nonfiction

The first time I went to the house in the woods myself, I stood on the porch and watched a tree fall. I must have turned my head just in time...

It was as if my sister, who never had children of her own, waited for this child...

Anna Maria Alberghetti, the opera singer, turned up in our bunk on the last day of camp like something out of a dream.

She was an adult in a sea of adults and children who seemed not to notice the world around them or each other. That was my child’s view...

I’d enter the game with all the belief that comes naturally to a theatrically inclined child—it takes a good audience to see the truth of a good actor...

It was the beginning that I would only see in hindsight, backwards in time, after learning again and again that such mercy exists—exists, secretly in concrete streets...

Helena Clare Pittman, one of the Center’s most dedicated teachers, has written, painted, and taught her entire life. In her monthly Helena Writes series, she shares a lifetime of wisdom, one pearl at a time.

In her 71st post, Helena offers a dozen sensory vignettes from her summer camp experiences. Enjoy!

 

Sullivan County

 

I took Three-Dimensional Design again, three years later. Then, I was older than my classmates, and I knew why I was there...

The air was enchanted, electrified with what I can only call the love that moved between the four of us, who had experienced something so other than the war, of such a different order than a world of folly...

I was fascinated by the Amish and the picture I took, with my eyes, and all my senses, the clop clopping of the horses, their smell...