Besides allergy sufferers, who doesn’t love spring? I love spring, but given the importance of April – Earth Day Season – to my job, spring is hectic for me and I don’t get to savor it. I mean, I notice the weather changing, flowers and trees blooming and all that, but don’t get outside much until mid-May. So the thing that’s come to signal full-on spring and the beginning of summer to me is the Kimmswick dance weekend that I go to every year on or near Memorial Day weekend.
It’s held at Cuivre River State Park near Troy, Missouri, which is in a very beautiful, heavily wooded area. There are bunk houses that sleep eight (with bunk beds), grouped into “villages” of six cabins and a showerhouse. Some of us have taken to staying in the same cabin every year and we arrive early to clean and decorate it with twinkly lights, pinwheels and lawn flamingos.
However, my first visit to Kimmswick was traumatic. I came down with some friends and I believe I’ve never had more fun than I had that weekend. HOT dancing and lots of laughs. However, as we were eating breakfast on Monday morning and preparing to go home, I got called to the dining hall phone (I had uncharacteristically left this emergency number with my parents) and heard my dad’s choked-up voice telling me my mom had had a stroke and probably wasn’t going to make it. My friends got my stuff and me into the car and got me to the hospital in Independence in record time and took such good care of me. (My mom lived, wheelchair-bound for another five years, but that’s a story for another time…) I wasn’t sure I would ever feel as happy at Kimmswick again after that. But I did, and I do, every year.
I haven’t written much about contra dancing (yet – stay tuned for my next post), but let me tell you, there’s some great and abundant dancing at Kimmswick. (Here’s a video from 2007.) But for me, it’s as much about the visiting as the dancing.
The second year I came, I traveled alone, worried that I wouldn’t know many people there. That’s when I devised a brilliant strategy: I set up two extra lawn chairs next to me. I’d ensconce myself with a book and some sewing under the trees outside the dance hall. I’d dance a bit, and sit a bit. Every year, I’d sit and visit more and dance less (during the day, at least – I dance my ass off at night) and someone would alway join me. My friend D. always says I “hold court” there, but really, it’s just the extra chair trick. I could sit there all day, breathing in the fresh, spring air and listening to the bands play. Some times it’s the first real relaxing I’ve done in a while.
It’s almost always perfect and sunny. I’ve been going there for nine years (this was the 47th Kimmswick weekend – they used to have it twice a year, so I don’t know how many years that is) and there have been torrential rains, cold weather, hot weather, but more often than not, it’s been that perfect spring weather – sunny and 80 degrees in the afternoon, lovely and cool at night.
OK, it might be more perfect in my memory, but still…
This year, there were good friends who couldn’t go, but other folks I got to know better as a result. There was some hard rain, but some sunshine during the day. It was both hot and cold. Lots of ticks. We held our sewing circle in the dining hall to avoid the rain, and visited a quilt shop in town. B. and I got ice cream at a local joint called Krumbly Burger, in memory of a trip I took there my first year. The potlucks were wonderful and so was the company and the dancing.
(There was a weird little cloud over my head, though. I was NOT dancing well. I pride myself on being an accomplished contra dancer, but I was screwing up right and left. It was so frustrating at the last morning’s dance that I had a mini-meltdown and cried for a few minutes. This was the only time I can remember when I couldn’t just laugh off my mistakes – and everyone makes mistakes in this kind of dancing. But I was having brain farts of such massive proportions and I couldn’t seem to concentrate enough to overcome them. I don’t know if I was just sleep deprived or if I’m having some hormonal menopausal deal or if I’m really losing it. I’m going to go with sleep deprivation, but plan to keep an eye on myself…)
This is the place I’ve gotten to know people that are now very important to me. It’s the place where I can slip off my shoes and ease into summer. It’s the place where I can dance without restraint or sit still without guilt. Thanks, Kimmswick.
