Week Eleven: Endings
Although week 11 meant the end of Gap ‘24, us gappers didn’t let the last few days go to waste.
As this semester of Gap at Glen Brook has come to a close, here’s one final look back on the week, and at all of our time here.
This week started off with all of the gappers on their solos in the Glen Brook woods. From Tuesday at dawn to Wednesday at dawn, gappers were by themselves keeping themselves busy by building shelters and fires as well as journaling and taking walks through the Glen Brook property. On Wednesday morning the solos were concluded with breakfast over a fire and a story council later that day where gappers recounted their 24 hours alone.
Throughout this week, gappers and instructors also were kept busy with their end of semester projects. Gappers had already been divided up into a zine group and a feast group but many gappers ended up flowing into both groups. The zine was finished on Thursday and included pages on our backcountry trips, electives, and even Hill House recipes. Once the zine was finished, most of us turned our attention toward the feast, which similar to potluck involved dinner with the staff, but all of the food would be made by those in the gap program. The feast was Friday night, filled with plenty of good food, pretty decorations, and some eye opening fun facts about those at the table.
With week eleven being the last week, gappers also had to pack and clean out the Hill House so that it would be all ready for the next occupants. Cleaning is not something anyone at the House enjoys doing, but with some music and a lot of elbow grease, everything was cleaned and everyone moved out of Hill House to the Main House for the night. Gappers and instructors stayed up late playing games and talking before falling asleep to one of Tadashi’s stories.
It has been so much fun writing about the experiences us gappers have had so as this is the final issue, I wanted to say one last thank you to this program:
5 tips for making the most of your time at Gap at Glen Brook:
Be Open and Vulnerable. Although it may seem scary at first, being honest with yourself and others during the beginning of Gap can lead to relationships developing and becoming more intimate quicker during the first few weeks. One example of this might be sharing odd food combos like chocolate and ranch or mac and cheese pancakes.
Get to Know Your Surroundings. You are living at camp and in Hill House together with your peers for the entire semester. Learn as much as you can about camp and about Hill House, like which floorboards creak and where the light doesn’t reach, so that you can scare members of your cohort.
Be Silly. Gap is so much more fun if you spend a lot of time together with your peers, and so this means a lot of inside jokes will arise. Embrace your laughter but know that if you hear “first base steal!” you should probably turn around and walk the other way.
Enjoy the Outdoors. So much of Glen Brook is based around being outside from farming to backpacking, to going on walks in the woods. Take time to wonder at the world around you by taking pictures of cool flowers, looking up interesting trees, or frolicking in the meadow under the full moon.
Appreciate everything. You are only here for about 3 months so commit to doing things with intention and purpose, from learning new skills to maintaining gapper friendships. Gap at Glen Brook goes by quicker than you realize, so take every moment to soak in what makes this place so magical.
