Michael Trenholm
MAGIC
I first learned about magic when I was eight. My mom decided I was going to a summer sleep away camp for a week, and as much as I showed my disdain for her decision it didn't change the outcome. By the end of the week not only was I ready for a second week but I knew I eventually wanted to become a camp counselor myself, and in the summer of 2021 that's exactly what I did.
After nearly a full year spent indoors I was able to be on the other end of what had been part of my life for nearly ten years. Running activity areas instead of participating, and helping kids from seven to fifteen learn and grow. Kids would normally stay for a week and then leave, but some would also stay for all eight weeks. The kids would come and go, but the majority of the staff never left. It became an environment where everyone knew everyone and there was room for only trust in each other's ability to take care of one another. It wasn't perfect for anyone there, but that was a peek behind the curtain that we didn't let the kids see. It was worth it for everyone involved and by the end of the week we felt accomplished that we did all the work that originally required double the staffing we had. Being able to help people through it all on top of being able to keep the show going for the kids made it even more rewarding for me. Even if my well-being was at stake, the sacrifice was worth it to see kids and other staff that had nothing receive something.
I don't know what spawned it but the day I started working I grew an overly selfless attitude towards helping others.. Breaking limbs and continuing through the day was worth a harsh pain to see kids and co-counselors smile. Going on a ‘Bouncepillow™’ with a swollen ankle was worth every step to see them finally do what they were begging to do on the last day. It was all physical pain that could be easily pushed through, but the hardest part of the job by far was a different kind of pain. Like grapes, there were always rotten counselors in the vine.
In a place where you have no choice but to trust someone you don't fully know, having someone lie to you is like jumping onto a treadmill that is going full speed. It disorients you in ways that don’t happen with ‘normal’ lies told between friends, family, or even people that you don't know yet. It's a lie that piles onto everything else that has happened that week and the weeks before that, and we can only do so much to avoid snakes in thick, overgrown tall grass where there's already so much to focus on. But these snakes are smarter than most; they aren’t king cobras or pythons. These snakes are very much human and very real. But as real as they can be they can’t hurt you if you use your magic to keep them away. We never let the kids see the magic either, only the people who could also use it would know who did and didn’t know it. But that still wasn't the best part of doing it. It was the smile on Gianna William’s face as she ate her first bag of potato chips because her parents are health freaks, or Mason Hopkin’s pure competitive ambition that helped him win a game of tag out of one-hundred people. All of this was magic, as long as no attention was paid to the man behind the curtain.
But none of this matters. I’m leaving the barren cabin and heading East in a car I can’t afford and playing music I don’t own. Away from the snakes and rotted boardwalk under construction to a cliff in the middle of Ithaca. The teenage freedom years are coming to an end and this is the last week to live in a world where you matter to someone. But to those someone’s, wizards can look like snakes when let down enough. My phone buzzing interrupts the processing of the fact I’m driving with someone else besides my mom for once. “You’re still coming to my show right?” is a question I’ve been plagued with for the past six days, and just received again. As we start our hour-long drive, I remember I made a promise. A promise to watch a performance was being broken so I could go to a cliff jump I couldn’t take. “I’ll try my best” I try to send back but we’re in the center of everywhere, and everywhere is nowhere when it's big enough. The text finally sends as we start slowing down. Why are we slowing down? There’s nothing here. There’s no intersection, no roadblock, no hindrance on our route. Why are we stopped? What is happening?
Luke, the driver of the borrowed white pickup truck, makes a right turn and pulls into a gas station. He stopped to get gas. Still panicking over nothing I opt to stay in the car and relax for however long it will take them to waste their money on six white monster energy drinks. Panic and paranoia finally leave for the rest of the trip as we leave the gas station. As we pull back onto the road Meg Bartlick finally catches up to us. The ride is long and surrounded by cornfield after wheatfield after cornfield, as we continue East in a car I cannot afford and playing music I don’t own. While winding roads continue up and down we talk about Luke’s life in California, and Joe’s life in New Jersey. Luke’s father was a convicted bank robber, and Luca’s mother was a baker in Binghamton, NY. All this information as we are walking from the car to the gorge as Luca drops his phone without anyone noticing, losing it permanently for the forever we were there. We’re talking and walking down steep fronts and foliage as the car with Meg, Julia, Shay, Clara-Zofia, and Charlie finally catch up with the rest of the group.
The sounds of the waterfall finally come into earshot as I hear someone playing Knights Of Cydonia by Muse from a boombox. This isn’t real. I thought this only existed in movies and media but here it is as my feet slap the wet rock. I climb, right foot up, as my left stays behind so I don’t fall. I can’t swim and never learned, and doing so will be harder as my heart is heavier than the man in front of me. He jumps and stays in the air for three and a quarter seconds. Hyperawareness heightens the experience as I look down to sixty feet of air and water at the bottom of it all. The snakes and wizards made a collective in that moment. Cheering me on and counting me down to bend my knees and take a jump that could end in something terrible. If that something terrible happened I wouldn’t go to school, which might be a plus side looking back, but I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere or do anything. All of this thinking is secondary to my actions that I’m unaware of. Slipping, I had to jump and it was out of my control. Leaping out and falling down, down, down. I conquered fear itself as the rocks below conquered my soft leg. And it was magic.