Hello Everyone!

Its hard to say where the line exists between Natures Classroom camp and camp "life" at Natures Classroom.

I'm speaking of course between the two worlds of the campers. On the one half you have the world of the cute little campers...little munchkins who haul half their homes in oversized suitcases for three nights of camping in $40,000 cabins with heat and showers.

And the other hand you have the world of the "bigger kids" (but kids none-the-less) that come to camp for 3 months in an effort to escape, connect, and promote the impossible......environmental enlightenment in an age of modern-day apathy!

Where they collide is the finest line between decorum and honest reality. In other words...that of professional education and that of downright elementary level shenanigans.

We are a wacky bunch. We come from all backgrounds. (I am in my mind envisioning the ending of The Breakfast Club as I type) The world sees us as;

One newly graduated college student with massive debt to pay off on student loans.....two obsessed, stuck in the 80's Journey fans who's eyes and hearts grow weak for Hollywood romance endings. A farmer who can build just about anything. A rabid environmentalist who one day will start her own alternative school. An equaly rabid Steelers Fan. A former couch potato who now cant stop walking away. A nomadic Clara Barton who has been treating injuries for half a century. And lastly, a guitar playing pirate who will probably set a record for the world's earliest mid-life crisis.

This new family of mine has indeed touched my heart.

Our tightly knit unit was best tested at this weekend's "ALL-SITES" weekend workshop where all the Natures Classrooms got together to meet, learn how to teach new classes and generally be as zany and unscripted (not to mention as raw and roudy) as we could possibly be.

I'm being modest here when I say raw; it was a no kid/camper zone....so the foul language and innuendos flowed as freely as the beer which was on-tap (night one) and in every color and variety (as night 2's fire side bacchanalia attested to).

Since it was close to Halloween each site choose a group costume. We were simply "Gang-Green", (double meaning on Gangrene) dressed all in green....painted warts and all.

Gang Green did not win the pumpkin contest....but its safe to say that few will ever forget the lower depths of raunch we (as a team) accomplished with a few well positioned "engorged guords".

Gang Green did not win the box car contest either....but no other crew sported a chariot with golden rockets that dramatically fired their boosters (once, ten feet into our 20 foot run and again after we carried our car down as a team down the meandering course).

Simply put. We were a different species all together. And man were we cool. How cool....you might ask?

When the coolest of the cool, outspoken NC veteran and my foul mouth/thoughts pal "Coach" (think 13 year old looking Italian Boy) answers the following question

"If you had a chance to fill up a bathtub with anything what would it be?"

with her answer simply being

"The Entire Staff of Greenfield"

Then you know your doing something right. And "Coach" is no bland chomping, run of the mill conservative who likes her Ice Cream Plain. If Coach says she'd like to fill her bathtub up with the entire staff of Greenfield....then....we is cool!

Team Greenfield is cool cuz we got dimension. Some would claim dementia!

Since we are in the forest it is not too far out to quote from that joly green Ogre "Shrek" who said "people are like onions.....they have layers"

Aint that the truth...and we have-em in spades.

My six weeks here (really just 4 but I spent two weeks away reflecting on the place/experience) have relit a fire that was admitedly set to "simmer".

I sometimes am so close to the flame of my loosely lived world that I forget just how unique the charachters are who inhabit it. I have always said that living such a radical life has its price. The biggest of which is folks staring at you funny or not really "getting it".

But it is in clumps like these, surrounded by like-minded nomads....that one can re-stregthen the resolve to go on and know that you are not odd for wanting more than a 9 to 5. That you are not odd for living in a parallel yet fantasy like existence of lesser responsibilities. etc, etc.

Nope. Your not odd at all. Because now you know there are others. Perhaps at different stages of their journey but none-the-less...cut from the same cloth.

I will be honest and say that my mind is cluttered at this very time....there are simply too many wonderful acts of friendship and generosity to make sense of now.

My heart is too full for other reasons too. I can see that the time is so ripe for re-beginning my walk.

I am careful of course to take care of both my health and safety when i'm off the worldwalk. Any new endeavor is a risk and this is not different. But still I'm cautious.....maybe too much so. Which is why I hesitated and originally declined to be the driver of our box car when Christina ended up not being able to go to All Sites.

I just was fearful about something drastic happening to my body just one week before I beagn my walk again. I mean this thing was solid, but it had no breaks and no trial runs and lastly at the very last second we noticed that the steering column was slipping. There was no telling what would happen.

But it dawned on me that I was being a hipocrite in the sense that I am not a spectator in this life. We either choose to stay off the moving conveyor belt of life or we get in and on and RIDE! I choose in the end to ride.

Gold helmet donned. Three pillows duct taped around me and what looked like a fire proof white race car drivers suit...on me....I pushed off the line....and....for ten feet I knew nothing of how my future would unfold.

I'd either be in the woods with a hundred pound box car in a million pieces or eating a steel piped steering column.

Ten feet later and just after I engaged the rockets (for added visual effects) the entire contraption came to a halt. The tire had bent in and we'd be forced to carry it down the hill as a team.

I was safe. In one piece.

But the point is...I could have ended up in the hospital. Now I'm not fishing for bravery props (ok, maybe I am) but it could have gone either way. I was proud that I was willing to take that leap.

My next act of bravery is getting back out into the unknown.

It has been months since I was out in the middle of farm fields....and my soul is missing the opportunity to disconnect once again and sift through and organize the many moments that have transpired since I last shook the gravel from my shoes on an old railbed in Missouri.

I bought some new shoes not too long ago. They were a stretch. Not only did I buy ones with hot red laces but the bottoms have a tread apply entitled "waffle stompers"!

More plastic cleats than treads really (lots of space in between each waffle cleat). But now I'm realizing that the more space there is on the sole of my shoe the more room for future moments to lodge themselves into.

There was once a time I was letting in these moments by the dozens. But they were superficial and my treads were narrow and closed off.

I feel re-opened. Much of that has to do with a place on the banks of Otter Lake in the forests of southern New Hampshire.

Cesar Becerra
Greenfield, NH

PS. In a few days I will be shoving off once again and flying to St. Louis then I will board Amtrak to Jefferson City....hail a cab.....and will be back on the KATY Trail and The World Walk.

Depending on libraries....I will be blogging either daily or every other day. So stay tuned...

love to all, Cesar