Goodnight but not Goodbye

It always surprises me how quickly the end of camp arrives.  We closed our last session of the summer on Saturday and it’s as if a hush fell over camp as soon as the last car pulled away.  There won’t be any cabins chasing fireflies on the Gatehouse Green tonight.  No campers are screaming joyfully as they dance and jump off the watermat in the Lake.  The Dining Hall sits silent where, just a few days ago, it was full of overlapping voices sharing about their day.

Everything has its season…but I much prefer camp’s louder one!

I hope you’ve all found your way safely home after a fun-filled summer.  No doubt your campers have already filled your ears with everything they tried, stories of the friends they made, and the new passions they discovered.  I hope it’s clear from those conversations that our days here were built on campfires, songs, dirt under our fingernails, laughter, fireworks, fresh corn from the Farm, a rainstorm or two, and all the simple joys of childhood. 

This place has had a few names.  In Mary Gwynn’s time, it was called Gay Valley. Before that, an all-girls camp operated on this same land under the name Connestee Cove Camp.  There’s power in the names we give places.  Geographically, most of our property would technically be called a cove, but I’ve always liked that we ended up with Gwynn Valley instead.  A valley holds something.  It implies shelter and protection.  A place set apart, walled in by ridgelines on every side.  I hope that that is what this place has been this summer: a protected pocket where the simple joys of childhood get to be unhurried by a breakneck-paced outside world.

That protection is exactly what makes it possible for kids to leave here changed.  Some of what they’re carrying home is easier to spot.  I watched plenty of you loading crafts into the car on Closing Day (sometimes having to make multiple trips even).  Tangible proof of a summer well spent.  But the more important things don’t fit in a trunk.  There’s the confidence a camper builds each time they get to the top of the climbing wall, or work up the nerve to step on stage in Performing Arts.  These moments are proof to themselves that they can do incredibly hard, challenging things.  There’s the newfound appreciation for the natural world that comes from turning over logs and holding bugs in Camping Skills and Nature.  Exposure breeds a comfort with wildness that’s hard to come by in our daily lives back home.  There’s the respect for where food actually comes from, built inch by inch and row by row down at the Farm.

So, to finish out my meandering musings on this place and this work, I just want to say: thank you.  Thank you for trusting GV to be a place that’s fun and whimsical, yes, but also profoundly educational.  Thank you for believing that the simple joys of childhood are worth protecting in the first place.  And thank you for entrusting us, summer after summer, with what matters most to you.  We hope to see you all in the Valley again soon.  This is goodnight and not goodbye.