Entering Week 2 of Interlochen Summer Arts Camp

One night, there are 5 performances in 5 separate locations on campus. The next night, 7,000 people are on campus to see Bela Fleck. I get to sit dead-center, twenty rows back. The faculty’s first weekend (Sun/Mon) of summer and there are multiple party invites. Tomorrow, I’m supposed to go to open clay studio, have drinks with Leon Hammerhead, and somehow also teach 4 hours, prep, and write an article for freelance.

This winter, I observed that Interlochen has its own fleet for everything—fleets of snowplows, fleets of staff members shoveling driveways, fleets of sanders and salters, mail carriers and housekeepers. This summer, it’s the same tune: fleets of golf cart tours, fleets of green-vested volunteers, fleets of info booths, campus maps, once-in-a-lifetime performances…and most of all, fleets of blue collared shirts.

It’s fantastic and exhausting all at once and, although I find the energy inspiring, I’m hoping that week two provides a little breather. To kickback against the insanity, I stay in my pajamas until 2pm each day on my first weekend off. I start a new short story and get 5 pages—no small victory for this slow-going prose writer. The topic? A young couple in present-day Tarin Kowt, Oruzgan Province, Afghanistan. When I’m not writing I’m fending off multiple attackers in my Shuri Ryu martial arts forms. And when I’m doing none of the above, I’m sipping a glass of wine.

By nightfall, I’m still exhausted, but it’s the good kind of exhaustion—the kind that makes you want to sleep only so you can do it all over again the next chance you get.