Campers

Music and community

While I’ve long been a proponent of writing and songwriting groups and retreats, I’m relatively new to the music camp experience. But a few years back, I attended the Pacific Songwriter Camp and I started to connect with a whole other world of acoustic music-makers affiliated with long-running gatherings such as CCMC and Yosemite Songwriting Retreat. As such, a few days after returning from Hawaii, I found myself at a semi-private gathering of Pacific/CCMC/Yosemite/FAR-West associated musicians in California’s Gold Country.

Two hours north east of the Bay Area is a different world. There, the heat and sprawl of Sacramento and Davis spill into the American River valley, where I’ve never before spent time, until this past week, camping by the slow-flowing river with 35+ other musicians and songwriters.

Despite having spent most of my life in California and a good chunk of time traveling, I see in instances like this, how provincial I actually am. My usual proximity to the Pacific means that most of the rivers I’m nearby tend to get overshadowed by the ocean. Here in El Dorado County, Gold Country, the river has yet to be subsumed by the sea, and simply winds and trickles and eddies along, insisting everything organize around it.

My songwriter friend Nancy and her family are river people, and one of her sisters has run a campground just outside of Lotus for four decades. During the summer, the grounds are teaming with river rafters, but by fall, the off-season, there’s room for several dozen musicians to gather in tents, trailers and several of the small cabins on site. With its split log benches thoughtfully placed along the river, scattered picnic tables, small riverside beaches and a barn outfitted with a kitchen, Camp Lotus added up to a great place to bring pen, paper, instrument(s) and an open heart to see what could be done.

I was so tired when I arrived on Tuesday, I put up my tent and wandered around for most of the afternoon, doubting my ability to write anything. Maybe I’d just sit by the river for a spell and watch birds, of which there was no shortage. But I was surrounded not only by the sound of honking Canada Geese and chattering Bewick’s Wrens, but that of fiddles and guitars, cellos and mandolins, and the general, very distinct hum of making.

Being around all that creative energy was motivating to say the least. I completed a draft of a song before dinner, when everyone gathered on the barn patio for a catered meal. The song wasn’t necessarily a keeper but a reminder, again, of the power and impact of communities of shared interest. The nightly open mic only amplified that spirit. After dinner, the sun set, the stars came out and the tables were cleared to clear a small stage and set up a condenser mic. Any one who wanted to perform a tune could place their name in a basket and nearly everyone was game. Over the next couple of hours, seasoned performers and first-time songwriters alike took the stage to share their songs under the stars.

Over the course of the week of camping, jamming, hiking, drawing, writing and meditating together as much or as little as one liked, many new collaborations and songs bloomed. Thursday night, the last of the nightly open mics went late because all 35 people who were still at camp played a song or read a poem. A couple of friends encouraged me to play my nascent song, and as is often the case, playing a song to an audience for the first time gave it new life. Perhaps this was a keeper after all? Time will tell…

After four or five days together, everyone had settled into a groove, including me. Miraculously, I'd slept soundly through the night and later than usual, waking to bright sunlight streaming through the walls of my tent. I stumbled up to the barn for coffee and found a half dozen other campers lingering over breakfast and goodbyes, agreeing that it would be nice to stay on longer.