The blind friends I had were few and far between. Kirstin, my best friend from Topeka Drive Elementary, and Alicia, who I had been so close with at Blend, were the only two, though neither of them were completely blind. I was afraid that having too many blind friends would force me into a box I didn’t want to be placed in.
To me, being “too blind” was something to be embarrassed about. My sighted friends somehow made me feel more normal and did not force me to be reminded of all the things that made me different. So when Mom, who was heartbroken by my painful social struggles at Oakwood, suggested I try sleep-away camp for the blind for two weeks in the summer before eighth grade, I protested vehemently.
“I don’t want to go to a camp for blind people,” I shouted.
“I think there must be other blind kids your age who are going through the same kinds of things, and you might meet people that are like you.”
Had the loved ones who once thought I was so different from other blind kids changed their minds since I failed to make friends at Oakwood? Were they having second thoughts and thinking the only place I could be happy was in some institution with people supposedly like me?
* * *
“I’m so mad at my mom today,” I told Kirstin on the phone that night. “She said I should go to Camp Bloomfield this summer.”
“What’s so bad about that?” Kirstin asked.
“She thinks that the only way to solve my problems is to hang out with a bunch of blind people.”
“You know my friend Maya, the one I told you about in my English class?” Kirstin said. “She went to Camp Bloomfield last summer, and she was trying to convince me to go some time. Maya is really cool, and I actually thought about going.”
“If you go, then maybe I’ll go too,” I said.
* * *
Camp Bloomfield, set in the mountains of Malibu, is a rustic place with a classic sleep-away camp setting. Hilly dirt paths lead to the campfire pit, wooden cabins, large dining hall, and stables, which housed the horses Kirstin and I couldn’t wait to ride. When Mom dropped me off, I noticed that the air was more pure, and the smell of being in the woods brought me back to memories of Lake Tahoe.
Mom had been right. Kirstin and I began making fast and close friends with girls like us, some with a bit of vision like Kirstin and others who had no vision at all like me. There was nothing embarrassing about the way I felt around them. We talked about guys, gossiped about couples forming around us, and laughed heartily about ongoing inside jokes. There was Toni who would talk to me in whispers about her boy problems, Carla who wanted to be an opera singer like me, Anja with the wicked sense of humor who would casually take out her prosthetic eyes to freak out the sighted counselors, and many others whose personalities and awareness about normal teenage life uplifted me about my own identity as a blind person. Though we all hailed from different parts of the country, Toni being from Missouri, and Carla from Vegas, we stayed close during the year through frequent phone calls and taped letters, which allowed us to hear each other’s voices.
“See, I told you,” Mom said when I announced that I wanted to go back for a second and then a third summer. “I knew you would have a great time.”
* * *
Jessie Smith was an athletic eighteen-year-old who had lived with partial sight for most of his life. He lost his remaining sight completely after a surgery on a detached retina, but he continued to be his school’s best shot-putter. Jessie told me all of this at the ice-cream social that was held by the pool on the second night of camp. Kirstin and I had run across Jessie and his friend Brandon briefly, and we had most definitely heard about the romances they had with various girls at camp the previous two summers we were there.
“You’re Laurie, right?” said the voice of a guy who, I could tell, had become an expert at charming the ladies.
“Yeah, how did you know?” I asked.
“I always remember the voice of a pretty girl,” Jessie said.
Kirstin and I had steered clear of the infamous “players of Camp Bloomfield” the two previous summers, but we were fifteen now, and ready for a little adventure.
“Thank you,” I said, smiling at him.
“So how’s life been treating you?” Jessie asked.
“It’s been going well,” I said. “It’s good to be back here again.”
“I’m a veteran of this place. Been coming here for five years now,” Jessie told me.
Brandon was taking a great interest in Kirstin, and the two of them joined us on the ground near the water’s edge. There was a gentle summer breeze caressing our faces, and the balmy night made the feeling of being noticed and flirted with exciting.
There’s something peculiar about summer camp that cuts the period of small talk short and leads people into conversations about one’s deepest emotions and desires. As the night wore on, and UB40’s cover of “Can’t Help Falling In Love” played on speakers all around us, Jessie and I found ourselves exchanging life stories, and our counselors were rounding us up to take us back to our cabins all too soon.
* * *
“So?” Kirstin whispered quietly as we huddled in the corner between the cubbies and our bunk beds to exchange details about each other’s evening.
“Well, he’s really sweet,” I told her.
“He is totally into you.”
“And Brandon is very into you. Do you like him?”
“I think so,” Kirstin said, her voice glowing. “He said he’s going to come find me at lunch tomorrow.”
“That is so cool. I’m so happy for you!” I said, giving her a hug.
* * *
Horseback riding, swimming, and other camp activities kept us busy during the day and separated from the groups of boys whose schedules never seemed to coincide with ours. Jessie and Brandon found Kirstin and me every night during the hour break between dinner and the time for us to sing songs in front of a campfire. Jessie had started putting his arm around me and whispering, his lips brushing my ear.
“Don’t you just hate that we have no privacy?” Kirstin vented one night. “I mean, there’s no time for us to really hang out with Jessie and Brandon.”
“I know,” I said, secretly thankful that we weren’t left alone, fearing what could happen.
“I think Brandon is getting very close to kissing me, but there never seems to be a good time.”
“I don’t know, he and Jessie seemed to find time with their girlfriends before,” I said.
* * *
Three days before the end of camp, our counselors announced that there would be a dance in the dining hall, and that lights out would be at midnight instead of 10:00. Jessie and Brandon met us at the refreshment table, and after drinking cups of punch, they pulled us into the large empty space where the meal tables had previously been. After several fast songs, a Celine Dion ballad was played, and Jessie pulled me in closer.
“You know I really like you, don’t you?” he whispered in a low voice.
Tiny insects seemed to be stirring inside my body. As he held me close in a slow dance, he began kissing my neck softly. My heart began to beat nervously. Something felt strange. Why was I so uneasy? Perhaps romance took a while to grow on a girl, and I just needed a chance to get used to it.
I was relieved when a fast song followed the ballad, and Kirstin and Brandon, who were in very good spirits, came to talk with us.
“We made out!” Kirstin whispered into my ear. I gasped.
“How was it?”
“Totally amazing. Did Jessie kiss you?”
“Kind of,” I said.
“Isn’t it just great?”
“Yeah,” I said, now knowing that I would have to let Jessie kiss me, I mean really kiss me tonight, and I was going to have to like it.
“Okay, last dance of the night, ladies and gents,” said the cheerful voice of the DJ. Here’s ‘Love Is’ by Vanessa Williams.”
Jessie pulled me into a slow dance position again, and I let my body move with his. My heart was beating fast. He was so much bigger than me, and any other girl would have probably felt safe, protected in those strong, muscular arms. He smelled good, the Ralph Lauren cologne blending sensuously with the scent of the night air that was wafting into the dining hall.
“That’s a cologne I would love to wear,” I caught myself thinking.
“Come here,” he said. A cool breeze and the fragrant summer air was blowing in gently from outside. Jessie was leading me in the direction of the door. Still holding me close, he walked me outside, not stopping until we were several paces away from the din of the dance. He began rubbing my back gently and I felt myself shaking. And then, as if in slow motion, I felt his hands pulling my face towards his. I felt my body tense with the anticipation of one who was about to get a shot, and then he was kissing me.
I had always heard the girls in my class talk about kissing. Conversations about it made me think that kissing was supposed to be the magical peak at the end of a big crescendo of anticipation. The music in my head resembled the kind you hear in a movie just as something scary is about to happen. The kiss itself wasn’t bad, but something about being in Jessie’s muscular arms didn’t feel right. Adults were always warning us not to have sex too early, not only because of the danger of getting pregnant, but because of the emotions behind it they felt kids my age weren’t ready for. Was I uneasy because I wasn’t ready, or because of inexperience? Jessie and Brandon did not have any time alone with us after the dance, putting our kissing to an end, and I allowed myself to push the nagging feeling of discomfort to the back of my mind.
* * *
“You kissed a guy?” Dana and Courtney gasped as I relayed the events of my summer to them when we had returned to school for the first day of tenth grade. “Wow, you’re so lucky, Laurie. What did it feel like?”
“I think it felt nice,” I said.
“You think?” Courtney said. “Hey, Dana and I haven’t kissed anyone yet, so at least give us details about how it happened to you.”
I secretly enjoyed the feeling of having more experience than Dana and Courtney with guys. I knew they wanted boyfriends more than almost anything else, and yet I who was blind, I who they had felt in some way was too different from them, had kissed a boy before they did.
* * *
I never saw Jessie again after our two weeks together, but it was nice to know that not all the guys in the world thought I was a freak like the ones at Oakwood who took care to avoid any possibility of being alone with me. I wondered, though, if most girls felt the same feeling of uncertainty and unease whenever they were alone with their boyfriends. Several months later, the beginnings of an answer to my inner mystery presented itself to me.
I was at my junior prom. I was dancing with my date. I wore a black tuxedo, which made me feel sleek and handsome as I held the petite girl closer to me. She wore a silky slip dress that clung tightly to her slight form. Her hair fell long and wavy down her back. I embraced her more tightly still, and remembering how Jessie had pulled my face towards his, I took her porcelain smooth face toward mine and began kissing her lips tenderly. They felt plump and soft, and I didn’t want to stop. I just kept pulling her closer, dancing with her, kissing her, feeling the magic I knew I was supposed to feel. I felt her breathing deeply in my arms, and neither of us were aware of the dance floor full of teenagers and chaperones around us. Nobody intruded, and we stayed there in our own little world, frozen in a dance that had just changed my life.
I awoke with a start. I was breathing hard, tangled in a mess of sheets and blankets. What had just happened? Had it really been a dream? She had felt so vivid, and the tingles I had felt in my dream were still coursing through me. But I had never liked girls, not Dana and Courtney, not my friends from Camp Bloomfield. The thought of Dana and Courtney filled me with terror. What would they do if they knew I had a dream about making out with a girl? They would think I liked them in that way and would stop hanging out with me all together. I could never tell them. But the feeling, that wonderful harmonious dream still pulsed inside of me in tandem with my rapidly beating heart, and I closed my eyes, holding onto it, holding onto her, and I let the dream turn into a daydream. Something that had been dormant all this time was awakened inside of me, and though I did not know it at the time, there was another part of my identity I would later have to explore.