Greetings from Hilltop. It’s such a joy to be writing this, a little more than a week into First Session, on a beautiful Orcas Island Sunday, with the campers and counselors fully into the swing of Camp. The preparations for Camp are critical to a successful summer, of course, and the intense part of that preparation takes up most of June. But the preparation is not our reason for being; days like today are.
The campers are enjoying their first proper Camp Sunday. The first Sunday on the calendar was the 22nd, of course, but that was the first full day of Camp, and so was occupied by Rotation Day, getting the campers oriented to Camp and getting lots of beginning of session tasks taken care of – things like picking classes, visiting the nurse, taking the swim test, having cabin photos made, exchanging uniforms that didn’t fit, and so on.
A proper Camp Sunday is one where we slow down a bit, give back to this community, have some fun, and reflect on what makes this experience special. We sleep in for an hour, have a leisurely breakfast, go off to Sunday Assembly (more on that in a minute), have work projects, lunch, an extra long rest hour, a fun Sunday afternoon activity (today is Regatta Day, so we’ll all head down to the Dock), and Evening Fire for evening activity, the only proper way to end a Sunday at Four Winds, and one of Camp’s oldest and most beloved traditions, where we gather in the Lodge, share music and poetry, and have some our strongest feelings of community. All in all, it’s a welcome and necessary reset as we kick off our second week of “regular Camp” tomorrow.
I mentioned a bit more about Sunday Assembly. Each week at Sunday Assembly, a cabin or tent leads us in a discussion of a topic important to Camp. Today, it was Topsail, and the topic they chose was growth. I was glad that they did because growth, without a doubt, is one of the things that make Camp so special. As camper after camper shared stories of times when they had felt themselves growing, the right theme emerged: that all moments of growth involved some discomfort. Growth only exists when discomfort does as well. Times that are full of joy and ease are lovely – they give us our best memories and things to look forward to, and they provide us with respite from hard times. But we don’t grow from those times. It’s only when we get the right amount of discomfort that we grow.
This is, of course, true of Camp. In the camp experience we aim for, campers, when looking back on a session or a camp career, will mostly report about the fun, the friendships, and the adventure. However, if growth has occurred, as parents so often report, it means there was some discomfort as well. Finding that right amount of discomfort (in the perfect version of things, it shouldn’t be overwhelming; it shouldn’t overshadow the fun times), but it does have to be there. So, when you hear in letters about things like a cabinmate that’s a little hard for your camper, a class that’s not the first choice, or heck, even a Sunday work project that’s not a camper’s favorite way to spend the hour or so before lunch, know that, just like the peak moments, those more challenging moments are a key part of the camp experience too.
But this afternoon, we hope, is more about those moments of joy and ease. We’re off to Regatta Day, one of our most anticipated Sunday afternoon activities. There’s something incredible about the entire camp being down on the water on such a beautiful day. I’m looking forward to it, as I imagine all the campers are. Thank you for sharing your children with us. This first week with them has been incredible, building community and setting the stage for what’s to come the rest of this Session. All signs point to a great one. We’ll have another update here in a week. Until then, be sure to follow our daily updates on our Instagram Stories.