Campersand, and sand and camp

Part two of my three part series on Campersand 2023, Amanda Palmer's patron retreat in the mountains of New York.

Readjusting to day-to-day life, post Campersand, has been a trying process. Several times at camp we were instructed to be gentle with ourselves; the acclamation process could be harsh. I expected to feel a bit of post-camp-crud, but I’ve been finding myself in some dark places, mentally. Some arguments here and there, overstimulation from my pets and my family, struggling with Verizon over network issues… It has not been easy.

I hope all of my campersand friends are treating themselves with kindness this week. We’ll get back to reality.

Tuesday.

Tuesday morning we received an adorable reusable tote bag with a few Campersand branded items. A wonderful aluminum water bottle, a campersand sticker, small journal, and a pencil. Even though my hand aches when I write with a pencil or pen for a long period of time, I participated in writing down my goals for my stay at camp.

I’ve felt lost at sea, and my goal with camp was to find myself again.

[Author note: I have encountered a point at which I do not recall what point in the day we did a certain activity, so I will share it here because I think it was during the morning.

At one point we were led on a pre-silent walk-walk. We all took our shoes off, and one by one, followed Amanda out of the theatre, out on the asphalt, down behind the lake theatre onto the grass, and down the path, through some puddles, to the sandy shore of the lake that we were not allowed to swim in.

We were instructed, before departing on this walk, to notice things around us, to notice our thoughts… I noticed that walking along the path some of the textures were rough and slightly painful, some were soft and soothing, others uncomfortable… and I found it to be a bit of a metaphor for life in general. Once we reached the lake, both Amanda and Manta entered the water, briefly, to acknowledge each other and then break our temporary silence. We made Omega nervous with that one, I think, but they didn’t shake a finger at us too much.]

I was eagerly awaiting the MUNZ Floor movement workshop with Coco Karol, however I was unable to participate due to health concerns. I attempted to sit by and watch my fellow campers do the exercise, while trying to learn a new crochet pattern, however, I was frustrated with not being able to participate so I went back to my dorm.

Given the food problems I had encountered with the dining hall, I put together an Instacart order of a few frozen meal items, some ham & cheese, bread, and some snacks. Lucky for me, the store I ordered from (Topps Market) actually had Fresca in stock! This made the rest of the trip a little more tolerable, to be able to have access to some of my safe foods, and my favorite soda. Comforts from home.

I made my way to the dining hall, and to my surprise the meal was probably my favorite of the entire week. Chicken thighs, a wild mushroom medley, and white rice. I had seconds.

Note the pile of salt - I can thank my autonomic nervous system for malfunctioning for my need for a larger than normal intake of sodium. Still, I think this was the last of the dining hall meals I was able to stomach.

The afternoon workshop began a little bit before I arrived back at Lake Theatre.

Dahlia and her team from Fruition Chocolate Works were giving the group a presentation on chocolate ahead of our chocolate tasting. Fruition has been making small runs of chocolate for both the Dresden Dolls and Amanda Palmer shows, and I knew they had something in store for us after my short stop at their location just down the road from Woodstock the last time I was there.

When I sat down, Elliot from Fruition brought over my sampling plate and I was reminded of why I find them so adorable. Their energy just lights up a room and they went around photographing with a Polaroid InstaX (I’m pretty sure it was the same model I have, the Evo hybrid) and capturing the moments of the campers deep in the enjoyment of whichever chocolate they had been tasting at that moment.

The bonbon in the middle was ceremoniously savored by everyone at the same time, to an utterance of mms and other satisfied sounds. I wanted so much more! Also pictured are the shell & nibs from a freshly roasted cocoa bean. Fruition roasts all of their own cocoa in-house at their Shokan, NY chocolate shop.

We started with a variety of dark chocolates, each stepping down in percentage of cocoa. Asked to close our eyes upon tasting, we were given a journal exercise with our groups to discuss the flavors we could dissect.

Every person who responded with the flavors they found had something different to say, but ultimately all of us had tasted some sort of fruit note. The fascinating fact that I learned about cocoa is that the same chocolate, from the same region, can taste different from harvest to harvest. The flavor profiles that we all experienced would be different if we tried the same product from another year.

Fruition also surprised us with a Campersand branded chocolate to enjoy!

I haven’t yet had the chance to try it, but the wrapper will remain with my collection of Dresden Dolls & Amanda Palmer themed chocolates.

After a short break we jumped right into the next workshop. I had been looking forward to taking one of Nathan’s writing workshops ever since he announced that he was doing them online. I never made the time to sign up, whether I was still in the imposters mindset, or what, I’m not sure. But here we were, Father Nathan Monk presenting his workshop in person for the first time, to us, at Campersand.

Pardon the blurry image, as this one was from my cell phone, zoomed in from the back of the crowd. The timing of Nathan gesturing at a fellow camper’s typewriter made my photographer heart smile.

Father Nathan Monk

is a dyslexic author with ADHD. He was told as a child that he would never achieve anything like this. Now he has three best selling novels, an audiobook for one of them which he narrates himself, and is getting ready to take his show on the road for his Broom of Doom tour. I’d like to personally say fuck you to the educational system that told him (and myself) that we would never be able to get our voices down on paper.

During the Q&A, one camper asked Nathan about writing the same story/song/poem over and over, and if they should consider trying to navigate away from that repetitive touch on the topic. The quote from Nathan that really stuck with me was “Tell the story that is inside of you to the audience who needs it.” I have felt creatively stuck with my own writing because I have felt like my audience does not want to hear about my troubles as much as I speak about them.

Maybe there is an audience who needs to hear my story. I’m driven to get it all out there, and with the renewed confidence I got from this workshop, I was able to create this very Substack you are now a part of.

Dinnertime rolled around and at this point I was thrilled to have purchased my safe foods as I made myself a ham & cheese sandwich and avoided the heavily scented/spiced tofu & chickpea dishes. I appreciate Omega’s commitment to mostly sustainable living and eating, I commend those with more adventurous palates, and I wish I could have appreciated the food a bit more.

After dinner we made our way to the Main Hall for another performance. This time it was Zen Ukulele with Stu Fuchs. This show was very entertaining and opened my mind up to something that I wouldn’t have otherwise ever seen. Stu and his guest, whose name I am forgetting at the moment, performed ukulele songs, accompanied by the clarinet. At one point during the show Stu handed the reins over to his guest and stealthily slid over to the once unoccupied third of the stage.

There, Stu used a variety of instruments including a didgeridoo, a loop recording pedal, a sound bowl, and one item that I found most interesting: a child’s toy that played midi tones of Mary Had a Little Lamb, etc.

During one point of the performance, the group was led in singing Amazing Grace. I sang along, as the song has always reminded me of my great grandmother, Grace Jackson. Later, I would find out, that many people felt uncomfortable with this from having religious trauma. I felt instant compassion for them and felt a bit like I had betrayed some of my fellow campers with my participation.

We gathered again at the Lake Theatre for our nightly Beddy-Bye. I debated whether I should record our bed time serenades, and did so only to be able to jog my memory. I do, however, wish to share this clip of Amanda reading Goodnight Moon to us.

a clip of Amanda Palmer reading us Goodnight Moon

Amanda Palmer, night 3 of Campersand 2023

Healing for my inner child that I didn’t even know I needed.

After beddy-bye, we were to remain silent until after our silent hike in the morning. An interloper had been brought into our hall by one of the other campers, and had followed us out as we departed to our sleeping quarters. While walking up (what I realized only too late as the wrong hill), the interloper asked me what the point of the silence was.

I mimed and pointed toward my head. She curiously looked at me and questioned… “Mind control?”

I laughed, and stopped on my walk to attempt to mime a yogi deep in meditation. “Oh… Mindfulness?”

I pointed at her and nodded. She smiled and said “good luck with that!” and quickened her pace.

I had not gotten a cart because it was after 10pm. The shuttle service from guest services only goes until 10pm. I had not carefully enough paid attention to the route I was supposed to take, and continued to walk until I realized I had gone much out of my way.

I walked back down the hill to try to see the map of campus I had crumpled up in my pocket. Another camper stopped by and tried to help me gain my bearings, but then sorrowfully laughed for and with me about the long trek ahead of me. I had to go all the way back down the hill, around to another path, and back UP a hill.

By the time I reached my accommodations, I was quite uncomfortable, however I did manage to find sleep after a bit of mindful introspection.

My side table in the Elm dorm room. I brought a few comfort items from home including two plants, two buddhas, and my sound machine.

Most of the group! I’m not pictured because, well, I took the picture.

---