Simply Settling In

Cooper Anderson & Sam Voter
September 1, 2023

With a click from a burner, a flame is lit. The roar of a hot pan fills the air. Onions sizzle in oil, sausage hits butter, and pepper grinds up. Through a narrow doorway, one might see chaos, but with patience and attention, the bigger picture becomes clear. Pots and pans rotate in smooth clockwork. Spatulas toss, dishwater splashes, and a deliberate “yes chef!” pierces the air. These details fill our senses as we approach Arcadia’s kitchen for the first time. We take one step closer. Smells of veggies, pasta, potatoes, hints of salt, and sharpness of red pepper rush onto the porch. We stand in front of this small, quaint, and subtle-looking cabin. As we try to return to the present moment, a new set of footsteps joins our circle. Our eyes refocus and words break our trance: “Arcadians, welcome to your new home!”

Just before this scene of arrival, we had finished our final portage from the infamous Dead Creek, and our fleet of canoes made headway across Massawepie Lake towards our new home for the semester. An anxious excitement filled the air. We paddled hard. As we came within shouting distance, Adirondack Semester alumni poured from the woods onto a small, white dock emerging from a headwall of pines. Upon arrival, shrieks of excitement, hugs between friends, and “nice to meet yous” filled the air. Watermelon rinds piled up in bowls and canoes piled up on shore. We were finally home. Jacob McCoola, the director of the Adirondack Semester program and one of our course instructors, called for a circle. As we gathered around the stump on which he stood, he read us some lines from Evan Eisenberg’s Ecology of Eden: “…look for a place that was softened but not yet spoiled…. Use just enough technology—not too little, not too much…. In a word, you would look for Arcadia.”

We could now call ourselves Arcadians, but something felt off. We stood facing our beautiful yurt village from the shore of the lake. Between us and Arcadia stood the alumni. Catching their gaze while eagerly peeking at our new home behind them, we were staring our future in the face. Relaxed, cheerful, and embodying a deep understanding of this space, they are products of this semester. As the fall unfolds, we will all change and grow in different ways, but eventually the experience must come to an end, and next year many of us will stand where they now stand. But this is not a good mindset with which to begin the semester, so we might as well return to our theme of settling in.

As we entered Arcadia, it was clear that these alumni had a deep understanding of this place. They glided from yurt to yurt on the rough paths, knew the kitchen like the backs of their hands, and cracked inside jokes far past anything we could decipher. It was intimidating yet empowering to witness their sense of belonging. Though this was technically our home, too, it did not yet feel like it. We stumbled around (literally) as Jacob led us through a quick walking tour of the village on the weaving paths between yurts. We peaked our heads into the learning yurt, stocked with tables, chairs, neatly overflowing bookshelves, whiteboards, and a woodstove. We continued to the community yurt, which warmly illuminated the feelings of late night board games and guitar tunes. Like kids in a new playground, we followed the stick-lined paths to the outskirts of our village. Standing before us was a rustic wood-fired sauna. Encased by stacks of chopped wood and kindling, it is like something from a dream. In parallel beauty, to the left of the sauna we saw the Clive for the first time. Resembling what we stand for, this is our composting toilet. We no longer flush. We turn on the fan, deposit into darkness, and sprinkle some wood shavings. We sanitize, we churn, we haul, we clean, and we distribute. What was once an ignorantly simple task now speaks to our purpose and the effort we can provide to give back. It soon became apparent that we had much to learn.

The simple life we came here for suddenly seemed very complex. Sitting down for dinner that night, the alumni shared with us some advice: slow down, enjoy the small things, and take it one day at a time. Sure, this was reassuring, but from our nervous and exhausted minds—don’t forget we had just finished a seven-day canoe trip—it felt like a long road lay ahead of us.

The next two days were filled with excitement, stress, and an overwhelming influx of information as we continued our orientation. We dove into incredible detail on all the inner workings of Arcadia. Following our team of directors around the village, we were given a closer understanding of our shared spaces. We visited our learning yurt again, with its books, tables, and woodstove. We spent some time in our community yurt, with its couches, camp gear, and another woodstove. We attempted to understand the flow of our small yet mighty kitchen, equipped with more than you would expect to find in such a small building, including another woodstove. We detailed all of the chores we would soon be doing, from chopping wood to tending the Clive, cleaning the kitchen to taking out the compost. We felt flooded with so much new information that our oasis in the woods did not seem quite so simple anymore. Everything we do to keep this place running is carefully planned out, and responsibility is shared in every dimension of this intentional community. The laid-back attitude of the alumni that greeted us that first day reminded us of the simplicity this space provides. We belong here; it is merely a matter of settling in. This recognition poses the question: How do we, a new generation of Arcadians, get to such a level of simplicity and understanding of this space, and what does that look like?

We sat down with a few of our fellow Arcadians to talk about their preconceptions of this place and what the settling in process has been like. Ben and Amelia had similar preconceived notions of Arcadia, and they were not very flattering. Word of mouth on campus had warned them that this place is a dump, run down and rustic, with hardly any room in personal yurts to breathe, let alone live. Of course, this rumor is not true, and not everyone came here with such expectations. Campell, for instance, had imagined Arcadia to be a wonderland. In contrast, some of us knew exactly what to expect. Ruby had been here before on a class field trip. They knew what to expect on the surface, but their knowledge did not extend to the inner workings of Arcadia. They were a bit surprised by everything that goes on here. When we asked our other interviewees how they felt about what they had discovered so far, they agreed. Having long dismissed the rumors from campus, Ben and Amelia admitted that the first few days were confusing. They continued saying that the amount of information was overwhelming and, at first, difficult to grasp. Campbell summed up the first few days by stating that they were simply “weird.”

Because we are such a large group, it is no surprise that we had different expectations for Arcadia. Despite these differences, those we interviewed all emphasized that the sense of family we had created during our canoe trip had made the settling in process much easier, and for some a breeze.

Everyone here brings their own baggage and their own lived experiences into this space. We are all here for many different reasons, but it is what this program stands for that unites us. Part of that is the importance of community. In the short weeks that we have known each other, we have developed a new family that can laugh together, cry together, be weird together, and most importantly, support each other through any hardships that we might face.

We had already created a family, so now we are simply settling in to our new home together, facing the kind of problems any household might: The wi-fi is broken, the tap doesn’t work, the heater takes forever to warm up, we have to shower at the neighbors, we moved an hour outside of town, the toilets don’t flush, the stereo’s busted, the beds are too stiff, we have to wash our hands in buckets, and family time is forced outdoors. But at least the sauna works, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Welcome to our new home.

What we are doing is hard. We are leaving behind many of our belongings, friends, family, and loved ones for a semester of solitude and self-confrontation. The simple things that we take for granted at home, such as flushing toilets, running water, and thermostats, are much more complex here. However, when looking at the alumni on our first day at Arcadia, we could see that they were able to make simplicity out of complexity. They possessed a deep knowledge of this space, appreciated the smaller details, and stressed the importance of life’s little moments. They achieved this through the connections they made in their community. So now, a couple of weeks later, we have settled in and are working towards the same goal. With our new family as a support system, through the good, the bad, the hard, and the beautiful, we will make simplicity out of this complexity.