One year since camp....

One year ago, there was a love story at Camp Insuh.

Insuh called me and told me a friend of his in the city was renting a car, and could give me ride to Jersey if I wanted. It was arranged, and in a few days I was being picked up in Bedstuy by a stranger.

A handsome stranger. Insuh had neglected to tell me my ride to Jersey was a dapper southern gentleman, a smart musician who taught classical guitar. We stopped to have lunch at a diner in Jersey, and ate BLTs and coleslaw under a faded red umbrella in the August sun, no way of knowing it would be the last time we would ever see Insuh.

The rest of the story is told in photos. It was a set up. Insuh had planned this - he knew (or hoped) we would hit it off and arranged for us to come together that day. The tension shimmered on every sunbaked surface that day. Insuh didn't want me nude for photos, because he wanted to allow The Cowboy as much chance at chivalry as possible. Oh yes, Insuh had been watching a lot of Tarantino films and spaghetti westerns that summer, and inadvertently Camp had acquired a distinct cowboy theme.

We wore ten gallon hats, and did whiskey shots and cannonballs in the pool, all the while Willy Nelson playing on a loop in the background. The Cowboy toked cigarettes by the pool in slow motion, the smoke swirling around his face and shrouding his features.

Camp archery practice was set to begin in the yard. The Cowboy stood behind me with his brow pressed steadily against my temple to align the sights, left hand grazing my bow arm, and guided my right hand to draw the string back in a taught and smooth line. The swift release of tension, and ping! Right to its target. Fingers to pick guitar and bow strings gracefully alike. He didn't need to know I was already a sharp shot on my own.

The Cowboy was masked with a bandanna. Insuh knew what he was doing. He told a love story throughout that day, in captured moments. He made you feel like you were there too, falling in, deep down into debauchery at camp. But innocent, too - a first kiss in a hammock - feeding a redhead bacon out of your palm in the morning.

The painting is by artist Nolan Simon. He writes:

I titled it Given the Impression of Discovering America, 2021 which is a reference to a quote from Paul Valery "It must be rather fun, by the mere fact of unbuttoning one's fly, to give oneself and other people the impression of discovering America. We all know perfectly well what we shall see, but at the first move everybody is excited."

In memory of Insuh Yoon