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Goodbye Pinewoods
Aug. 12th, 2023 06:02 pmSo I just finished my last day of crew! I worked three full and eight half shifts in fifteen days, which is a normal amount for volunteers (plus I helped out with dishes one night, which was a special treat for me and also a favour for Echo). I played in a DnD one-shot, I went on a "cabin crawl" and did my first jell-o shot, I attended a crew party at Cottey House (including walking there alone in the dark, my first time ever out there and no lantern because I am a bad- and/or dumb- -ass), I swam by the crew dock, I did laundry twice, I participated in Crusic Creague1, and hopefully I am gonna get a crew shirt for this year. And a pair of booty shorts that say "preserve the magic" across the ass.
I did cabin checks (fire alarms are the _worst_ and I now have opinions on different brands). I went on bathroom runs (Almost every single one! I missed Aberdeen, Hit&Miss, and maybe Grenoside?2). I dealt with bodily fluids and broken glass. I did a trash run and sorted recycling while singing along to Assassins. I did first aid room laundry. I went skinny-dipping while on the clock (had to find out if the round pond dock was still anchored and couldn't be arsed to get my suit) I carried chairs (so many chairs). I carried mattresses. I carried bedframes. I carried tables. Really, if it's at camp and moves around, I might've gotten to carry it. I even got to drive the EZ-go a few times!
I attended at least a little bit of four different sessions, none of which I'd been to before, and did some serious spying on CDSS for when Magus and Keira run Scottish Sessions next year. I danced, and partied, and attended classes, and did Morris for the very first time, and ran a Scottish ceilidh and a proper Scottish Country Dance class, and spent some money in the auctions and did all the normal Pinewoods things, but in totally different sessions and with totally different friends.
It was an unqualified success. Whatever it was I was looking for or expecting on crew was here for me. I spent over two weeks in one of my favourite places in the entire world, getting to help out3. Were there occasional hurt feelings, dramas, weirdness, the overwhelming exhaustion of Wednesday? Absolutely. But they were largely shadowed by the joy and goofiness and laughter. I spent so much time with people, and in good company, but I also spent so much time in my own company, daydreaming or reading or exploring. It gave me back some of the first-time magic I haven't had since I first went to camp4.
It has been an incredible few weeks. I am very sad to leave tomorrow, but there are good things at home, too! I have been saying I'll come back for the end-of-season work weekend, and I think I mean it. Being a part of this particular space has been really damn good.
Last night I danced like a man possessed to one of the hottest jam-bands I've ever had the pleasure to hear. Kerry sets, the good version of Monymusk5, a schottische, maybe my first ever hambo, an amazing waltz with a person who used to own the ballroom I learned to dance in6. And then...and then the organized dancing died out but the music was still pumping and it just turned into wild club-dancing, with body percussion and highland steps and the macarena and handstands and headbanging. Not just me, but there were points where it was mostly me, where I had an empty floor and full ears and oh gods and stars, that remains all I ever want-need-crave in life.
I wear the title Demigoddex of Dance for a reason, and that reason has never been because of my prowess in the folk world, extensive though it is.
Afterwards, a dozen or so of us went out to the dock and lay zig-zagged with our heads on each others' bellies or legs, and we watched the stars shoot across the sky. We laughed, and smiled, and touched, and stared into a night sky unfettered by light or clouds. Yes, I had one more day of work and I have one more evening of play, but that was a perfect close to camp.
My summer vacation has been incredible, and I don't have any idea how to put that into words for my coworkers when they ask.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Crew has a habit of appending the Cr- prefix to words. Music League's a pretty cool little group game where you have a theme and everyone chooses songs. Then we vote on the best one! I might start up a group playing it later this fall if folks are interested (it runs through Spotify, so that's a pre-req)
2: It is very convenient that I have a list of all bathrooms in camp that was sent to me in 2021. Yes, this footnote was written for exactly one person. <3
3: SERVICE IS LIFE [/dani rojas]
4: I've been wondering this entire time, and I finally looked it up -- 2011 was my first Scottish ('11 I did only s2, '12 only s1, '13-'22 both sessions, this year I went to a wedding instead), I've been to every ESCape since it started in 2015. I've done a couple work weekends (at least three I think? I know 2021 since it was Chris's like...first day on the job, don't remember the other years), and this year I did LCFD for their first year. So that's where we're at. I think I stayed in Fieldtown4(?) my first year, had one S1 in one of those all-three-sessions years where I did Bampton2(?) with Austin, and stayed in Pinecones or Hunsdon for the work weekends. Every other time has been my beloved home, Kitty Alone. FUN DATA WOO!
5: It is a mediocre-at-best Scottish Country Dance and I do not feel sorry for saying that. Eight bars of strathspey setting is unnecessary. Do that setting with stomping instead, and you've got something workable.
6: Renee and Alex were at camp! They were both politely flabbergasted to see me, and it was really cool to get to re-connect with them after so long apart (they left Maryland a couple years after I did, and never really got to know me as an adult or a dancer).
I did cabin checks (fire alarms are the _worst_ and I now have opinions on different brands). I went on bathroom runs (Almost every single one! I missed Aberdeen, Hit&Miss, and maybe Grenoside?2). I dealt with bodily fluids and broken glass. I did a trash run and sorted recycling while singing along to Assassins. I did first aid room laundry. I went skinny-dipping while on the clock (had to find out if the round pond dock was still anchored and couldn't be arsed to get my suit) I carried chairs (so many chairs). I carried mattresses. I carried bedframes. I carried tables. Really, if it's at camp and moves around, I might've gotten to carry it. I even got to drive the EZ-go a few times!
I attended at least a little bit of four different sessions, none of which I'd been to before, and did some serious spying on CDSS for when Magus and Keira run Scottish Sessions next year. I danced, and partied, and attended classes, and did Morris for the very first time, and ran a Scottish ceilidh and a proper Scottish Country Dance class, and spent some money in the auctions and did all the normal Pinewoods things, but in totally different sessions and with totally different friends.
It was an unqualified success. Whatever it was I was looking for or expecting on crew was here for me. I spent over two weeks in one of my favourite places in the entire world, getting to help out3. Were there occasional hurt feelings, dramas, weirdness, the overwhelming exhaustion of Wednesday? Absolutely. But they were largely shadowed by the joy and goofiness and laughter. I spent so much time with people, and in good company, but I also spent so much time in my own company, daydreaming or reading or exploring. It gave me back some of the first-time magic I haven't had since I first went to camp4.
It has been an incredible few weeks. I am very sad to leave tomorrow, but there are good things at home, too! I have been saying I'll come back for the end-of-season work weekend, and I think I mean it. Being a part of this particular space has been really damn good.
Last night I danced like a man possessed to one of the hottest jam-bands I've ever had the pleasure to hear. Kerry sets, the good version of Monymusk5, a schottische, maybe my first ever hambo, an amazing waltz with a person who used to own the ballroom I learned to dance in6. And then...and then the organized dancing died out but the music was still pumping and it just turned into wild club-dancing, with body percussion and highland steps and the macarena and handstands and headbanging. Not just me, but there were points where it was mostly me, where I had an empty floor and full ears and oh gods and stars, that remains all I ever want-need-crave in life.
I wear the title Demigoddex of Dance for a reason, and that reason has never been because of my prowess in the folk world, extensive though it is.
Afterwards, a dozen or so of us went out to the dock and lay zig-zagged with our heads on each others' bellies or legs, and we watched the stars shoot across the sky. We laughed, and smiled, and touched, and stared into a night sky unfettered by light or clouds. Yes, I had one more day of work and I have one more evening of play, but that was a perfect close to camp.
My summer vacation has been incredible, and I don't have any idea how to put that into words for my coworkers when they ask.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Crew has a habit of appending the Cr- prefix to words. Music League's a pretty cool little group game where you have a theme and everyone chooses songs. Then we vote on the best one! I might start up a group playing it later this fall if folks are interested (it runs through Spotify, so that's a pre-req)
2: It is very convenient that I have a list of all bathrooms in camp that was sent to me in 2021. Yes, this footnote was written for exactly one person. <3
3: SERVICE IS LIFE [/dani rojas]
4: I've been wondering this entire time, and I finally looked it up -- 2011 was my first Scottish ('11 I did only s2, '12 only s1, '13-'22 both sessions, this year I went to a wedding instead), I've been to every ESCape since it started in 2015. I've done a couple work weekends (at least three I think? I know 2021 since it was Chris's like...first day on the job, don't remember the other years), and this year I did LCFD for their first year. So that's where we're at. I think I stayed in Fieldtown4(?) my first year, had one S1 in one of those all-three-sessions years where I did Bampton2(?) with Austin, and stayed in Pinecones or Hunsdon for the work weekends. Every other time has been my beloved home, Kitty Alone. FUN DATA WOO!
5: It is a mediocre-at-best Scottish Country Dance and I do not feel sorry for saying that. Eight bars of strathspey setting is unnecessary. Do that setting with stomping instead, and you've got something workable.
6: Renee and Alex were at camp! They were both politely flabbergasted to see me, and it was really cool to get to re-connect with them after so long apart (they left Maryland a couple years after I did, and never really got to know me as an adult or a dancer).