• July 14, 2016
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This is part of a series of articles devoted to summer vacations that had an enduring impact on a writer’s life. Other contributors include Sara Novic, Francine Prose, Jacqueline Woodson and Deborah Levy.

We take vacations for many reasons. To explore the world. To retreat from the world. To repair broken hearts. To test new hearts, or to rest. To push ourselves to our physical limits. But the most profound vacations are the ones in which we reinvent ourselves. A tall order; how can a few short weeks alter the course of a lifetime? Two words: summer camp.

This vacation was foisted upon me when I was 12. Only my mother, who is French, would locate a place in which campers were required to speak French — and this, in the middle of bucolic Vermont. Only my mother would find a place so fixated on clothing that we had to go to a special store in New York City that sold only outfits for camps and schools. A world I had never even imagined existed. I packed a large trunk with French blue cotton shorts and shirts, the requisite red wool blazer and white uniform for Sundays, and lots of knee socks.

I had rarely been away from home; I was not even allowed to join sleepovers. I cried with homesickness for exactly one night. Those eight weeks, at Ecole Champlain, on the shores of Lake Champlain, just outside Ferrisburg, turned out to be a highlight of my life. Thinking back on this time, I realize that subconsciously, I’ve spent years working my way back to living as if I were still in summer camp.