Inn Visible Abilities

In the Summer of 2022, inspired Arthur Ashe’s quote, we launched what has become our very favorite homeschool project to date: The Outsiders Inn. By the end of that first season, we had been learning on the go for three almost sold out months and were exhilarated. It was Summer School on steroids offering lessons from hospitality to economics and everything in between. As we closed up shop in September we felt proud of the ”Super Host“ status we had earned on Air BnB, we were excited that we had capital to reinvest for the following summer, but the greatest gift of our project, at least for me, was a special sort of magic The Outsiders Inn seemed to conjure - that of making visible to us abilities we didn’t even know that we had.

By the end of the next summer it was clear that the Inn’s magic extended to its guests and not just the staff. The travelers we hosted in 2023 shared inspiring stories as well as random acts of kindness that revealed their awesome abilities to us ways that left lasting impressions. We realized then that we were really onto something - that this place we were all sharing in was highlighting the best in us and it was something worth documenting. So, we started a project called “Inn Visible Abilities” to chronicle stories about awesome abilities we witnessed in ourselves and our guests at The Outsiders Inn.

As we’ve grown to learn more about the importance of awe and how it can be found in experiences of moral beauty we’ve come to understand that this story collection has purpose and importance larger than the inn. We’ve started a collection with StoryCorps to capture narratives about stand out, even surprising, abilities witnessed in oneself or another and the lasting impact of those moments. The Inn has shown us first hand that the stories we chose to tell ourselves and each other can be awful or awe-full and it has a huge impact on our well-being. At the Outsiders Inn we chose the later and hope you will too.