Day 7, August 19: A Well-Orchestrated Day

Another colder morning in the Berkshires made the freshly brewed coffee taste even more delicious at breakfast. Thank you Jojo for always ensuring we have a full coffee pot! Sadly, some of our friends left after breakfast, so we gave lots of hugs and said our see you laters. How lucky are we to have such a loving community that makes saying goodbye so hard.  

In the late morning, we went to Tanglewood, an outdoor music venue in Lenox, MA. We were fortunate enough to watch the Boston Symphony Orchestra perform a summer concert. When we got there, it was drizzling, so we enjoyed the music from under the pavilion. Then luckily, after intermission the sun came out and and allowed us to spread out across the grass. The music was marvelous, and the company was even better! 

After returning from the concert, we welcomed both new and old faces to Ashmere today! We had all the newcomers up to the front to say hello and share stories at lunch. Then, we unpacked our belongings and cleaned our cabins. We shall see who manages to keep their cabin the cleanest throughout the week! 

Later in the afternoon some of us went down to the lakefront to swim, and others went to the art cabin to help Stella create “Hard Knock Life” tote bags. Many of us went to the main cabin to play board games and chat with all of our friends that had just arrived. There was consistently a group playing twister, and somehow Ophelia always managed to defeat her challenger. We also had Sorry, Connect4 and Cues & Hues. You could say we got really into the games, because before we knew it we had to go off and shower quickly to make it to dinner on time.

We had a cookout with burgers and potato salad, with scrumptious homemade cupcakes for dessert. Then, we all lumbered out of the dining hall with full bellies and relocated to the bonfire for silly stories and s’mores. We loved loving on each other, and feel extremely grateful to be part of the community.

All the love, Ashmere