Head of School’s Notebook | Home

September 23, 2016

It’s funny what you hear as tired, dusty, trail weary students approach the end of the trail.

“I am going to take the longest shower ever!”

“I have never been this dirty before … will all this grime scrub off?

“It’s so nice to be back in civilization … except for the homework.”

“Can we stop at In-n-Out on the way home?”

“Did I say home?”

I guess we confront a lot of notions – preconceived and otherwise – on the trail.  I go on the junior trip, which is so steeped in mythology that often students fear even the prospect of “the Kern.” Yet it is rarely what they expect, though their expectations vary broadly.

What all seem to find, though, is a complementary counterpoint to their life elsewhere. Some relish the out-of-Anchordoors. Others tolerate it. But all emerge with an understanding of their place relative to the wilderness and their lives off the trail. Most don’t like to be dirty, of course, but they sure appreciate the opportunity to dunk themselves in a frigid river or stream. Perhaps they want to be clean (or at least cleaner) but there is something more to that plunge.

Maybe it’s a baptism of sorts – a breath-stealing transition between dusty and invigorated and new. For that’s what it feels like when we emerge from the wild, like we are somehow new.

Our bodies don’t always reflect that state of mind, of course. Our muscles are sore, our backs a little weary, our hips tender from the waist belt on our packs. But we sense, too, that we are stronger for the effort. That physically we are up to it. That our lungs are somehow fuller, our endurance greater, our boundaries enlarged … if they even exist at all.

And Cate becomes “home” – the place we come back to after discovering whatever it is we discover in our walk in the woods. Maybe it’s not the home we know with Mom and Dad, but surely it is our home base, our launching point, the partner that compels us to seek knowledge in places we don’t normally go.

Even amidst the rush to the showers or the dining hall after the trip, we can see the wheels turning, note the occasional faraway look in the eye. We are happy to be home, but we’ve brought something back with us, something important, an experience and a perspective that will take a while to identify or understand.

In the meantime, we press forward with our lives. Home again and ready.