A candy drive-through at Bunk 3. A haunted house in Bunk 9. A Bat Mitzvah in the common room of Clubhouse 7. A megabed in Romrec. The year could be 2024 or 1972, but the activities and tendencies of Romaca girls in their respective age groups are, somehow, exactly the same.
How do the Juniors not only just know to host an annual candy swap, but also somehow feel that the right name for it is a “drive-through”, year after year? They weren’t here last summer to see the (now) Inters hold the exact same unstructured and unprompted event…and this year’s Inters surely didn’t tell them they “had to” host one because “it’s tradition”; they’re too preoccupied in their own little worlds, navigating the complicated social dynamics that come along with nearly doubling the size of their division from Junior to Inter year to consider bestowing their infinite wisdom upon their new antecessors. Somehow though, we just KNOW how to do the things we do here the first time we’ve ever done them…even though we’ve never been taught.
What’s the secret? How do Romrec girls, who can’t get dressed in the morning during the school year without texting their friends “what are you wearing today?”, know exactly how to introduce themselves at opening campfire, without ever being formally taught the exact questions to answer and the format or tone to answer them in? And how do Senior A’s, who can’t get up in the lunch room to go to the bathroom alone over the winter, in fear that “everyone’s looking at them”, know exactly how to carry a conversation - with no inhibitions - at their first ever younger camp sister’s bunk each night? Is it just luck that year after year our girls’ sassiness, creativity, and genuinity manifests in exactly the same way this year as it has for the past 109? Or is there some Romacan gene, not yet scientifically discovered, predisposing our ears to the best Sweets, our minds to the best prospective Secret Show themes, and our hearts to the “Romaca feeling”?
Our hearts believe it’s the latter - there’s no way natural selection doesn’t prioritize the Romacan bug! - but our heads know better; there must be at least a little bit more of an explanation…
Over the winter, it’s nearly impossible to accomplish anything that you’re not formally taught; you’re conditioned to go to extra help each day to work on every possible math practice question so that you can get a 100% on your test. You’ve been primed to help out at all your coach’s optional lacrosse practices to impress them enough for you to make the coveted travel team. And you’ve subconsciously trained yourself to avidly catch up on Tik Tok - even when you’d rather take a break - because you know that if you don’t, you won’t be informed enough on the new school year’s latest fashion trends, and your social standing will suffer. In the “real world” we’re almost obedient to a fault, because the stakes of trying something out of the ordinary are too high - our GPA might drop and ruin our chances at college admittance, our chances at making travel teams might decline if our schedules aren’t inhumanly available and flexible at our coach’s beck and call, and our social status might change as quickly as the trending sneaker brand or backpack style does by the year if we’re not careful.
However, when you feel as safe, as comfortable, and as much of a sense of belonging as our girls do in this little haven we’ve created for them, risks don’t seem so risky anymore. If Romrec messes up the words to Circle Game as they’re leading Campfire, what happens? Will their division go down in the Romaca history books as the worst Romrec ever? Or will the Juniors all mutually stop believing Romrecers are goddesses, to the point where they feel no necessity to come back to camp until they become some themselves?
No; quite frankly, nothing will happen at all.
So we dare to be different, and strive to be risk-averse, no matter our age. Romrecers lead their Predator teams - for the first time they ever have and ever will - without ever having passed a test on the rules of the game, Senior A’s act like they own Greylock during their play practices even though they’ve never yet had a co-ed show, and Inters learn to get to their activities on their own after never having spent a day without their Generals guiding them around as Juniors. And they do it all not as a means to an end, but, rather, because sometimes experiencing the means IS the end…and because we’re so grateful that in the safety of our Romacan world, this is the one place where there’s nothing to lose by doing so.
We wish the world was more like it is here - where we care less about ensuring that each test we take, friendship we create, or mistake we can’t let ourselves make brings us one step closer to achieving some greater goal of scoring an internship, clinching a college acceptance, or obtaining a career promotion and, instead, simply enjoyed the ride that gets us there - but try as we may, the real world will never be as carefree as Romaca is, so at least our girls - who grew up during the age of quarantine, where, during their most critical developmental years, they were more coddled than most - have the opportunity to be so courageous and independent for 7 weeks here.
But if us Romaca girls let the suppressed understanding that the stakes will always be too high or the risk will always be too large in the world outside 01235 for us to be as inhibitionless as we are here, we’ll be our own worst nightmares, who rationalize that if we can’t make it to some unattainable destination, there’s no point in starting the journey. So, as you hold your girl close tonight when she can’t fall asleep alone for the first time in 7 weeks, or as you cheer her up this winter when girls at school are unfortunately but inevitably mean, and as you wish her good luck at some point this year to calm her nerves before a really big soccer game or her final dance recital, remind her to spread a little bit of her “camp self” to those, and the environment, around her - the self who prioritizes the “getting there” over wherever the “there” may be - because even if she can’t make all of society more unapologetically fearless, she’ll make a difference to someone.
Until 2025…
Carly, Bethany & Schmaier