Time is a funny thing. There are days in this job that feel like an eternity: Days where the activity periods trudge by slower than our 15-year-old lab Liza moves across camp. Yet some weeks fly by quicker than you can say, “Magdalena Hagdelena.” Somehow this paradoxical movement of time happens simultaneously. Three months ago, we welcomed our first staff and tonight we gathered for the last time this year around our campfire ring. Tonight, I feel exhausted, satisfied, and have a tremendous amount of hope for the future.
Today was full. The campers enjoyed their last five activity periods “sucking out the marrow” of camp as Thoreau might say. After an awesome closing banquet dinner hosted by our dining hall crew, we all walked up to our campfire ring for a final campfire. We sang songs, enjoyed skits from our counselors, and even some dancing from my own toddler Jasper. For one last time, we held hands, sang that old Pine Tree Song and wished our new friends goodnight.
There is a duality to the last day of camp for 2024. We’re happy. We’re feeling accomplished and proud of the summer that was put on for over 1100 young women. We’re eager to take a break, rest on our laurels, and breathe a sigh of relief. The entire year-round team is excited to spend more time with our families and bike and hike around the amazing area in which we live.
We’re also sad. We’re sad to see the campers leave, and sad to know that it will be nine months before this place is full again, and sad to say goodbye to some truly amazing people who have worked so hard to make it Illahee’s best summer ever.
Happy and Sad.
It’s okay to feel both. But within both ends of the spectrum is the ultimate feeling of gratitude.
I walked around last fall with a director of another local summer camp. He looked at me and said, “Don’t you feel like you landed in a tub full of butter?” I had no clue what he was referencing, picturing myself very sticky and greasy in such a situation.
But he elaborated on the saying explaining how it captured his feelings on the gift of being a Camp Director. Being much older than me, he reflected on his time at camp and the blessing that camp has been to him. The experience of camp, the people we get to work with, and the campers we get to serve are blessings.
It’s a demanding job: Late nights, early mornings, and solving problems I never anticipated encountering in my adult life. Yet I echo the words I tell our counselors during Staff Orientation that the most rewarding and important things we do in life often require the most out of us. My old Lacrosse coach called it “The Lunch Pale Effect:” You get out of it what you put into it, and I can assure you that this crew of staff has put so much into the preparation and execution of Summer 2024. To our staff, our counselors, our kitchen crew, the maintenance team, the junior counselors, the trips staff, the riding staff, the laundry ladies, and the fantastic year round director team, all that we (Gardner and I) can say is a huge THANK YOU! It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a mighty fine village to raise over a thousand each summer at Illahee.
Today is the end of our Junior session. Still, we hope that for these 153 girls, this is just the beginning: The beginning of their time in these sacred Illahee hills, the beginning of a new passion, a lifelong friendship, and the beginning of their lives as forever Illahee Girls. We hope they have felt seen, loved, challenged, encouraged, and empowered to be the best girls they can be on this day and until we meet again.
Grateful for a great summer,
Lucas & Gardner