Writer Karyna McGlynn spent seven summers attending Camp Mystic, the site of the recent Guadalupe River flood tragedy that claimed many young campers’ lives.
AUSTIN, Texas — I was a “Mystic Girl” for seven years, between 1987 and 1993. Camp Mystic is a very wholesome place, where kindness and friendship are just constantly reiterated.
The Guadalupe River is Camp Mystic. The river runs through my dreams, and it haunts my poetry. I write about Camp Mystic all the time. And I am now a camp director. I run seven creative writing camps for middle schoolers and high schoolers during the summer at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, in Interlochen, Michigan.
Camp Mystic imprinted on me. It was a place kind of outside of real life, where you were free to be yourself and to discover who you wanted to be and try out different versions of yourself in a supportive environment.
I have gone back there often in my mind as a sort of place of safety, which is why it’s just so tragic that the flood happened. Because for so many people, that was their imaginative, safe space.
I think that girls the age of the campers often feel so awkward and are so self-conscious when they’re in the regular school year. But at a place like Mystic, they really are in with their bodies and in the world, just feeling the full joy of youth and discovery. And it’s just beautiful.
Karyna McGlynn is a relative of a KVUE staffer. She is currently the director of the creative writing program at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Michigan.