When Good Enough... Isn't

2012 Update:  There is a reunion of Heart's Bend alumni this summer.  The following is a letter posted on the Heart's Bend Alumni page on Facebook:

I attending Heart’s Bend for four summer from 1979-83.  My first summer I hated it there and wanted nothing more than to go home the entire summer.  Shortly after the next school year started I surprisingly found myself thinking of Heart’s Bend and looking forward to going back again.  I then went for two summers that were great.  My last summer at Heart’s Bend I became very disillusioned with the place and many of the people there.  I came back for a visit two years later and found that I had no interest in being there.  In fact, during that brief visit in the summer of 1985 all of my idealistic vision of Heart’s Bend were completely shattered.

Four years later I was a senior in high school and applying to colleges.  I wrote an essay about Heart’s Bend as my application essay to Hartwick College.  The admissions counselor at Hartwick told me that it was not my grades that got me in... it was that essay.  The essay was a glimpse into the mind of a very troubled young kid and his experience of benign neglect at summer camp during early puberty.  This essay has been on my personal website for the past fifteen years and for most of that time this essay was the only Heart’s Bend presence on the web.  I have had numerous alumni contact me regarding the essay and Heart’s Bend.

As a still troubled young adult I continued to idealize my time at Heart’s Bend.  I would often go back to the camp in the fall and visit the new owners.  I would walk the path in the woods from the back pasture up to the leentoos.  My personal troubles continued to plague me into my young thirties, including several near death suicide attempts in my late twenties.

Something happened to me about eight years ago... something changed... I found an inner calmness than permitted me to move on in my life... to be happier and less at war with the world... I discovered that I had too many expectations for myself and for others.  My expectations were high and no one, even myself, could live up to them.  The secret to my newfound happiness, or contentedness would be more appropriate, stemmed from letting go of expectations.  This brings me back to Heart’s Bend.  Those two middle summers that spent at Heart’s Bend were so good for me because of the benign neglect that was offered to me there.  No one had any expectations of me.  I could sleep in the barn if I wanted to.  I could walk around barefoot all summer.  I did not have to eat or shower or really do anything I did not want to do.  The one or two time I was forced to do something against my will I rebelled, ran away, and evaded the expectations that were placed upon me.  At this point in my life I was already an extremely troubled kid... and those two summers without expectations were an oasis from hell and I will forever be thankful for that time and experience.

My fourth summer was different because I developed expectations that were not met and I did not meet expectations placed upon me.  I discovered that adults I had idolized were not who I had made them out to be in my head.  I was forced to see people for who they really were and not who I wanted them to be... and the illusion was gone.

I have very superficially kept in touch with one or two people from Heart’s Bend since then.  The reality is that I, unlike many other kids at the camp, did not form lifelong bonds or friendships.  This was made very apparent to me when I attended a smaller reunion at Heart’s Bend right before Nina sold the property.  Once again, then in my thirties, I found myself an outsider looking in, like when I was a kid... an observer but not a participant.  I don’t hold any grudges about this fact.  It is what it is, and, it is as my life has been... and this is why I did not have an interest in attending this year’s reunion.  I am not not coming because I am a conservative, but rather, because as a child I failed to make those lasting connections that hold the other alumni together.  Again... no ill will.  I am happy for others that they were able to make and uphold those bonds.  I wish everyone a great time.    

Click here to see pictures from the final Heart's Bend Reunion, July 15-16, 2000

I had always been different from the other children at school or summer camp or where ever I found myself. Somehow I was always the odd ball, sticking out like a sore thumb. This stigma stuck with me right to the end. Some how I was different. I saw the world through different eyes than other people. It was like I had some kind of filter altering all of my perceptions; tainting how I saw things and therefore twisting how things came out. I first started to realize all of this some time during high school. I wrote an essay about a summer camp experience I had that made it all too apparent.

Pain, Lust and Life

It was the summer between sixth and seventh grade. I was at "Heart's Bend," a summer camp in Newfane, Vermont. Heart's Bend was not like other summer camps that I had been to, and I doubt that there is any other like it. I went to this summer camp for four years. There is something about those four summers that has affected my personality in a significant way. I can not be sure what it was exactly that had such an effect on me, but after Heart's Bend I was never the same again, nor did I wish to be.

I can not stop them; no matter what I do, the words keep on going through my mind. I am sitting here in English class trying to keep my mind on what Mr. Frevola is saying. But I can not; it is not that he is boring but that he words of her song keep on scrolling across the insides of my eye lids as I sink deeper into that well known depression due to the loss of a world long lost but greatly loved.

"The seasons they go 'round and 'round, the painted ponies go up and down, captured on a carousel of time." Harriet sang with a smile on her face. We were all sitting around the campfire up by the leantoos; every one else was singing and smiling, except me. I was sitting there watching them have a good time, but my mind was elsewhere. I was wandering through a fantasy world that I had visited so many times before, but had never been able to find in reality. Harriet was sitting just twenty feet from me singing her song, totally unaware that in my mind I had undressed her and was gently feeling the soft skin of her freckled body.

As I sat there I felt my penis growing into its erect state and I felt that all too familiar feeling of rage, anger and hurt that came over me with this erection. I slowly got up trying to hide the bulge in my shorts, which I felt quite sure was visible to everyone there and walked towards the woods. On reaching the edge of the dense forest I started to run. I was running from all those people I had left behind; it was their world, I did not want to be a part of it any more.

"I hate this camp. I hate Lindsey. I hate Kim. I hate Lorren. I hate Harriet. I am going to run away from all of them. Faster they are after me!. They are going to hunt me down and make me... No! I will not let them. Faster! Faster! Faster!" I was thinking to myself as I ran. The more I ran, the more paranoid I became and the faster I would run.

Through this running I was trying to beat any evil out of my body. I thought that if I felt pain I would be a better person in the end. As I ran through the forest the pricker bushes would claw at my ankles making them bleed. Twigs and sometimes whole branches would snap into my face causing large welts to appear.

Eventually I would calm down and sometimes I just started to cry, not because of the extreme pain that I was in, but because I pitied myself so much. When I finally came to my senses, I realized that I was about two miles from the camp. I would start on my way back. As I walked, I thought about what had happened and why it had happened. I promised myself that it would not happen again. But I knew that it would.

It was on one of these runs from reality that I found the "Old Barn." At first I was not sure what it was. I was running up "the back pasture" and the barn slowly started to show itself over the top of the hill. It looked so morbid. What a word, morbid; it is the way of so many things in life...

"I will meet you up by the old barn after lunch dishes. Ok?" I said to Lindsey. She just nodded her head and started to walk away towards the main house.

"Hi!" I said panting as I lay down on the old mattress next to Lindsey. I was completely out of breath after hiking up the back pasture which led to the now dilapidated "old barn."

"What took you so long?" Lindsey asked me with that funny look which she often wore when she had something on her mind.

"I was in the barn grooming the horses and I lost track of time. How long have you been up here?"
"Oh, not too long. So what do you want to do?"

"We could continue looking through those boxes over there. Or we could climb up to the third tier like the other day and pick up where we left off." In this old barn were many relics of a life long past, and long forgotten. During our many hours of exploration in this barn, we had come across boxes filled with letters and other personal items collected over a lifetime by a person whom we assumed was no longer with us on this planet. We had spent many happy hours reading over these letters of a person we did not know, but felt that we came to know very well. There were also many other things in this barn; old pinball machines, old cameras, and many old antique furnishings.

When Lindsey and I went up to this old barn we did many things; however, our time was usually consumed doing one of three things, we either looked through the above mentioned boxes, played with the old games we found in the barn or made out. Now we come to one of the main reasons that we went up to the barn. It was the perfect place for us to go and make out or just to be by ourselves. We loved to go up there, take off all of our cloths and just lie on one of the old mattresses. It was so free, so natural, we were so young.

"Last one up is the first to strip!" Lindsey screamed tauntingly at me as she ran towards the ladders that led up to the second and third level.

"Ha! Ha! You wish!" I replied in an equally taunting tone of voice as I raced up the ladder after her.

"You will never catch me."

"Just you watch me!" I said as I grabbed onto her shoe, "I got you now!"

We were now even on the ladder and neither one of us could move, so we called a truce and climbed up to the third level. Once up there we quickly started a game of spin the bottle. Soon we were both nude, lying there, looking out, down onto the green pasture with the cows and horses grazing so peacefully. The animals below seemed to be in another world, and in a way they were. Here we were, this girl and I, laying here in our nakedness, in this barn, a forbidden place; we felt so much power going through us. We started to make out, and at first it was so scary; what if some one were to find us here like this? We knew what they would do to us, but knowing the trouble we could get into only made us want more of this feeling... this feeling of power and lust and most of all, at least for me, of Godliness.

I have suffered from this experience and the many others like it that I had at Heart's Bend. It is not that these were bad experiences, but rather they were so good that everything else suffers in comparison. I know that it is true that one can have too much of a good thing.

I never did touch Harriet's freckled body, or make love to Lindsey, but those feelings of pain, lust, and being removed from the rest of the world, continued for the rest of my life.

 

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 03:34:49 -0500 (CDT)
From: Tara Lynn Slepkow <tlslepko@artsci.wustl.edu>
To: webmaster1@richardcole.com
Subject: Heart's Bend

Richard, I'm not sure who you are, or if I have ever met you, I just know this much: I am sitting here in my school library at 3 in the morning during finals week, and procrastination brings me over to the computers. For some reason, my mind suddenly turns to the seven best summers of my life, and I decide to search "Heart's Bend" on the internet. I came up with a lot of random information, mostly having to do with Children of the Earth and Young leaders institute, but then out of nowhere, your page pops up. Seeing the pictures of Heart's Bend was enough to make me extremely happy at just the thought of an old time "heart's bender" putting them up on the internet for all to see what I will always consider the most beautiful place in the world. Then I read your words and I couldn't believe my eyes. I've always known that somehow my experiences at Heart's bend made me different, but I couldn't believe that someone else had some of the same feelings. Everything in my life has "suffered in comparison" to Heart's bend, and I've never again been able to find that feeling. I have had the same experience of seeing the world through some sort of filter that others cannot share, and I can only trace this feeling back to heart's bend. Those that are close to me know that no matter how close we get, there is something within me that they can never share or understand. Thank you so much for brightening up my night with these old images and the feeling that there is someone else in the world who understands why my summer camp was more than just "camp" and how it shaped and changed my life. Thank you, Thank you and "peace"

Tara Slepkow

 

From: kyrakin@excite.com
To: webmaster1@richardcole.com
Subject: I am an ex heart's bender
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 05:58:02 PDT

Hi. I just came across your Heart's Bend website and I must say I was very
comforted to see the pictures. I am an ex heart's bender from the late 80's
and early 90's. I no longer keep in touch with any of my friends from those
years and I had heard that the camp was no longer a full summer program. I
was wondering if Heart's Bend was operating and if they had a website or if
Nina has an e mail. Heart's Bend profoundly changed my life and even today
I think of it often. I now have children of my own and would love to offer
them the opportunity to have the experiences I did there. Please, if you
could, I no longer even have the address of the camp.
my e mail is kyrakin@mailexcite.com
thanks so much