Kawabi Kindreds

This morning, I read this piece at a chapel service on friendship that was held after a weekend reunion of a large group of staff from Camp Kawabi. The weekend experience has left me overwhelmed with a barrage of emotions, some of which need time to percolate and then blend back into my "present day" life. The only way right now to encapsulate the extraordinary weekend is to describe it as the most life affirming experience I have felt in a very long time. The chapel was a time for us to focus on some of our heartfelt and shared sense of belonging. I had the honour to start the service. I was nervous at first standing up in front of 50 or so of my peers (aren't we always?). But, the nerves disappeared very quickly as I began to talk and look out at a group of people dear to my heart...........at a group of people whom I share a sense of belonging to.

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Kawabi Kindreds

There's a feisty red head girl who lives out in the Maritimes, in a place called Avonlea. You may have heard of her before. Her name is Anne Shirley of Green Gables. Anne is full of exuberance and zest for life. She is a poetic dreamer........... a curious and creative dreamer full of insightful observations that she openly shares with just about anyone, especially someone she considers like minded. The poignant tidbit that Anne has shared with us is the concept of a kindred spirit.

Kindred spirit.

It's funny, the first time I heard the expression, I knew exacty what she meant.

Kindred spirit.

It's a friendship with a deeper essence, a shared spiritual understanding. It's a friendship that connotes the message: "I get you. I understand where you're coming from and what's important to you."

Unspoken. Unconditional. Acceptance.

Anne would also say that kindreds share a foundation of values, and of place. So, what would Anne say about all of us?

Here we are, all different ages, some more wrinkly than others, and yet we all have Kawabi kindred hearts. Over the winter as I continued to pursue my rediscovered joy of writing, as I read other's postings on the website while sharing my own, as I reconnected with old friends from my past, and met new friends with the same Kawabi foundation, I re-evaluated the importance of my Kawabi roots. I think we all did on some level.

And you know what? I get you. You get me. We get each other.

Sure we all had our own circle of kindred spirits from our era at camp, whom we can share the specific memorable moments with....... the people we had the "best day off with ever," friends you shared your tent walls with, laughed with, grew up with ....... under the starry northern light night skies and the bright blue cloud free summer days ..... and everything in between.

Then there are your closest friends within that circle who stood up for you on your wedding day, who made the speeches, whom you called when your child was born. These are the friends that you continued to keep in touch with outside the camp borders. Yes, we are all a part of a circle of friends from our era.

What's amazing is tht all of our circles, all of our eras overlap. This is what I have learned this winter. Like petals on a summer Shasta daisy, our circles overlap and are held together by a sunny yellow middle that consists of our loving and strong connection with Skip and Nish, and the core values and sense of belonging that we all feel towards Camp Kawabi. No matter where we all are on the path of life, we all connect to Kawabi through a poignant time in our personal development .... adolescence ... a time of firsts.

The first time you taught a child how to master thte J-stroke, hit a bullseye, pass their safety afloat, drop a ski ....... The first time you were on night watch, you helped a homesick camper, organized an outsupper, cleaned a kybo, washed a campload of dishes. Your first kiss, first love, first swig of cheap wine. The first time you heard Skip call you by your name. The list Kawabi firsts is endless. All are meaningfully understood.

We get each other.

We could be thousands of miles away from one another, but I guarantee that if I was to ask you to close your eyes and picture the beautiful rocky pine vista and envelopes the blue waters of Big Hawk Lake, not only would we be able to conjure it up similarily, we would also be able to describe the colours, the sound and the movement all around the picture. The shared stories on the Kawabi website is proof ....... we all have this ability, and we all feel a sense of belonging and presence to this place where we as teenagers grew up.

So, if Anne Shirley had walked into the banquet last night to have a peak at all of us enjoying ourselves, what would she have said?

"Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out, there are so many of them in the world. These people are all kindred spirits."

We are all out there in the world living our lives ...... but we will always be graced by the kindredness of Kawabi, forever linked like the petals of a Shasta daisy.

How lucky we are.