There's a thing and a thing then a thing...and a LUNGE!
I wasn't going to go to Ithaca. Too much effort, like everything has been. But I have a very persistent sinister friend and somehow ended up shooting out there for a "weekend". It is amazing what a single visit can do.
Even the drive out there was like hitting a reset button on my mind. Blasting down the Mass Pike from one end to the other, the familiar exits for New York towns I've never seen along the way (Utica, Unadilla, and the impossibly-cheerful-sounding SCHENECTADY!), even the horse-and-carriage sign for Amish furniture, and the evil glowing red cross of doom along 79. Ithaca is home. The whole trip to Ithaca is home.
I managed to arrive Sunday night 5 minutes before The Old Teahouse closed (oh, wonderful honey black bubble tea!), and went to Risley, displaced center of my world at Cornell, to meet up with Ringers I knew and didn't know. My god, how I've _missed_ them! Two days of catching up and laughing and storytelling and teasing and remembering and plotting and, of course, swording. It's odd how you can so quickly grow apart from most people, yet there are some you fall immediately back into step with, even when it's been going on two years since you last spoke face-to-face.
I learned 3 different cracks with a snake whip and refreshed the rapier/dagger fight. Such a rush. Even footwork that left me in the dust (it's been far too long!), turning a moulinet with a rapier, everything felt energizing and _right_. My form sucked, my speed was snail-ish, but every now and then things clicked and flowed and it didn't matter. I was at Cornell, in Risley, rapier in hand, with two of my dearest partners-in-arms (and crosswords), surrounded by Ringers I'd never met, a thriving group from the shaky beginnings I'd been part of. They may not pat their instructor on the head or sing when they move tables, but they are still completely and uniquely ROSI. Only one person was missing, the fourth of the latenight J's crowd, an absence sorely felt. And I suppose the existence of J's would have been nice as well (curses to the West Campus initiative!).
A little bit of everything that mattered at the point when I left Cornell, my friends, Ring, swords, future dreams, we even crashed one of Tom Hill's Icelandic Sagas classes. How can I hold onto that, remember that it meant so much before the current associations? I no longer know which way moves forward or back.
But I raise a toast to the true friends who hold me together. Time and distance are irrelevant, I knew that once, and this weekend was a much-needed reminder.
Even the drive out there was like hitting a reset button on my mind. Blasting down the Mass Pike from one end to the other, the familiar exits for New York towns I've never seen along the way (Utica, Unadilla, and the impossibly-cheerful-sounding SCHENECTADY!), even the horse-and-carriage sign for Amish furniture, and the evil glowing red cross of doom along 79. Ithaca is home. The whole trip to Ithaca is home.
I managed to arrive Sunday night 5 minutes before The Old Teahouse closed (oh, wonderful honey black bubble tea!), and went to Risley, displaced center of my world at Cornell, to meet up with Ringers I knew and didn't know. My god, how I've _missed_ them! Two days of catching up and laughing and storytelling and teasing and remembering and plotting and, of course, swording. It's odd how you can so quickly grow apart from most people, yet there are some you fall immediately back into step with, even when it's been going on two years since you last spoke face-to-face.
I learned 3 different cracks with a snake whip and refreshed the rapier/dagger fight. Such a rush. Even footwork that left me in the dust (it's been far too long!), turning a moulinet with a rapier, everything felt energizing and _right_. My form sucked, my speed was snail-ish, but every now and then things clicked and flowed and it didn't matter. I was at Cornell, in Risley, rapier in hand, with two of my dearest partners-in-arms (and crosswords), surrounded by Ringers I'd never met, a thriving group from the shaky beginnings I'd been part of. They may not pat their instructor on the head or sing when they move tables, but they are still completely and uniquely ROSI. Only one person was missing, the fourth of the latenight J's crowd, an absence sorely felt. And I suppose the existence of J's would have been nice as well (curses to the West Campus initiative!).
A little bit of everything that mattered at the point when I left Cornell, my friends, Ring, swords, future dreams, we even crashed one of Tom Hill's Icelandic Sagas classes. How can I hold onto that, remember that it meant so much before the current associations? I no longer know which way moves forward or back.
But I raise a toast to the true friends who hold me together. Time and distance are irrelevant, I knew that once, and this weekend was a much-needed reminder.