Back There, In the Place We Used to Start

Third Eye Blind is on my work-out mix right now. The first time I heard the doot doot doot dootdodootdoot it was squeaking out of a boombox in the multi-purpose room of my middle school. I was 10 and attending a summer pom camp. The eighth grade girl leading my dance class jumped onto the radiator to turn up the radio. "This reminds me of camp!" she pouted to her co-counselor before kicking off with her white cheer shoes.

We had just stopped for pizza puffs. We were halfway to the state school for cheer and pom camp. It was 2001, and there was little better than traveling in a mini-van stuffed with my friends. I think Peppermint's mom drove us. Third Eye Blind came on the radio, and I realized that I was that girl on the radiator now.

Poms camp was so special. We screamed out school fight song every time we entered the gym with all the other teams. We learned dances to Aaron Carter on the corner of the soccer field. The grass was yellowed and dry. The watter bottles were piled high. It was a week, but what did we do every night? We practiced I remember. We imagined how cool it would be to live in the old olive dorm rooms. There were mini-fridges and I took a strawberry from the cafeteria to see what would happen to it in the freezer box.