We Walked a Million Hills with the Man who Sold the World

    As I sit atop a ridge, I look down into the valley of long, green, rolling hills.  Only one thought can come into my mind:  Where are we going and where have we been?  I can remember when we first came to Lander this summer, the other interns and I; we thought we knew so much.  But now, it seems that NOLS has proven us wrong.

    At the beginning of the summer, we were so excited to learn and to understand how NOLS worked.  As courses left, we wished them well on their journeys and could not wait to see them as they returned; we knew they would change.  However, now as courses begin to roll in, we start to understand that they are not the only ones changing; we too are growing.  NOLS has given us all so much and if you are reading this I’m sure you can understand this.  But something we do not always see, is that NOLS continues to change you; weeks, months, and even years after your course.   And so as we witness courses coming back from the field, we see their change, but something is changing for us too.  The experience of NOLS and the power of community and education are more powerful for us to understand immediately.  We must always look back at the path we have traveled to understand where we have come and see where we are going.

    Unfortunately, the latter is difficult to see, but sometimes if the conditions are right, we can get a glimpse of where we should be and how we should get there.  I think NOLS provides this experience and allows us to see ourselves as we truly want to be seen.  However, NOLS is only the beginning of this journey and I can personally say that we still have a long way to go.