Puff the Magic Dragon
This is my college application essay assignment. After looking at the comments my peers had made and re-reading the piece, I decided to completely re-write the piece, although I kept the same topic. It is now much more personal.
Gravel crunches beneath my sneakers as I walk into a big campfire bowl. Hand in hand with other campers, we form a human chain as we navigate the small path, full of roots. In the center sits a fire illuminating the darkening forest surrounding us. People whisper as they settle into the log benches that surround the circle. Smoke from the fire drifts lazily upwards, into the night sky twinkling with hundreds of stars.
Red sparks, glowing like miniature suns, launch into the starry sky as a log falls into the campfire. For a few moments the camp is silent as we listen to the hiss of the fire devouring wood, the crickets chirping, and the faint buzz of mosquitoes looking for a person who forgot to put on bug spray.
The light from the fire casts everyone's’ faces in a warm reddish-orange glow and the camp seems to take a breath. I breathe in the smell of earth and night, of dust and smoke. Somewhere a camper starts to sing. Within seconds their small voice is joined by a hundred others.
“Kumbaya my lord, Kumbaya.”
Singing the song that has been sung around this campfire pit for decades, we are one. One hundred people singing together, feeling together, being together. For once, I feel like I truly belong. There are no popular kids, no jocks, no social hierarchy. There is just the moon above me, the gravel crunching beneath my sneakers, and a communal spirit around me.
In the distance, I hear the sound of birds splashing on the lake and hear the bullfrogs as they decide to join our chorus. The fires snaps and crackles as our song finishes and we sit down on the damp logs. The boy next to me pokes a slug as all the campers who recently graduated high school stand on the small blocks of wood that serve as a stage. It is their last year as a camper. They start to sing their own song.
“Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea...”
I close my eyes and rest my head on the shoulder of the girl sitting next to me. I may know her or I may have never met her before; it doesn’t matter. That night we are family. Campers start crying as the graduated seniors finish their song—the last song they will sing at camp.
I find my own eyes tearing up as I remember everything that has happened in the last whirlwind of a week and in the last nine years. How campers have come and gone. How I have made best friends and lost friends only to rediscover them the next year. How these people have shaped my life and changed me for the better. Next year it will be me singing on that stage and I can assure you, I will not want my song to end.
Red sparks, glowing like miniature suns, launch into the starry sky as a log falls into the campfire. For a few moments the camp is silent as we listen to the hiss of the fire devouring wood, the crickets chirping, and the faint buzz of mosquitoes looking for a person who forgot to put on bug spray.
The light from the fire casts everyone's’ faces in a warm reddish-orange glow and the camp seems to take a breath. I breathe in the smell of earth and night, of dust and smoke. Somewhere a camper starts to sing. Within seconds their small voice is joined by a hundred others.
“Kumbaya my lord, Kumbaya.”
Singing the song that has been sung around this campfire pit for decades, we are one. One hundred people singing together, feeling together, being together. For once, I feel like I truly belong. There are no popular kids, no jocks, no social hierarchy. There is just the moon above me, the gravel crunching beneath my sneakers, and a communal spirit around me.
In the distance, I hear the sound of birds splashing on the lake and hear the bullfrogs as they decide to join our chorus. The fires snaps and crackles as our song finishes and we sit down on the damp logs. The boy next to me pokes a slug as all the campers who recently graduated high school stand on the small blocks of wood that serve as a stage. It is their last year as a camper. They start to sing their own song.
“Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea...”
I close my eyes and rest my head on the shoulder of the girl sitting next to me. I may know her or I may have never met her before; it doesn’t matter. That night we are family. Campers start crying as the graduated seniors finish their song—the last song they will sing at camp.
I find my own eyes tearing up as I remember everything that has happened in the last whirlwind of a week and in the last nine years. How campers have come and gone. How I have made best friends and lost friends only to rediscover them the next year. How these people have shaped my life and changed me for the better. Next year it will be me singing on that stage and I can assure you, I will not want my song to end.