An updated version:

A Week I Didn't Want To Leave

“Well this is shaping up to be a good day,” I mumbled to no one but the sweltering heat that beat down from the cloudless sky. I plopped down on the front steps of the small Episcopal Church we were supposed to be cleaning, pruning and painting. The doors were locked, an obstacle Gretchen, our fearless leader hadn’t considered when setting up the volunteer gig. Ellen plopped down next to me.

            “Oh Yeah, totally glad I came,” she shouted in the direction of the adults, making a rebellious statement of our boredom.

            We talked for a while, about why we came on the mission trip and high school and other small talk. When the heat of the sun got too hot we switched to a small piece of shade provided by a tree in the front lawn. Gretchen paced back and forth talking on the phone, switching from walking to sitting to walking again.

            As I sat in the limited shade provided by the single oak tree decorating the yard, I thought about the night before when the chaperones informed us that we would not be building the house that we had come up north to the White Earth Indian Reservation to build. The very thought of plans changing sent anxiety and adrenaline coarsing through my veins. This trip, for me, was already a giant step out of my comfort zone. The idea of being stuck up north with ten people I didn’t know, no cellphone or computer was a huge trigger for the anxiety problems I had been fighting for the past few years.

Finally a beat up pick-up truck arrived and a middle-aged Native American man stepped out silently unlocking the door to the church and walking back to his truck. Gretchen caught up with him before he drove away, they had words.

We got to work; first, I picked weeds, talking with Ellen, Gretchen and Dennisia about what else but boys. I managed to beat around the bush for the most part excluding names and giving vague details about my last romantic interest.

“So you guys were just friends?”  Asked Dennisia clearly a little confused by the idea.

“Yeah…friends,” I said thinking back once again to the last day of school when I watched Ben walk away from me, down the empty hallway. I shook those thoughts out of my head. “So what about you, any dramatic love stories to tell?”

After the weed picking marathon ended I didn't have much to do which was a relief at first but soon turned into a problem. The painting group didn't need me in the crowded foyer. Daniel and Kayla were weed whacking together and they didn't look like they wanted company. I really didn't trust myself with the power tools; I don't think Chris did either. So I wandered around the church yard sipping water sincerely hoping the rest of the week wouldn't be this boring. For the most part at home I was pretty good at entertaining myself but I didn't have books or TV to distract me up here. I had people. I wasn't good at people.

“You still need something to do?” Asked Gretchen getting off the phone for the first time in an hour.

“Uh, yeah”

“Grab those clippy, sheary things and we’ll work over here on these graves. They need some work.”

I grabbed the “things” and followed Gretchen to the small overgrown graveyard that occupied a corner of the yard.

“So how do you think the trip is going so far?”

I shrugged. The truth was I thought the trip kind of sucked so far but saying so would have been rude and unwarranted.

Gretchen sighed, “I know this isn't what you expected. We didn't expect it either, but we are doing our best to fill our days here and make this trip rewarding for everyone.”

We clipped and cleared the grass covering the grave sites quiet for a few minutes, the silence apparent but not really awkward.

“You know I think you are really the person tying the St. David’s youth together.” Gretchen said out of the blue.

My mouth almost dropped open in surprise. Me? No, surely she had the wrong person. I don’t tie people together; in fact I'm pretty sure I drive people away.

“Thanks,” I mumbled pretty sure that wasn't the appropriate answer.

“No really. I mean next year you’ll be one of the older kids, an upperclassman. You’re brother and all of the other seniors will be gone, and I don’t think any of the older kids your age have the same commitment as you do. People show up because you do.”

“Huh,” I replied once again saying the wrong thing. This was a lot to process. A lot of deep thought for a summer day. My past summers were for the most part filled with mindless TV, sandy beaches and a lot, a lot of books.

Once the hard work was done, lunch was eaten, two bottles of water were drunk each, we all sat sweating in the sun, unmoving after a hard day.

“Alright,” said Mary lifting her head from the place it was laying in the grass, “Two truths and a lie, Colin go!”

“Um…” Colin mumbled caught off guard at the abruptness of the attack.

“Okay, okay I’ll go,” I said sitting up and groaning at my sore muscles, “One: when I was three years old my brother,” I pointed at Daniel for reference, “pushed me into our coffee table on New Year’s Eve and I had stitches up my nose. Two: I fell on a nail when I was seven and have had ten stitches on my knee and three: I have never broken a bone in my body.”

“Two”

“One”

“Three,” said Daniel finally ruining the game because of course he knew the lie.

“Yeah three”

“Of course three”

“Yeah you got me.”

                The game continued and we went around the circle truthing and lying learning more about each other each turn. Afterwards packing up all the tools and backpacks and coolers, we headed out, tired and dirty. After weed picking, lawn mowing, and a lot of painting the entire crew was very tired but we all jumped at the opportunity to go swimming.

            A nice woman who lived in a house owned by the tribe as a whole had graciously allowed us to swim in the lake abutting her backyard. We threw on our swimsuits and jumped in the lake and let the cool water wash away the dirt and soreness of what I’m sure was the hardest day of work any of us suburban teenagers had ever done.

            That night we had our second reflection service. The lights turned off and once again the candle light bounced off of faces making everyone seem older and more somber. That night our service was based on a passage of scripture that spoke about the hungry and cold and lonely. We went around the circle giving our answers to the question, “what does this mean?” something different to all of us. So I sat in that circle with a group of people I had known for the whole of two days, and I told them what I thought it meant. I told them about my own times of metaphorical hunger and actual lonliness, of muffled tears when others slept and a parade of doctor’s offices. I told them about the worst time in my life. How painful and hard and miserable that time was, finally ending with; “but that’s the thing isn’t it we all have our hunger and cold and loneliness real or metaphorical everyone in this circle has something to tell. That’s what makes us human. We all have something that makes us need someone else.” A sentence that I still remember, that my new friends that I made that day still reverberate sometimes when the timing is right.

            After the closing prayer Ellen gave me a surprise hug, a warm start to long friendship. Tears were discreetly wiped away and everyone stumbled out into the cool night. We re-entered the house and played cards until way past lights out.