Love Notes from Summer Camp

"Ron, you're going to make me cry. That is possibly the sweetest thing anyone has said to me in quite a while. You're right. I DO feel joy when I'm dancing to music or when I'm playing for a dance. If a few lessons from me can pass that joy on to you, then I'm just delighted. Now, let's go swimming before we both start blubbering!"

Over the next few days, I practiced my scales, arpeggios and chords whenever I could find some free time and a free piano. Once I had the basic boom-chunk pattern down and could use it to play a 1-4-5 pattern in several common keys, Amy showed me a few other techniques. She showed me how to play my left hand bass line in octaves for extra punch. She showed me how to chop off the end of the 'chuck' to make it a bit more staccato, which would make the dancers pick up their feet and dance with a bit more zest. She demonstrated how I could add a boogie woogie pattern and other syncopation to my bass line. She pointed out how the addition of certain minor and seventh chords could spice up my playing like dashes of musical garlic.

* * *

Prior to this camp, I had considered the waltz to be one of those punitive dances that you did with your elderly aunt at other people's weddings. Prior to this camp, I had not waltzed since my senior prom. My mom had tried to teach me the box step for the waltz. Despite her missionary efforts, it didn't really stick in my brain. By the end of the prom, my date was not a fan of the waltz either.

I was therefore surprised to find people here at camp voluntarily waltzing several times a day. Since I was not expecting a waltz, I was easy prey for one of the single moms at camp, who nabbed me on my way out the door. All I could remember from my mom's waltz lesson years ago was that it was a three-count dance. So, for the remainder of that dance, I consciously counted to myself, "ONE, two, three, ONE, two, three..." throughout the dance. If I let my counting lapse, or if my partner tried to chat with me, I would lose the beat and end up waltzing on her toes.

Before I could bolt for the door again, Amy spotted my fight or flight behavior and snagged me for a second waltz, and said, "I'll bet you got box step lessons from your grandmother, huh?"

I flushed, and muttered, "My mom".

"No worries. Let me give you my no-fault, 15 second waltz workshop. Don't try anything fancy — just sway back and forth in time with the beat." I complied, and found myself once more transfixed by her laser-like gaze into my own eyes. Her highly abbreviated waltz workshop kept me from stepping on her toes, which relieved me greatly. However, Amy plied me with conversation throughout the waltz. With the simplified step, I could only squeeze out the occasional monosyllabic grunt to her verbal sallies.

When it ended, she told me, "Great job! Hey, would you go to the waltz workshop with me this afternoon?"

"Ahh... sure."

Things got a lot better after the two-hour afternoon waltz workshop that afternoon. By the end of period, I had logged enough flight time to internalize the three-count rhythm of the waltz. I was finally able to forget about my feet and just move around the room with my partner, and enjoy the music, which was great. I also enjoyed the close physical contact with my waltz partners. I hadn't had a lot of adult female contact during the months of my divorce. Just one day of contradancing here at camp had placed more women in my arms than in my entire previous dating history.

I had thus far found contradancing with a long line of women to be rather exciting. I was somewhat intrigued to find that waltzing dialed this excitement up a few notches further. The waltz placed me in ballroom position, in close contact with my partner for minutes at a time. I had not spent this much time torso to torso and cheek to cheek, gazing into my partner's eyes since my honeymoon with Sarah years ago.

During the workshop, the waltz instructor recounted some of the somewhat risqué early history of the waltz. I would never have juxtaposed the words "waltz" and "risqué" together in the same sentence, particularly not after waltzing with my mom. However, after two hours in ballroom position with a series of partners, I definitely appreciated that concept now.

To further illlustrate the sensual character of the waltz, the instructor shared quotations about the waltz by Lord Byron and other eminences of the 18th century, including a quote by Wolfgang von Goethe:

"I'd never felt so light of foot. I was no longer human. I had the loveliest of creatures in my arms, and I flew with her like a wild wind until everything around us disappeared."

After I danced the final waltz of the workshop with Amy, she asked me, "So what do you think of the waltz now?"

I gave her a big hug, and said, "Goethe got it, and now I think I got it too."

"I'm glad! I hope we get to waltz together a lot over the next two weeks."

I whispered back, "Me too!"

* * *

Camp life rolled on. I spent my days chatting, singing, dancing and hanging out with my daughters, my nieces and camp friends. I also spent happy hours with Mark, Lisa and the other parents at camp, both with their kids and after the kids had gone to bed. I went to bed tired every night, and slept well, often with dreams filled with music.

Midway through the second week of camp, I realized that I had gone an entire day without thinking of Sarah and my divorce. I also realized that after a few more days, camp would end. I would have to drive back to Seattle, have the girls for two weeks, and and then hand them over to Sarah and Asswipe. This thought made me morose, and the twins picked up on it right away.

"Dad, why are you looking so sad?"

"We only have a few more days of camp, and then we have to go back home."

"Omigosh, Dad! Don't be sad — this has been the best summer ever!"

"By that you mean your trip to New York?"

"Daaaad, nooooo! We meant the camp here. New York was nice, but we mostly spent time doing things that Mom and Jason wanted to do. Also, there were no other kids along on our trip. None of it was as much fun as this camp. We've been taking tons of pictures and videos here at camp and can hardly wait to show them all to Mom."

I suddenly felt a lot better. The twins' rave review of camp warmed my heart. I was also immensely cheered at the thought of Sarah and Buttface having to sit through hours and hours of camp videos with color commentary by two excited little girls.

Amy and Iwent for another walk up in the hills above the camp.

"So, how do you like your first time at the family camp? You seem to be having a great time."

"I can't tell you how much hanging out with you and your girls here at camp has meant to me. I go hours at a time without thinking of my ex and her fuckbuddy. It's been quite a while since I've felt things like hope or joy. I'm a little afraid to get used to those things again."

"When Mark and Lisa tricked me into coming to this camp, I dreaded it. Now, I'm dreading the end of camp in a few days. Is it always this way at the end of camp? I'm going to miss a lot of the friends I made here. However, what really bugs me is the thought of not seeing you and your girls several times every day."

"I feel the same way. The girls and I have been to this camp several times since my husband died. People go from strangers to friend status pretty quickly with all of these shared experiences. And we all get a bit weepy at the end of camp. However, leaving this camp is going to be extra tough for us, especially me. I've dated off and on over the past years, but really haven't connected with anyone. The girls have school and all their friends. I have friends, but they are mostly married. Being a single mom is a pretty lonely life. I miss having a man around. I'm already starting to miss you, and we haven't even left camp yet. Isn't that silly?"

"Nope — not silly at all. I'm astonished at how close we have grown to each other in just a few days. I usually don't warm up to people very quickly. Sarah was the gregarious one in our marriage. In retrospect, most of our friends were Sarah's friends, and when we split up, they seemed to side with her. It's been a fairly lonely eight months for me."

"When Sarah left me for Fucktard, it hurt so badly — it was as if she had torn my heart out and left a ragged, bleeding hole. It hurt to live. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think. My twins, along with my brother and his family, were the only things that kept me going. I was a zombie at work. If I didn't own my own actuarial consulting business, I would have been canned a long time ago. The past 10 days with my girls and this whole wacky group of folkies make me feel like I've just been breathing crap for months, and finally rediscovered oxygen again. Also, the camp food here is great! It's fairly basic, kid-friendly stuff, but damn does it taste good!"

Amy laughed. "Yes, it is pretty unpretentious cuisine, but someone else cooks and someone else washes the dishes and cleans the kitchen. That adds a couple of stars to my personal Michelin rating. For me, coming to camp is like going to a folk music version of Brigadoon that appears out of the mists once every year. We come to camp, and sing play music and dance and swim and eat and sleep and get to hang out with all of our camp friends again. Then at the end, we have to leave Brigadoon, which disappears back into the mists again for another year. I'm not quite ready for this to end."

I agreed. "I hate the thought of having to wait another year for this kind of experience. Are there any other camps like this happening this summer? I don't have anything planned for the twins the last two weeks of summer, and this camp will be a hard act to follow."

"This was the big event for Lori and Cindy and me. Our summer is otherwise fairly wide open." Then a thought occurred to Amy. "You know, I recently heard about a new, week-long folk music camp for families in late August. It's in Oregon, up near Mt. Hood. They might still have some openings. Are you interested?"

"Wow, yes, I'd like that. Our girls seem to get along really well together. I wouldn't mind another week hanging out with you guys."

When we got up to the park bench at the lookout point, I heard a chime on his cellphone. "Gosh, this is the first signal I've gotten in 10 days. We must have really good line-of-sight access to one of those cell towers on the other side of that ridge."

Amy noted that her phone also had a few bars showing. We took a few moments to compare calendars, and then googled the sign-up information for the Oregon camp. Amy called the phone contact for the camp, and was surprised to not immediately go to voice mail. Instead, a live human answered, who turned out to be the registrar for the camp. Amy asked if there were still any openings, and then turned to me, "They still have one more dorm room open with 6 bunks! The six of us would have to share a room together. What do you think?"

"Tell them we'll take it! My girls are pretty used to seeing sleepy adults wandering around our cabin in their underwear. If you and your girls can handle it, so can we!"

Amy gave the camp registrar their contact info and her VISA number to reserve six slots at the camp. She thanked the registrar, hung up, and then turned to me, a bit pensively. "Golly, when I woke up this morning, I didn't expect to have another week of camp to look forward to this summer! Are we moving a little too quickly here?"

"Good point. We did just meet 10 days ago, and now we've just booked a room together for the end of the summer. So, for most values of quickly, I'd say we are definitely zipping along in this relationship. I'm feeling a little breathless, but I darned sure don't regret it. What else do you have planned for your girls for the next two weeks?"

We compared calendars. Amy had a few day camps set up for her girls., but nothing intensive. I mentioned that the twins were booked for a week in a climbing gym for kids, followed by a week of Whirlyball.

"What the heck is Whirlyball?"

Amy's eyes got progressively wider as he described the sport, and said, "Holy buckets! Heck with my girls, I want to try that. Do they allow grownups to play?"

'Yeah, they do. Most of the slots are for kids. However, there are a few slots reserved during the week for mixed teams of kids and parents. I was planning on going to several of those. Do you want to sign your girls up for the same week? You guys are welcome to stay with us."

After a bit more time on the web and on the phone, plans were hatched for some concurrent Whirlyball time together. We decided to wait and then surprise our daughters later with the news when the time seemed right.

* * *

Both of my daughters insisted on dancing with me at the same time during the final family gathering at camp. We adapted the now familiar ballroom position of the waltz into a three-person version, and we went whirling around the room. As we headed back to the cabin to pack up our gear for the trip home, they said, "Dad, this camp is AWESOME!! Can we please, please, please come back next year??"

"That is a great idea, girls! But first, let's stop by Lori and Cindy's cabin. Their mom and I have a little surprise for you."

They practically dragged me over to their friends' cabin. Amy stuck her head out, and said, "There you guys are! I was just telling my girls about our surprise."

Lily said to Amy, "Are you Dad's new girlfriend!"

Cindy asked me, "Are you Mom's new boyfriend?"

Both of us blushed, and stammered a bit while all four girls giggled.

"Er, um, not exactly. But we have a different surprise for you." I finally got out.

"Amy and her girls are going to come up to Seattle in a week, and join us for part of your Whirlyball camp!" The twins squealed, and quickly explained to the other two girls the fine points of Whirlyball.

Lori and Cindy were thrilled. "Mom, that sounds like SO much fun! But where will we stay?"

Milly and Lily replied, "You're staying at our house. We'll push the beds in our room together to make a HUGE bed, and you guys can sleep with us!"

Lori and Cindy looked at each other, and then at their mom, and Lori said, "So Mom. Does that mean that you and Ron are going to push your beds together too?" The girls tried to look innocent and angelic, but just this was belied by a tiny glimmer of demonic glee in their eyes.

Amy turned a pleasing shade of crimson, and seemed to be having trouble using her words. One occasionally hears about animals eating their young. The look on Amy's face suggested to me that this possibility could not be excluded. Just before live steam began to figuratively shoot out of her ears, her daughters said, "Just kidding, Mom!".

I quickly added, "Guest room! But we have a different surprise for you!"

All four girls stopped their giggling, and said, "What is it?"

"We decided that if you girls are all really good... REALLY good..." I paused to look pointedly at Lori, who looked down at her feet and muttered, "Sorry, Mom!."

"Really, really good..." I repeated, and added "We're all going to go to an extra week of family camp at the end of the summer!"

The four girls shrieked, and babbled a barely comprehensible collage of, "Oh my god!" "Mom!" "Dad!" "Best parents ever!" and the like.

Later that day, the seven of us headed west on I-90 to Seattle. Mark leaned over to me. "You seem a lot more chipper than you were on the trip out here."

"Yeah, I guess I am. You are both rat bastards for tricking me into coming out here, but I forgive you. The camp was wonderful, and the girls and I both had a fabulous time here. It was just what I needed after the past 8 months of absolute hell."

Lisa said, "We're glad that you did. We apologize for the false pretenses, but not for the result. We're glad that our deceptive — but well-meaning — kick in the ass got you out of the pit of despair that you've been wallowing in for the past few months."

"Yeah," said Mark. "You really made a lot of friends at camp, and I hear that Amy has you playing the piano again."

"Yep. She is an impressive woman. Every single day she would do something or say something that would amaze me. That dance that you guys played together on campers' night — you were having so much fun that it just blew me away. Mom and Dad made us all take piano lessons as kids, and I hated mine. It had never occurred to me that playing music could be joyful, but you guys convinced me that night! Amy led me on a few baby steps into how to play chords on the piano. I'd love to get to know her better. But even if we never do anything but piano lessons, it will be worth it to me."

Mark smiled. "Yes, I've jammed a bit with Amy at several camps and festivals. She's a great piano player. I have a high opinion of my own fiddle playing, but I sound twice as good when I'm playing with her."

Lisa asked, "Did I hear that you guys are going to the new Oregon camp at the end of August? We had heard about it but can't get the time off."

"Yep, we managed to snag the last few open spots on the roster. We'll give you a review afterwards. Maybe we can all go there together next year!'

* * *

The girls fell in love with climbing during their week-long camp at the climbing gym. They had been there once before for a friend's birthday party. However, school and other activities had kept them too busy to return. When I brought them to the first day of their climbing class, they were a bit timid at first. However, by the time I returned to pick them up, they were in the midst of a melée of other small primates, scampering up a thirty-foot climbing wall, and then rappelling down in joyous, graceful bounds. By the end of the week, they were confidently ascending some pitches that I found frankly terrifying.

The twins had always been somewhat competitive, but now they were pushing each other to go up some of the adult pitches. When their arms were too short to reach a handhold that required the wingspan of a grownup, they would hurl themselves off into space toward the hold, often reaching it. A fair amount of time they would fall short, and then just fall, but only a foot or so, before the adult instructor belaying them would lower them gently to the ground. They both gave their instructors big hugs, and then ran chattering to me. "Did you see me, Dad?" "Can we do this after school this year, Dad?" "Can we build our own climbing wall at home, Dad?" "Can we go bouldering this weekend, Dad?"

I drove the two young simians back to our house, and fed them supper. After their bath, I read them a bedtime story. They almost made it to the end of the story before they were both out like a light.

During the weekend, the twins helped me clean up the house and get it ready for our guests. We stripped all the beds and put on clean sheets. We then did laundry and then took turns running the vacuum cleaner. I asked them, "Please remind me, what time are Amy, Lori and Cindy planning to arrive this evening?"

"Cindy texted us, Dad. They just left Olympia, and they expect to get here about 5:30."

"Great! That will give us time to buy a few groceries. What do they want for supper, and what do they like for breakfast?"

The girls had our entire shopping list organized by the time we got to the store. When we got back home, we stashed all of the eggs, bacon, bagels, fresh fruit, granola, and other breakfast items. I had decided to make a seafood paella for dinner tonight. The girls helped me remove the shells from the shrimp and rinse the clams. They also helped me to cut up a halibut steak into small morsels of meat.

Meanwhile, I heated some chicken stock in a pan on the stove, and dropped in a few pinches of saffron to warm up. I then stir-fried the paella rice in some olive oil for a few minutes, to toast the rice grains. Finally, I poured the warm, saffron chicken broth into the paella pan with the rice, and added the pieces of fish, shrimp and clams. I popped the whole pan into the oven for about 30 minutes.