A Weekend in Carolingia
Caccia d'Amore -- the Hunt of Love, scribed by the Italian dancemaster Negri in 1602, has a marvelous fourth figure known as "The Pinwheel". Mistress Rosina adapted it into a stand-alone dance game, with poaching and flirting and all other wonderful silliness. A wonderful cap to a merry, merry evening in the Boston-based SCAdian Barony of Carolingia. :-)
Through heavy trading of shifts and giving away of weekends, I had been able to assemble a chunk of time in January free of clinical duty to interview furiously at Hopkins at NIH ( Taking Stock). It wasn't all work, tho. I was able to sneak away with friends for two evenings. And at the end of that week, my dear friend dawntreader42 kindly hosted me for a happy weekend in Boston.
There was a raucous morning and afternoon of games and home-brunch she organized with many of her fun local friends. There was brunch in Kendall Square and geeking out at the MIT Museum with holograms and robots and kinetic sculpture. There was the pleasure of hours of simple conversation between old, dear friends. And there was a Saturday night in a picturesque, snow-draped church in a New England village just outside of Boston, transformed for one night into a place of feasting, dance, and revel.
It was my first dancing or music event since November's twenty-sixth Crystal ball. It was dawntreader42's first SCA event ever, and my great pleasure and hnor to be her first host into the marvelous world so many of us share. Our first event in the Barony of Carolingia, which like every single other SCA group across the country I've been to yet, was warm and welcoming. The feast was yummy, the dancing merry, the dancers merrier. The Barony of Carolingia is one of the SCA's great centers of medieval dance. An evening among them was a joy. And the chance to share that magic with one of my oldest friends -- priceless. :-)
I will not dare say I have had a hard winter, when so many others have suffered far more than I. There are far worse things in life than mere work hours. And in the midst of it all I got to go home to family for Thanksgiving and for Christmas. I got a few nights of escape with friends, as told in yesterday's and today's entries. And in exchange for working extra weekends and extra overnight shifts I was able to get the chance to dance and sing and play at Chieftains this coming weekend; at Calontir Coronation later in the Spring; and to fly home for glorious Terpscichore, the great dance revel hosted by old friends in the Barony of Cynnabar.
Even in darker days there are moments of revel. And with the deepest winter, a hope of spring. :-)