The Anticipation of Joy – Opening a New Session at Camp

Saturday night we gathered for the last time as a full staff before the conclusion of the summer in a ceremony called Big Circle.  This is where we circle up after some much needed R&R between sessions.  We sang, shared some words of wisdom, and made important community-wide announcements.  It’s a testament to how quickly time flies here in the Valley that we’ve already reached this weighty moment of the summer.  I find myself left with the surreal feeling that if I blink it might already be the close of E.

Thankfully, we have three more weeks of fun-filled days to spend here at Gwynn Valley!  International days for Germany, Colombia, Hungary, Ghana, New Zealand and South Africa.  Midsummer Night on the Hunt Farm with Mountainside.  Fancyside in the Dining Hall (a tradition wherein Riverside dresses up and parades through the Dining Hall on the last night).  Watching sunsets and chasing lightning bugs on the Gatehouse Green.  Grant calls out dance moves whilst Debbie plays on the Casio for Mountain Dancing night.  And so many more exciting memories that will soon be made!

I have a personal connection to these last three weeks of the summer as they were the first three weeks that I ever experienced as a camper myself.  I was 11 years old and filled with trepidation as I was dropped off at camp for MS3.  I had just learned to ride a bike that year, in anticipation of my mini adventure day spent biking around DuPont.  Fast forward almost two decades and it’s hard to fully capture how transformative that three week long Mountainside session really was for me.  The Mountainside staff at that point in the summer were seasoned and proven.  Returning campers that at first seemed intimidating were so excited to bring me into the fold.  I remember Jamie, who would quickly become my best friend, animatedly telling me what all these strange words mean.  Mini-Adventures, Serenade, and Friendship Circle slowly morphed from strange mysticism into daily ablutions that I looked forward to.

There’s something bigger than my own personal history that seems to give these sessions we’ve just opened a sense of Bigness.  The anticipation!  Campers have been looking forward to these sessions all summer long.  Many have been out of school for months and are simply itching for all the simple joys of camp living: songs in the Lodge, a refreshing dip in the Lake, cookie cake on Opening Night, and so many more quintessential camp experiences!    

Sunday we opened D Session, Mountainside 3, Riverside 3, and Young Leaders 3 sessions.  We’ve been blessed with some much needed rain, but luckily the weather hasn’t caused too much disruption!  Riverside has since departed on their first of three adventures to do some climbing near Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Our Mountainsiders have jumped into Mini-Adventures, in which they’ll try out rock climbing, backpacking, mountain biking, whitewater paddling, and expedition canoeing.  Yesterday I led a session with our Young Leaders on behavior management and childhood development and Main Camp spent the evening roasting marshmallows in cabin groups or mountain dancing in the Lodge.

We’ve had so many jam-packed days at camp already this summer.  It makes me so excited to think that we still have so many more camp days to look forward to as well!  Our infamous Farmer Dale has a turn-of-phrase that he loves to use: “another day of opportunity.”  To borrow on this Dalism, we here at camp are so lucky to be afforded “another session of opportunity.”