Greetings from Hilltop. It’s a beautiful, sunny day on Orcas Island. We’re having a lovely camp Sunday. I think everyone appreciated this morning’s sleep-in. I know I did. As usual, everyone welcomes the change of pace. We had a wonderful Sunday Assembly led by Top Gallant on the topic of resilience, we gave back in service to this community in our Sunday work projects, had lunch, an extra long rest hour, and now the campers are headed to our Sunday Afternoon activity. I’m certainly looking forward to tonight’s Evening Fire, and the chance it brings to enjoy the talents of our campers and staff and let the feelings of community grow and mature.
It’s a funny time in the session. According to the calendar, we’re just about halfway through the session. Of course, the calendar isn’t wrong, but I don’t think many people feel as though we’re exactly halfway through. Most of the campers and counselors, I think, are feeling very in the moment. They’re completely settled into this place, certainly not at the beginning of the experience. But they’re a bit in a time warp, feeling as though they’ve always been here and will always be here. Camp will do that to a person, and it’s a good thing to be totally immersed, focused on the here and now.
As a 46-year-old (ancient in camp terms, just as camp warps your sense of time, it warps your sense of age) who’s been doing this for a while, my focus is on how little time we have left together. Senior Trips leave on Thursday. Those will fly by, as they always do, and when they return, we’ll be into the four Evening Activities that end every session at Four Winds. My instinct, if I don’t check it, is to grab these young people by the shoulders and make sure they’re not wasting a single minute.
It’s easy to fall into that very adult sense of scarcity, but the fact is that not a second here is wasted. The naps, the games of pickleball, the disagreements with friends, even the walk up to the office to discover that the package slip you thought was for a new package was actually for the package you picked up yesterday, none of it is a waste. All of it is part of a process of young people carving out their place in this community, figuring out what kind of person they want to be, and stretching the legs of independence.
And, so, after I write this, I’ll head back down the hill to a group that is totally immersed, totally in the moment, unconcerned with the calendar, and just looking forward to tonight’s Evening Fire. It’s a privilege to be a part of it. Thank you for sharing your children with us, be sure to follow our daily updates on our Instagram stories, and we’ll see you here next week.
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As a postscript to the blog post, we got an update from the Carlyn trip when they had a bit of cell service in Campbell River. I’m sure the Carlyn families are interested, but perhaps others are as well. Here we go:
Things are going well aboard the Carlyn. We spent the first week in the Gulf Islands. We were able to go ashore on Wallace Island and search for the cabin with all the old name boards and notes from other cruisers. Unfortunately, we did not find any past Carlyn trips, but left one for this trip. We saw fireworks from Todd Inlet. We kept thinking this has to be the finale, but no, it kept getting bigger and better. We sailed a couple of pretty long days to get up to Desolation Sound and made our first harbor at Tenedos Bay. We went swimming in Uwin Lake for Luke’s 15th birthday and then sailed to Teakram Arm’s waterfall, which was the trainees’ first solo planned harbor stop. We made the next stop at Campbell River, where we re-provisioned and were able to explore the town on liberty. Now, back to Desolation Sound before pressing on to Princess Louisa Inlet.