Love Notes from Summer Camp

At the cabin, as the girls brushed their teeth and got ready for bed, I was astounded when my daughters turned to him and said, "So, Dad. When we come back here next year, we're all going to stay in the same cabin and sleep in the same bunks!"

I gave my girls the only possible response: "Of course! Same cabin, same bunks, next summer!"

As we walked back to the dance hall for the late night, parent only dance, I noticed gentle smirks on the faces of Lisa and Mark. I squinted my eyes at them, and said, "You fuckers."

Mark pointed to himself and Lisa, both attempting faux innocent expressions and said, "Moi? Nous?" Then they both completely lost it when Lisa added. "So, Ron. Didn't notice you hiking or golfing today. What happened?"

I rolled my eyes and then began laughing with them. "OK, you fuckers really got me. In retrospect, I never had a chance. For the past 9 months, I haven't been in the mood for dating. It totally depressed me to think about going to a bar or club and checking out the buffet line of single women there. The though of going through the usual cycle of buy someone a drink / ask them to dance / get shot down made me tired beyond words. Been there. Done that. Hated the fucking T-shirt."

"This morning I was planning my escape for right after breakfast. But my girls roped me into family gathering. Then a rather lovely woman started chatting with me about music and then asked me to dance with her. That was followed by woman after woman coming up to me and asking me to dance. I was helpless! I was like a deer in the headlights! Like a goat staked out by the freeway! The next thing I knew, I had been dancing all day and it was time to swim."

"I have grudgingly got to admit that this camp has been amazing. Before coming here, about all I could do was brood over my usual dark and festering thoughts about Sarah and Fuckface. Since coming to camp, I've been astounded to find that hours have passed without thinking about them. Then I get swept away into the general melée of the camp once more and spend a few more Sarah-free hours of fun."

"What I'm trying to say, is thanks, you two devious motherfuckers! This may be exactly what I needed to start moving on in life. I'm sorry that I've been such a grouch for the past few months."

"No worries, dickhead! Your sorry-ass, backhanded, pathetic excuse for an apology is accepted, and we're glad that our secret machinations have finally gotten you out to a folk dance."

* * *

The rest of the camp unfolded in a similar fashion. I became increasingly comfortable with folk dancing and was pleased one day when I immediately grasped the pattern of a more intricate dance, and found myself assisting a more experienced dancer to get through the figures.

I also became slowly inculcated into many of the unwritten social conventions surrounding contradancing. I learned that anyone could ask anyone else to dance. One of the workshop leaders compared a night of contradancing to a long string of 10 minute marriages, each followed by a no-fault divorce. I really liked this metaphor, and learned to ask women to dance and to accept an honest rejection without angst. This seemed like a useful life skill for me to finally learn.

There were a few other highlights of the camp. By the end of the first week, I had danced with all of the women, several of the men and many of the kids at camp. I felt like I was in the midst of a large group of good friends, even though I only knew their first names, what instruments they played and how good of a dancer they were. Somehow these friendships already seemed deeper than many of those from my former life, in which I knew a lot more details about people

My daughters were getting on famously with the other kids. Growing up in Seattle, the twins had usually been a bit insular in their relations with other kids, and had tended to stick together most of the time. Here, they seemed to have a blast hanging out in pods of children without their sister, and sometimes not hanging with her for most of the day. My nieces were also having a great time. As return campers, they already knew a lot of the other kids. Jennie and Stacy were close at camp, but equally comfortable spending time with other kids away from their sister.

A two week camp allows plenty of time for interstitial conversations on a whole range of topics. Several of the other adults were single parents, and separated from their spouses by divorce or death. I discovered an instant affinity with them, particularly with Amy. As we got to know each other better, we starting spending more time together.

One day, we deduced to skip a dance workshop and go for a hike up in the hills above the campgrounds. As we walked, Amy asked me, "You've hinted a few times about your marriage falling apart. Do you mind telling me more about how it happened?"

"Gosh, it's still pretty painful. I haven't really talked about it at length with anyone."

"I don't want to make you feel worse by asking. However, my grandmother used to always say that 'Sorrow shared is sorrow lessened.' I'll share my own painful origin story with you, if you'll share yours with me."

Slowly, I gave Amy a précis of my trek to divorce. It was indeed painful reliving the whole sorry mess. By the time I finished, I was crying, prompting Amy to put her arms around me and hold me closely. Our walk eventually brought us to a park bench at the apex of the hiking trail, on a lovely viewpoint looking out over the lake. We sat there in silence for awhile, until I felt a bit more composed. Taking slow, deep breaths seemed to help. Amy's arms around me also helped a lot. Finally, she gave me a hard hug, and then a gentle kiss on the lips.

"Thank you for sharing that with me. You didn't deserve any of that crap, and I'm sorry that you had to endure all of that alone."

"I do feel some relief at getting that off my chest. Thank you for listening to me. However, now it's your turn — please tell me how your marriage ended."

Amy's path to single parenthood was a bit more complex. "Bill and I had a pretty good marriage. Mostly.

I say mostly because he spent a lot of time away from us as a reserve infantry officer in the U. S. Army. He went to monthly weekend training sessions, followed by a month-long deployment each summer. We had two little girls by then, and his being away so much was rough on them. It was rough on me too, but we tried to make up for it with some pretty great sex when he came home.

Then, he got deployed to Afghanistan. He came home on leave after six months, and it was great to have him back. Alas, he didn't seem to be completely back with us. He wouldn't talk much about what happened in the 'Stan, and the old intimacy we had previously shared seemed to be gone. I would have asked for some type of marriage counseling, but he had to go back for another 6 month deployment.

The next time he came home on leave, he seemed even more distant. This time, I confronted him about it one night after a few drinks. He was evasive at first, but finally admitted that he had been having an affair in Afghanistan with a nurse in the field hospital there. He said that it didn't mean anything to him — just mindless sex. He said it was to escape from the war and think about something else for a few hours.

I had about a week to digest that and think about our relationship. Then he had to go back to the 'Stan. Three weeks later, his Humvee has hit by an IED, and he and his whole squad were killed."

"Oh my god, Amy — that's horrible! I'm so sorry."

"The shock and grief about his death were pretty bad in their own right. The mixture of that grief with all of my anger and utter rage over his affair pretty much tore me apart. I was able to hold it together enough to keep the girls fed and get them off to school. I was given a month off from work to deal with the funeral, the Army paperwork, and all of the raw, intense emotions. Parents and friends and the Army grief counselor helped somewhat. However, I've spent a few years with a lot of this bottled up inside. It's a huge relief to be able to vent a bit of it with you. Thanks!"

Catharsis can be a great relief, but it is also quite draining. We sat quietly on the park bench for a while, gazing out over the lake. Finally we got up and headed down the hill for dinner.

* * *

My attitudes toward music and dancing evolved considerably during my two weeks at camp. After the first two days, I felt less apprehensive being asked to dance. However, I still approached each new dance as if there were a duel between the caller and the dancers. I imagined that the dance caller's prime goal in teaching new dances with new moves was to trick as many dancers as possible, and the main goal of the dancers was to avoid being tricked. Therefore, I rejoiced at the end of each dance, thinking to myself, "Ha, that bastard caller didn't get me that time." I shared this sentiment with Amy, who looked at me strangely.

She then sat me down and suggested an alternative explanation. "Think of the caller as a chef. Right now, you seem to have the idea that a chef's goal is to trick the diners into eating things they don't like. Sort of like the time my mom tried to get me and my brother to eat liver — by putting it in our chili!"

"Were you fooled?"

"Hell, no! We each took one bite and spit it out. It was liver, for heaven's sakes! After that, we no longer blindly ate whatever she cooked for us, and were always waiting for the next wild hair she might come up with. But, I digress. Dance callers are not like that. They are like chefs who are trying to mix the same old ingredients into new and tasty recipes. In a word, they are trying to delight, not deceive."

This chef metaphor resonated with me, and I was much more chill with subsequent dance sessions. This more relaxed attitude paid off, and I found that after dancing a new set of figures five or six times, I developed a sort of muscle memory for the dance, and didn't have to consciously think of what I was supposed to do next.

I noticed that many of the more experienced contradancers were actively improvising during the dance. Once these dancers learned the figures of a new dance, they would actively drop in other steps. One day, when I was doing a sedate partner swing, I was a bit nonplussed to see the couple across from me splicing in swing dance moves into the dance, including occasional dips.

In my opinion, this improvisational spirit of the camp peaked one hot day. As the temperature shot up above 95 degrees F, the afternoon dance workshop was cancelled, and everyone was sent to the swimming area at the edge of the lake. Surprisingly, a number of folks still wanted to dance. They convinced a fiddler to sit on the dock with her legs dangling in the water. Then, they badgered one of the dance callers to teach a dance that would fit into the limited space on the dock.

"All right!" grumbled the caller. "I'll call just one really short dance and that's it. No walk-through and no whining. Okay?"

The dancers nodded, and about twenty of them lined up on the dock in two ragged lines facing each other. The fiddler started playing a jolly tune, and the caller prompted them to "Bow to your partner. Bow to your neighbor. Now swing your partner round and round, like a jaybird skating on the frozen ground."

After a really long swing, he said, "Long lines go forward and back!" As they did this, the caller got an evil glint in his eye, and followed up with,

"One more time, forward and waaaaaaay back!" whereupon the entire dance set fell off the dock into the lake. There were some good-natured threats to toss the caller into the lake, but he was too fast for them, and was already in the water. The fiddler continued to play a few tunes, all of which had a nautical theme, such as "Sailor's Hornpipe" and "Out on the Ocean". Then she put her fiddle back in its case on shore and jumped in the lake herself.

* * *

Toward the ended of the first week, the camp director gave the hired band and caller a night off and declared that all of the entertainment that night would be provided by the campers. He then posted a sign-up sheet for music and dance calling, which was quickly filled in by various campers, including Amy.

I asked her, "What did you sign up to do?"

"I'm going to play piano for several contradances."

"What tunes will you guys be playing?"

"I have no idea. However, your brother Mark and the other fiddlers know hundreds of tunes, and will just pick sets of tunes on the fly, just before each dance starts. They will yell out the key they will be playing in, and I'll just wing it from there."

I was astonished. I had played piano as a kid, but had only played in public at recitals, and then only after months of practice on my one piece of music. The thought of jumping up on stage without any music or any rehearsal and playing for a dance seemed incredible.

A woman asked me to dance, and we lined up in front of the band. The first volunteer caller taught a simple dance, and then turned to the band, and asked, 'What are you guys going to play?"

Mark said, "We'll start with 'Soldier's Joy' in the key of D, and our change tune will be 'Hollow Poplar' in the key of G. We'll use piano potatoes."

This was gibberish to me, but Amy nodded, played 2 bars of chords, and the pickup band followed her lead into an enthusiastic version of 'Soldier's Joy'. I was swept away into the figures of the dance. When I managed to glance up at the stage, I saw that the musicians were doing their own sort of dance. Bows were dancing on fiddle strings, while picks and fingernails hopped and jigged on guitars, banjos and mandolins. A torrent of notes rose and fell and swirled around Amy's strong piano accompaniment, which fit the tune like a glove. After about eight times through that tune, Mark called out, "Change next time — 'Hollow Poplar' in G!" Amy played a series of chords that sent the band off in a musical ricochet into the next tune. The tune change seemed to energize the dancers, and we all moved with new intensity.

Amy played with the band for one more dance, and then turned the piano over to another musician. She spotted me and asked me to dance. As we lined up for the next dance, she asked, "So... what did you think?"

I was almost speechless. "That... that was wonderful! Making up a piano accompaniment off the fly like you did is beyond my belief. I played piano for ten years as a kid, but I could never do that! You are amazing! I was impressed before you played tonight, but now I'm just blown away."

She gave me a big hug and said, "Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it. Would you really like to learn to play like that?"

"Sure, but what you were doing seems way out of my league."

"What I did just now is pretty much a few simple techniques and a lot of practice. If you're willing to put in that practice, you'll be able to pick this up pretty quickly. Want to get together at a piano during free period tomorrow?"

"I would love to."

The next day, we skipped the swim session, and found an unused piano.

Amy said, "Okay, let's start with the first rule of contradance piano: the mighty boom-chuck!" She sat down at the piano, struck a bass note with her left hand, "That's the boom." She then hit a three note chord a few octaves up with her right hand, "And that's the chuck. If you alternate the bass and the chord over and over, you have a nice, basic boom-chuck that will work fine for a dance." She then played a series of boom-chucks for me.

"Hear that rhythm? That is the basic beat that will drive the whole dance. It will tell the other musicians when to play their notes, and it will tell the dancers when to move their feet." She showed me how to play a simple C chord, and let me practice it for a minute.

She asked me to continue playing C chord boom-chucks, pulled a pennywhistle out of her tote bag, and played a merry jig to my piano accompaniment. "Congratulations! That's all you need to do to play for a dance!"

"You are way too kind. This doesn't sound nearly as good as when you were playing last night. Also, playing that same chord over and over got pretty monotonous after a while. Should I be playing other chords? Which ones? And when should I play them?"

"OK, time for lesson number two — the awesome 1-4-5 pattern."

"What the heck is that?"

"The 1-4-5 pattern is probably the most fundamental chord pattern in most rock and roll music, most country and western music and most of the fiddle tunes played for contradancing."

"But what does 1-4-5 mean?"

"Do you remember how to play a C scale starting at middle C on the piano?" I nodded. "Okay, count the notes starting with middle C as 1. The fourth note is F, and the fifth note is G."

At my blank look, she played a series of notes on the piano: "CCC FF GGG FF". She repeated these notes a few times and asked, "Recognize what I'm playing?" I nodded.

"Now, instead of the notes C, F and G, I'm going to play C, F an G chords in that same pattern." She repeated the same pattern a few times, and said, "Name that tune!"

"Uhh... that sounds like 'Louie Louie'."

"Well done, padawan! That is indeed 'Louie Louie', but the same set of chords also works for the Beatles' 'Twist and Shout', Johnny Cash's 'Folsom Prison Blues' and the first two fiddle tunes we played last night."

"Wow, that's pretty cool. But how do you know which notes to play to make a chord?"

Amy took a moment to show me how to construct a major chord and let me practice. After a few minutes, I was able to bang out 'Louie Louie' on my own. A thought occurred to me. "Why do we call it the 1-4-5 pattern when we could just call it the CFG pattern"

"Because we play different tunes in different keys, mostly to suit the vocal range of different singers or different instruments. You might be able to sing 'Louie Louie' in the key of C , but it works better with my voice to sing it in the key of G. So, if you play a G scale, the 1-4-5 notes are G, C and D, like this." Amy then demonstrated by playing 'Louie Louie' in the key of G a few times.

"Okay, I think I grok the pattern. However, I really, really need to practice these over and over by myself before playing them in front of other people. However, most tunes aren't as repetitive as 'Louie Louie'. How do you know when it's time to switch and play a different chord?"

"Excellent question! There are a lot of possible answers to that, but I'm going to give you the simplest answer for now. I call it the 'Law of Least Suck'."

I grinned, "I would really like to suck less — please tell me how to do that."

Amy grinned back. "If a tune is in a certain key, that key is also the name of the 1 chord. Start playing that for a while. Eventually you'll come to a point in the tune where that 1 chord begins to suck. When that happens, switch to the 5 chord. If that sounds good, keep playing the 5 chord until it begins to suck. Then switch back to the 1 chord. If both the 1 AND the 5 chord suck, switch to the 4 chord. Wash, rinse, and repeat until the tune is over."

I blinked, and said, "Golly, that's amazing. It all sort of makes sense. However, my brain is really getting full. Let's go swimming for a while. I'll practice what you've shown me, and then maybe we can try another lesson tomorrow, if that's okay?"

"Of course. It would be my pleasure."

I gave her a hug, and followed that with a kiss. "Amy, thank you for your patience, and your example."

"Er, you're welcome, but what do you mean by my example?"

"Music is obviously fun for you. You were smiling the whole time you were playing for the dance last night. My brother and the other musicians were also all having a blast. However, playing the piano has never been fun for me. It was something my parents wanted me to do, so I did it. Each term, my piano teacher would make me play some sucky piece at a recital and screw it up in front of hundreds of people. Nope, not fun at all. But watching you guys as you played last night — you were bursting with joy. I want to have that kind of joy too."