The Lost Scotsman

Curiosity, tumult, perseverance and redemption in ghillies. Inscribe it on my kilt pin: "I survived Scottish Country Dancing!"

Ten minutes before the ball and I worry about my invited guest. Madame Noire has called for directions, navigating through a Tucson that has outgrown her memories. I stand outside the hall and look out over 4th Avenue in hopes of spotting her modern-day carriage. A few students of the dormitory down the street are smiling at my presence, this kilted lad with the puffy shirt, diced hose, and bright red weskit enveloped in Royal Stewart plaid and topped with a Jacobite bonnet. A lace jabot sprouts from my neck in a nod to formality.

Inside an intimate assembly is forming: gentlemen in kilts accompanied by t-shirts or ties or Bonnie Prince Charley jackets, ladies in formal dresses with tartan sashes. I spot neither balmoral nor glengarry. They are modern Scots, save for a lad who strides onto the floor in leather leggings. His kilt, like my 1740's weskit, features pockets rendering a sporran unnecessary. I shun the standard pouch as well, appearing more the Highland nobleman than Highland warrior.

"This is my first time trying Scottish Country Dancing," I say to one of the ladies. "I'm used to English Country Dancing."

Some of that is on the program, she reassures me, but I'm more anticipatory than apprehensive. The thought of attending this soiree has bubbled within me for more than a month. I've seen Scottish Country Dancing, tried a few steps, and satisfied myself that I can handle it... or at least fake it. My chief concern is the "skip change," that elusive skipping step. A lady demonstrated it for me several times at a festival in Phoenix and I still could not master it. I will just skip my way, I decide, my own special English nobleman way.

Without my invited partner, the time of the grand procession arrives. I turn off my modern communications device and revert back to my gentlemanly instincts as a seeker of unaccompanied ladies. Yet before I can even query one, she finds me: a young lady in a modern blue top and dress slacks, who curtsies with vigor even though we have not been introduced. Off we march about the room, in columns of twos and fours and eights, linking arms but omitting the serpentine journeys of marches from the past.

"There she is," I whisper to myself. I spot Madame in the doorway as the procession concludes. She has made it through the tangle of the side streets to enter in her plaid Victorian dress.

My code of honour prohibits me from casting off my present partner for the opening set dance. She warmly accepts me for my first attempt at a Scottish Country Dance, a four-couple set.

We walk through it quickly: the 1 couple half figure-eights around the 2 and the 3 couple, then back up to place. First corners set and turn. Second corners set and turn. Left-hand star, or "wheel," as they call it. Right-hand star. Turn around, start all over again with the second couple. Somewhere in there a progression takes place, I think. Our caller goes through the steps one more time without demonstration, and then our trio of musicians -- piano, bass, fiddle -- begin.

It is obvious from the first note I am a newbie in a room filled with experienced dancers. They show it. They glide through each figure while I'm learning it on the floor. My figure-eight looks like a cast off, and my setting could make somebody wonder if I'm wearing lead ghillies. My partner bounds through it effortlessly, prompting me on occasion, always keeping her toes properly pointed with the limberness of wet leather. I cannot figure out the progression -- is the 2 couple moving up to 1, or is the 2 couple doing the 1 couple's duties from down the line? Our caller -- she isn't calling. I need the direction, but somehow I get through it with a minimum of error, and I am glad Madame has sat this one out. I know it's way above her comfort zone and barely above mine.

The dance ends with a low bow on my part and words of thanks to my partner before I scurry off to meet Madame. However, another gentleman reaches her first in asking for a dance. He sees I am her companion for this evening and offers to back out. Again though, my code of honour will not have it.

"I shall defer, my good man."

I bow to another lady, and we line up for an English dance... an advanced one.

English Country Dance, at least the dances I love and have stepped many times, embody a beautiful symmetry and predictability. A circle to the right is paired with a circle to the left. A right-hand cross follows a left-cross. Stars move around to the left and then to the right. This dance, as we walk through it, begins with a first corner set and turn single. Check. Then the a second-corner turn. Hmm. Then the first corners cross and turn. Then the second corners set and turn.

The symmetry is there, fair enough, but not in the places I expect. Even the more experienced dancers around me walk through it with uncertainty. I whisper in haste to sort out their confusion, but a lady across the set politely shushes me with a finger to her lip: "Only the caller talks." Fortunately, we only have a few more steps before the compulsory cast-off, progression and restart.

The music begins. Bows and curtsies and... where's the call?

We're doing this Colonial style. No caller, no way, no how. In the 1700's, if you didn't know a dance, you found somebody who did, and he or she listed the steps without even a walkthrough. Of course, my tricorned ancestors danced with rigorous regularity. I like to think I inherited their DNA and at least some of their devotion, but a few genes are still recessive. I need that call, at least for the first few iterations. Then the prompting voice can fade off while we prance about. Again, I survive it with a few errors here and there, relieved my dancing companions have such tolerance for a person still refining his skills.

At last I can join Madame for a Scottish four-couple set. Whatever awaits us, we're going through it together.

So together we bumble through this nightmarish jig of crossing to corners and turning and facing diagonals, then turning to other diagonals from the center in a perplexing W formation, then somehow getting back to place and progressing in a way I cannot understand. My fellow dancers, bless them, have enough patience to lead us through it where needed and roll with our mistakes.

"Face this way."

"Now turn."

"You dance with her."

"This way."

A few of them stagger here and there, but it's one mistake to our three. People take lessons to learn Scottish dance. I wonder how long it takes before they have learned a dance like this.

It doesn't last long. Thankfully.

"I destroyed that dance," I apologized. "I'm sorry."

"That was an advanced one," a fellow dancer consoles, brushing aside any need for regrets. "It's one of the two tough dances we'll do tonight." I find my ballroom companions have rehearsed a couple of nights before.

For the next Scottish dance, a experienced lady whom I've met before offers her hand, and I bow in relief as much as admiration. I need to learn from a pro rather than subject Madame to another blind caper. It starts out promising: a circle forward and back.

"It's a Strathspey," my partner explains. "Slow and elegant."

I know slow and elegant... but not with that Strathspey step, that skip that isn't a skip. It's not the dreaded skip change, but I can't seem to make my feet do it right. They want to hop the English way, without regard to rules. Maybe it's the Patriot way, a disdain for conformity and rule of the mother country. A few more turns and cast offs, and then my partner is not shy about maneuvering me into position when we need to promenade, arranging my hands around her in another figure I'm learning on the floor. The dance itself only lasts three iterations, so we perform an encore. I do better this time. A little better.

We have several breaks to partake of punch and shortbreads and introduce ourselves.

"Did you make that dress?" a lady asks Madame.

"Yes!" She describes her sewing experience with vigor. Madame is working up to an 18th Century polonaise gown, a gigantic undertaking for any seamstress, colonial or modern.

A lady takes interest in my Highland attire as well: "Did you make that?"

"The weskit came from eBay," I begin. "The kilt and plaids came from Sportkilt. And the shirt came from Kidder Brothers of Bisbee."

She's amazed. They make Scottish clothing in Arizona! They make Scottish dance lessons, too, ones I cannot attend because they're on the nights I work.

The other advanced dance of the evening is upon us now: Ladies' Fancy.

The first man turns the second woman by right hands. Then he turns the first woman one time around and a half to finish with that woman on his right and the second woman on his left. Then all three lead down and back to original places. So far, a twist, but nothing extraordinarily fancy, despite the title. First and second couples dance hands across and back. Then the first and second couples pousette.

Oh, I know that step. But again, the Scots and the English do it differently. The English couples take both hands and weave around each other in a diamond formation, pushing and pulling. As for the Scots, they throw in a twist.

"It's a square," says my partner, that advanced acquaintance who's rejoined me for another dance on the suggestion of the caller who wants to make sure the newbies are paired with the experienced. "Just let me push you around."

"I'm used to that," I reply.

It doesn't seem like a square, or a diamond, but some weaving oval with that skipping step I can't master but can fake.

"Don't hop around so much," my partner smiles.

Through her help and direction, I survive another one. Survival is the word of the night. Each dance is a glorious test, some sort of challenge to conquer, but I would rather lose myself in a dance than worry about the steps.

The time comes for another English dance, one called Prince William. I did not realize it at the time, but it's the same dance featured in the movie version of Pride & Prejudice, and one I have previously discussed here. If only somebody had warned me we were about to do the dance with the "mirror hey," I would have recalled the organized disaster about to befall us.

"Don't worry," I whispered to my lady.

Never mind the figures or the written instructions or the turns. Just picture two people among six being guided from the sidelines by two ladies talking at once, often over each other, guiding and directing in addition to the caller, pointing us here and there and everywhere to swing that lady and then the next one on that dreadful diagonal and then to the middle. We knew we were in trouble when the caller had us walk through the mirror hey twice. The dance goes on, and I struggle to remember which figure is next or which lady diagonal from me to turn. Usually with me, dances clarify themselves by the third time through from the top. I can't understand. Why am I not learning this?

Inside of me, I'm boiling. These kind ladies are trying to help, I know, but my frustration is leeching away all the fun. This may be old hat for the advanced dancers, but for my partner and I, it's merry torture. I am walking aimlessly when I can't remember who to turn. This is not what I would define as losing oneself in a dance. In other times, in other groups, we'd just substitute simpler steps and dance on. Our coaches from the side, however, are determined and relentless.

An angry thought flashes through me of shouting, "Stop! Stop! Stop! This is not the kind of dance you do at a ball where you've advertised 'No experience necessary!'" An image of taking Madame Noire by the hand and leading her out of this mess crosses my synapses. My eyes are tearing up. I hate burdening these people who know what they are doing, trying to enjoy the dance, and I feel for the ladies who must watch over us. Prince William, you are the Prince of Darkness!

Fortunately, the better angels of my nature prevail. No outbursts, no escapes. I carry forward.

Mentally battered but grateful to the other couples for tolerating us, the last dance of the evening is announced. It's another English Dance in waltz time. The caller describes it, starting with a right- and left- hand star. Ahh, symmetrical. Next, a sashay down the middle. This sounds familiar. Cast off and then step forward and back to your partner, turning her underneath.

"I've done this before," I say to Madame with excited anticipation.

Turn the lady diagonally from you by the right hand, then your partner by the left.

"It's the Duke of Kent's Waltz," our caller says.

"Finally," I say. The opening bars of Etta James' "At Last" float through my head. This is a dance I'm familiar with, one full of elegance and courtliness and opportunity to lose myself the proper way. I savor every moment, knowing the dance well enough not even to need the caller. This is what I live for, the redemption for all my dance sins.

We thank our musicians and our callers. I thank the various ladies around me again for tolerating my unfamiliarity.

"You did fine!" several say. A few encourage me to come to the Thursday night Scottish dance lessons. I would, I tell them, if I didn't have to work nights.

It is both frustrating and heartbreaking for me to know failure and not have a chance to improve or correct all my missteps, especially in my dearest diversion of dance. I know I can do better than this. One should enjoy the evening, not merely weather it. Otherwise, what is the point of the exercise? I thank the LORD for the kindness of these strangers, and they know exactly how I feel.

"I've been dancing for 10 years and I still mess up," a lady answers.

"We were all new once," says another.

"We're not one of those groups where, if you're a newcomer, we tell you to go to that set over there," a man says.

Madame tells me she had a good time. All things considered, I gather I did too, by definition. Any night I can wear a kilt is a good one, and I shall wear it again and again, taking those chances to dance where I can get them.

Another lady invites me to join a local Regency society.

"You can wear that!" she proclaims, admiring my Highland dress.

"This?"

"Yes!"

And hopefully, dance in it.