beautiful monsters

there remain some truths too ephemeral to be captured in these cold pages

I found this photo while I was sorting through some boxes of stuff, and realised it must have been taken five years ago this week. It was the abseiling wall in Otaki, where we went for the Queer Youth Camp. I was seventeen. The following is a letter I wrote soon afterwards (all names have been changed and I’ve edited it a bit).

Yes, the infamous Rainbow Youth / Flat Out camp. Well, that's what it started off being. Then people like me felt left out, so it became the North Island Queer Youth Camp. But we couldn't really call it that when people started turning up from Christchurch…

I got picked up by James's van, which was nice since he was the only one I knew. I was a bit daunted when everyone showed up at my house, they all looked like 20 somethings. I had to keep reminding myself that James was only 19... and of course there was Lisa, who was seven and a half. That was the first assumption to be shattered during the weekend; I was not expecting Lisa, or Alice who was 3 and a half. It suddenly realised that yeah, queers do have families.

We did the inevitable "getting to know each other" games out on the lawn, led by Denise and Rowan, but at the end I could only remember about three names. Then we went round the circle saying who we were, our roots (that’s our origins, sweetie!) and why we were at the camp. “Oh come on, we all know the real reason we’re at this camp!” “Um, I’m at this camp because I’m gay.” Tim was a running joke all weekend, every time anyone tried to talk to him he exclaimed in a hurt tone, “Are you saying I’m gay?!”

When we got to John, our “safety guy,” he had a confession to make. “Well, actually, I’m a heterosexual.” “That’s ok,” said James. “We’re here to help you!” It turned out John’s ex-partner had left him when she came out as a lesbian. Poor lad! He was also the oldest at the camp, probably late 30’s. The happy homosexuals were aged from 28, down to the youngest, Sam, who was 14.

Dinner was another surprise – I was expecting camp food, but this was like a trendy cafe. Dinner that first night included tabouleh, pumpkin stuffed with vegetarian haggis (which involved peanuts) and pasta. All of the food was dairy free, vegetarian, and delicious.

I stayed up late that night talking to a group of guys, Rowan and Luke, both youth group leaders, Simon, Steve, and a couple of others. There were a couple of rooms where people had brought alcohol, and they were partying into the night.

Saturday was pretty full on. There was the spider web. On one side of a piece of paper we wrote down any problems or issues that we had brought to the camp. On the other side we wrote down a possible solution, or a question mark if we didn’t know. There were some pretty complex issues. One girl had just come out to her parents and they’d kicked her out of home – she was living on a friend’s sofa. My hand was shaking as I wrote mine, and then fumbled to attach it to the web, hoping no one was paying too much attention. “A guy from school made me have sex with him, and then he told all his friends he’d proved that I wasn’t much of a lesbian.” Alongside my little square of paper there were a few lighter hearted ones; “What’ll I do if I run out of clean sox?” The web was to be used as a team-building exercise, we had to get our team from the problem side to the solution side without anyone touching the string.

After that it was on to the adventure activities. I’ve abseiled before, but nothing so high. It took me ages to work up the courage, and even then my legs were shaking so much John could see from where he was standing on top of the wall. But I did it, we all did, everyone who wanted to try. Rowan overcame his fear of heights and made it, Cate boldly took off and ended up flipping upside down, but calmly righted herself and continued!

I was surprised to find the flying fox was more challenging for me than the abseiling. I think it was the fact you actually had to jump, forwards, off the platform rather than lowering yourself down. I would have felt safer if I had a bar to hang on to, rather than hanging suspended in a harness. Most of the people down below lost interest after I chickened out several times, and they wandered off. But Rowan stayed there and encouraged me, giving me advice, and telling me cheesy chicken jokes, leaving the punch line until I got to the other end. Finally I jumped, and he was waiting for me, only to reveal that he hadn’t actually dreamed up a punch line yet…

During the lunch break a vanload of us hit the town – if it could be called that. We unleashed our queerness on small town NZ, and boy did we play it up! Walking round the shops in pairs, holding hands or with arms around waists, the boys laying on the lisps and limp wrists, and just in case anyone missed it all, there were Sam and Richard, making out in the back of the van. We visited “NZ’s largest 2nd hand shop; the guys found some cute little boxer shorts upstairs, and Alex found a dinky little red handbag, he claimed if for a makeup bag. Then, armed with clothes, power drinks, and more alcohol, we headed back for camp.

As soon as we got back it was time to finish the activities, so I left for rock-climbing. I opted for bare feet, a good choice. It felt so great, the sun had been soaking into the rock all day and now it was warm under my feet and hands. I found myself trusting Rowan at the other end of the rope, trusting myself, and trusting the solidity of the rock as I felt my way up

Rowan and I lagged behind and we only just made it back to camp in time for the end of the screen printing. I quickly cut out a simple design, with “Queer Babe” in the middle, and printed it with green and purple streaks. I laid it out to dry between “Queen Bitch,” and one that said “RU12?”

Then it was time for the wedding. Yep, Becky and Daniel were getting married, Becky in drag, Dan gorgeous in a rainbow flag dress and white veil, they stood under an arch draped with streamers of toilet paper. Chris married them over a “bible,” the book of Greek Homosexuality, and unique queer vows he had written for the occasion. Cameras snapped, and we showered the happy couple with marshmellows.

Next there was a fashion parade of the t-shirts people had printed, and then everyone crowded onto the floor to dance. Oh what a night! And the camp was only half way through…

But later on in the night, chaos broke up. There were bitchy arguments, and girls crying all over the place. One of the camp organisors had broken up with her girlfriend and she was sobbing on her bunk bed. I curled up beside James and cried silently until his t-shirt was plastered to his shoulders with tears.

On Sunday morning no one was feeling very cheerful or energetic, but we were hustled out of bed and onto the lawn for rafting instructions. Rowan was really quiet, so I put my arm around him for a while. Everyone seemed to be in need of hugs that morning! We went back to our room to get changed and ready, and that is when everything started to go wrong. I turned around, and Rowan had Luke in a headlock, they were both huddled on the ground by the door. At first I thought they were just mucking around, but after a couple of minutes Luke cried out because he could barely breathe. Panic slammed into my chest as I realised something was very wrong and I had no idea what to do. I ran into the kitchen, and dragged Denise back to our room. I think she thought Luke was comforting Rowan, it looked pretty weird, but I made her stay, and got others to help.

Karen and Kim were both nurses, so they sort of took over, getting Rowan up onto the bed. It was scary; he just lay there, not looking at anything, just frozen up. There were mutterings about some kind of pills, but I had no idea what was going on.

Meanwhile, John was trying to round up everyone for rafting. I spent the next 20 minutes running to the river; “Could you please wait a bit longer, Karen’s just talking to Phillipa, she doesn’t know what to do if anything happens,” and then back to the kitchen; “Er, I think they want to leave, John’s getting tetchy. How long are you going to be?” (Afterwards I felt so guilty that my biggest worry at this time was whether or not I was going to get to go rafting). By the time K & K got down to the river, everyone had changed into wetsuits, and received their instructions. Luke was still shaken, so I tried to stay nearby to provide hugs and comfort.

But something was wrong, and Karen and Kim had to leave. A few minutes later, we heard voices. For a few seconds, it sounded like someone having fun on the flying fox or something. Then came the chilling realisation that it was someone screaming for help, and at that moment I knew that Rowan was in trouble. The world seemed to tilt slightly, and my body seemed to be trapped in a slow time zone while my mind was screaming at 300km/h.

Rowan had wandered down to the abseiling wall, and threatened to throw himself off. Then he’d turned to Kim and Karen, and said, “do you want to come too?” He’d tried to push Kim over the wall, there’d been a struggle, Kim was dangling halfway over the edge, and Karen was fighting to pull him back. They managed to tie Rowan up with abseiling ropes and waited until the police and ambulance arrived.

Down at the river, where we’d been ordered to stay, we had no idea what was going on. Luke was beside himself. “If John says he’s ok, then why did the ambulance go down to the wall? Why isn’t he up here?” I did my best to reassure him. “Look, if he was dead, the ambulance wouldn’t be down there still! It doesn’t take that long to pick up the pieces!”

John was still insistent that we go rafting, so rafting we went. But I’m glad that
Gareth took the initiative to lead us in a group hug, and he encouraged us to scream everything we were feeling as loud as we could.

When we got back to camp a policeman came and talked to us. We went round the circle and everyone talked about how they were feeling. Some people were angry, at Rowan, at themselves, at everyone else. Others were shocked, some people didn’t know Rowan and weren’t really feeling anything. Kim and Karen talked about what had happened to them, and Kim began crying as he suddenly realised that he could have lost his life.

The rest of the afternoon was horrible, some people had to leave in just 20 minutes, everything was so rushed, trying to pack, say good bye, get addresses. I was in the last car to leave, so I hung around, cleaning and trying to be helpful. Tim had turned out to be a teenage alcoholic, and he was throwing up everywhere, so I organised plastic bags, paper towels, water bottles. I did not envy the others in his van the long trip to Auckland.

I wore my new Queer Babe t-shirt for the bus back to Rotorua, and when I
got off a guy was sitting on the ground. He had a bald head with a tattoo on his scalp, and a blackened gap in his teeth… and he was staring fixedly at my chest!! I suddenly remembered what I was wearing, and panicked. What was he going to do? Then he looked up at me, and said, “Love the t-shirt, mate. Awesome t-shirt!”

It was strange to be back home. Nothing had changed, and yet everything was different. My friends were still talking about who got with who at the last party, and I wanted to shake them and yell, don’t you understand? I wanted them to know how beautiful and fragile life is.

For a few nights I kept having a nightmare, where I was rockclimbing, and Rowan was belaying me. I was really high, and suddenly my foot slipped and I fell. Rowan caught me, but then he tied the rope to a tree, and walked away, leaving me hanging there.

More than a week after the camp I stayed with Kim in Auckland. He still had bruises in the shape of the fingers that had pushed into his back and arms.

I guess we all had bruises for a while, we were all shaken up a bit, but ultimately, I hope that we were all stronger. I hope that we all came to understand how sacred and ephemeral our lives are.

A few days later I went to get a tattoo on my arm; a small scar, to ensure I never forget that precious fragility.

Posted by Fionnaigh at December 15, 2003 11:49 PM