Dear Boundless Families:
It’s day three but feels like day seven in terms of how the group is gelling. Warm, overcast, windless; with the air rich in summertime lusciousness (and bugs), your kids are blowing off steam on the ropes courses right now, shaking out their sillies. They needed this. They have been working with great diligence.
Yes, I am talking about your kids. Please don’t have a coronary. There’s more opportunity for that later. I declare without a trace of embellishment, your kids are diving into the curriculum.
I asked Jim, their Course Director, how many of them arrived hating school.
“Just three. And these have been turned.”
“To what?”
“The chaos of debate, banter and never being able to shut up. I like them. They go hard.”
I asked Rowan, their Mentor (the one who keeps the group focussed and happy), her impressions of the character that makes up this group of fourteen males and one female.
She also used the word chaotic.
“They bounce from basketball to cards, to ping pong, to hammock get-togethers. It seems the boys have had all this Covid energy festering, and they have unleashed it in one fell swoop. It’s beautiful to see.”
She added, with a mixture of pride and relief, “They’re good to each other.”
I’m curious how the lone female is surviving.
“She’s tough! In the mud and the dirt with boys. Fishing, swimming, she’s part of the pack.”
I envy the capacity of teenagers to slough off their self-importance and bond at a speed that is dizzying compared to grown-ups, who often take years to forge a friendship. Hilarity infused with academia is starting to take shape.
Ah, to be a fly on the wall. I swear if you were to see these bundles of testosterone going all gaga over a poetry lesson like they did last night, you’d have your second coronary.
But there they were spewing poetry with their awkward and adorable voices, making each other pee in their pants with laughter. It was quite the rage, so I have been told.
This group has taken to each other, organically, with the barely the slightest provocation from us.
This bodes well for a lovely session.
The kids shall be doing two novels – Born a Crime by Trevor Noah; and Little Bee by Chris Cleave, a story about a Nigerian refugee’s life that collides with an American woman.
The session has been off to a great start. I’ll be in touch again in about a week or so. Until then, no news is good news.
I hope you all enjoy your time away from your kids for a little while and do something fun.
Warm regards,
