five thousand shades of blue
Monday, July 02, 2001
As I read
Martha's blog about peace and solitude in the Canadian countryside, I suddenly realized an added benefit of going to all of these
SCA events: getting to commune with nature. There are lots of things to do at these events, but the summertime is what we call "Tourney Season" and the event that just happened was a War (I am not a fighter, so that aspect just doesn't appeal to me, and there is not, of yet, combative calligraphy tournaments). When I wasn't visiting with people, attending court, and traipsing through Merchants Row dressed to the nines in finery and jewelry and being mistaken for royalty (which is lots of fun), I spent the time this weekend sitting in our tree-enclosed camp, listening to the baby birds making sounds strangely like a camera rewinding as they called for their mother, watching spiders spin their web, ground squirrels running back and forth with new-found treasure, and watching the wind blow through the branches. The sun fell quickly behind the mountains; darkness comes so fast in the valley where we are, and especially so that much closer to the mountains. The moon was just about full and lit up the landscape with its gentle silver glow. Out in the country the stars are so beautiful and crystal clear, and looking out across a field spotted with the glow of campfires, and the moonlight touching on the peaks of the pavilions and tents, one tends to wonder if this was anything close to what our ancestors saw.
Inevitably, though, these things are over far too fast, and breaking down camp is always a little depressing. I didn't get to see nearly as many people as I had hoped, but I did get to meet and make new friends with people I hadn't expected to, so it all worked out. I sometimes feel sad when I think of the people I have known and the people I would like to know, and how we dance through our lives like fireflies in the breeze, occasionally meeting up with those we feel an affinity for, and and even more rarely we're lucky enough to keep those people close to us as we continue our journey. Sometimes I wish I could gather up all of those people I've known and loved and somehow keep them close to me.
On a slightly less philisophical note, Andra got a Kingdom grant level award this weekend, a service award known as a
Goutte de Sang (literally, "drop of blood"). For those reading who are going,
"HUH?", this is a Rather Big Tadoo. The award is called that as a play on the service peerage known in the SCA as a Pelican (of which the Goutte is more or less one step below). It is so called for the pelican who pierces her breast to feed her babies (hence, drop of blood). It's been a long time coming -- I think it
may just have been my recommendation (which listed what she's done point-by-point) that finally made the Crown sit up and take notice! Andra tells me that the Queen lauded her with heaps of praise as she was given her award (I was not close enough to hear). WOO! I'm really very proud of her. Now she gets to be called Her Ladyship, and the boat jokes have already begun. ;)
is
this just not enough…?
