Messy Day

It’s mid-June 2010 and I am kneeling in the spiky grass next to the waterslide tarp. Every minute or two, a child whips past me on the two-track slide. It’s Messy Day at camp, and we’re doing our best to be as slimy, muddy, and messy as possible. The slide is slick with cold hose water, dish soap, and tempura paint, and the puddles at the end of the slide are a sudsy brown. On the other side of the garden, the older kids are involved in an intense game of tug-of-war over a huge mud pit, made especially for the occasion.

It’s past lunch time, and so far I have managed to remain relatively clean. I really haven’t been trying to stay clean, but the opportunity to get messy hasn’t presented itself, and I haven’t been looking for it.

I’m called up to help hold a hose, and I clamber up the slippery hill to take my place at the top of the slide. The spray of the hose is making rainbow patterns in the air, which I am watching with mild interest when I feel something smooth and slippery land gently on my head and begin to drip down my neck; it’s sliding into my ears, and making swift progress down my forehead.

I reach up and turn around at about the same time, letting the hose slip to the ground as I wipe something red off of my forehead. Tiny is standing behind me, a ripped balloon in her hand dripping red tempura paint on the tarp and her slender feet. Even with the convicting evidence in her hands, it takes me a moment to realize that meek little Tiny is the culprit, and when I finally understand what happened, I have to laugh at the guilty look on her face.

I very briefly consider sticking my head under the hose and rinsing the brilliant red out right then, but what the heck, it is Messy Day. So I content myself with spraying Tiny with the hose instead, and then turn back to the slide. The paint is dripping from my head onto my blue camp t-shirt, the kids are laughing, and I’m suddenly feeling much more into the spirit of Messy Day.

A bit later, I’m at the tug-of-war site, waiting for a group of 1st and 2nd graders to make their way over. A handful of guy leaders, most of them already coated in mud, are taking turns running and hurling themselves into the huge mud puddle. It’s impressive and funny, and pretty messy, too.

“I’ll do it if you’ll do it.” Sara says, looking over at me with eyebrows raised, a mischevious grin on her face. What the heck, the paint in my hair has already solidified into a red shell, I might as well be muddy, too. “Okay,” I nod, and we back up to a suitable distance for a running start.

The mud puddle is warm, wet, and very muddy. We jump in head first, mud and water splashing around us. My face is now streaked with red paint and mud, and I am completely soaked; coated in mud and sand. Laughing, Sara and I climb out of the mud puddle and set off to give some wet, muddy hugs. It is, afterall, Messy Day, and the messy love must be shared.

I don’t get very far before it is annouced that two volunteers are needed for the next group of little ones to make into mud balls. Sitting on the ground with our arms crossed while twenty 1st and 2nd graders painstakingly cover us with handfuls of mud? “Sure,” Kat and I shrug, smiling; what the heck, it is Messy Day.

~Natalia