girl scouts.

So I am procrastinating this morning, and consequently just finished reading a totally useless blog post on the Girl Scouts. I'm not going to link it, because it was completely worthless in terms of content, but the discussion got me thinking about my time in Troop 187 (I think that was the number) and what I really took from my time in the Scouts.

I was a Brownie in Tulsa. I am not really sure if I wanted to be a Brownie or if my mom just arbitrarily signed me up, probably both, but I loved it. I don't remember much more than going to this girl Robin's house and for some reason, my first encounter with one of those on-counter apple peelers that makes the peel come off in one long string. I thought that was amazing. I associate my scouting there primarily with a brown jumper and our initiation ceremony.

Scouting really sucked me in when we moved. I'm pretty sure that getting me into a troop was a first order of business. It was with that bunch of girls that I grew up-- through crafts and campouts and frigid March days selling cookies. The nostalgia is almost overwhelming. What surprises me the most is not that Scouting taught me how to wield glue guns and pocket knives, but how much we internalized the messages of Scouting. The "can-do" attitude that comes with learning the skills to earn a badge, the integrity built from saying every week, "On my honor, I will try..." That stuff sticks with you even if you didn't think about it at the time.

But what I did understood at the time, and what I appreciate now, is that the theme of sisterhood and friendship is where the Girl Scouts really get their power. The fact that I remain close to two girls from my troop is evidence of this, as is the time I saw a former-fellow-troop member walking down the street and speedily turned around so that we could have a brief reunion. I think it plays out in what we, my old Scout friends, expect from each other-- that regardless of what's happened, or how we've changed, we've been determined to stay friends. I hadn't thought about it in a long time, but today I recalled the song I've known since I was six, and it hit me how much a part of me those values are.

Make new friends
but keep the old
One is silver
and the other gold

A circle is round
and has no end
That's how long I want to keep my friends