiss changed everything about my world. One kiss meant I could no longer deny the feelings I’d been having: that kissing boys was nice, but kissing a girl felt like filling in a missing piece. How could I leave camp to go back to a world where I already felt like an outsider and carry this with me? I no longer felt like I belonged at camp and I would feel even more awkward at home and now that I’d discovered how good this felt, how could I stop?
With a few more weeks of camp left, we found as many ways as we could to spend time together without arousing suspicion. We found ways to encourage our separate groups of friends to sit near each other during movie night so we could hold hands. We claimed the Adirondack chairs next to each other at the Pub Shop so that we could be close. Somehow, we kept a facade of separation, seemingly convincing people that we were just friends while still finding excuses and opportunities to discover each other.
The last event of the summer was called Festival. A huge day of performances and art displays open to families of the campers. Rosalyn and I had auditioned for, and been cast in, a show called The Romance Project. Under the guidance of the director, we created the show ourselves. Our work began with a viewing of Wuthering Heights. The two of us sat in the back. Cuddled together in the dark, we even snuck in a few kisses. Another assignment was to write love letters to celebrities. Clutching pictures torn from magazines, I was assigned Arnold Schwarzenegger. The idea of being in love with the Terminator was ridiculous, but writing that letter wasn’t difficult when I had these fresh experiences to draw on.
When summer ended, we went our separate ways. Not really a breakup; just an ending. Whatever we shared couldn’t last beyond the boundaries of camp. We didn’t live far from each other, but somehow we knew that going back to our school-year routines while maintaining that kind of a relationship was out of the question.
And through it all, I had no one I could talk to. No one I could trust. I had no one with whom to share the thrill of being in love, or the pain of the loss. No one to answer my questions about what that summer romance meant about me.
It would take three more years for me to begin to unpack what that kiss really meant. Three years of keeping people at a distance because I didn’t want to answer their questions. Three years of hiding my feelings, and of trying to make sure that I didn’t arouse any suspicion by looking a little too long, or hugging a little too tight. What I learned in those three years led me to be more involved in queer culture and activism, and led me to meet and work with and, yes, sleep with, some of the significant figures in Bi networks in the ‘90s. All because I was looking for a place that was as inclusive as that summer camp promised to be—and would keep its promise to be so. It was a scary and lonely three years. All because a girl kissed me and I liked it.
A version of this piece was published on the website 2RulesOfWriting.com under the title “Kissing Rosalyn.”
Erika Grumet (she/they) was born in New York, but currently lives outside of Orlando. She has 2 kids and 2 cats. Erika’s essays and poetry can be found on the website 2RulesOfWriting.com, which she co-founded with Adam Katz. She was also recently selected as a member of Lilith Magazine’s 2023 “The New 40” cohort.
