Beannachtaí na Féile
Christmas. New Years. Twelfth Night. And beyond. The holidays have always been a special time for me, to celebrate and share with dear family and friends.
But this year's Holidays, my first with elzkitten: even more so. :-)
By sheer bad luck and timing, one of the huge snow storms this season has been wracked with, cut power and road transporation to my parent's home just when my brother Gauss and I had been planning to go home for Christmas. Our parents advising us not to try to crawl home through ice and snow to a house with no power (which was restored the day after Christmas), Gauss instead flew out to Baltimore. And from pickup at the airport, we immediately made the three-hour drive out to the little West Virginia mountain town where elzkitten is on rotation.
And so it was on a snowy Christmas Eve elzkitten hosted Gauss and I for a little holiday dinner. We brought salmon and pork and trimmings out from Baltimore to her little hamlet deep in the Applachians, and together we ate and drank and played games and laughed together until eve became morn of the traditional First Night.
I wish we had gotten to go home as planned. But getting to introduce to each other my brother Gauss - my oldest and closest friend in a lifetime richly blessed; and elzkitten - my first girlfriend and beloved Lady; it was a bright joy of its own. To both Gauss, who was game to make the long drive into the mountains; and to elzkitten, who kindly offered to host us at the last minute; many sincerest and deepest gratitude. :-)
For most of my life, I greeted the New Year with my family at home. In recent years, I've often greeted the new year on wards with my patients.
But *this* year, elzkitten and I both arranged to clear our clinical schedules so we could make our first New Year's together something special. After wrapping things up in our respective hospitals, she came in from West Virginia and I came down from Hopkins, and we got dolled up for a New Year's Eve on the town.
Years ago, silmaril and friends had introduced me to the glory that is Jaleo, the legendary restaurant where 20 years ago Chef José Andrés helped first introduce America to tapas. Repeatedly ranked among Washington DC's most famous restaurants, I got to introduce elzkitten - who loves food as much as I do - to it's subtle marvels. And then together we went to Glen Echo, to join the tuxedoed and ball gowned celebrants in flying on swing-dancing feet through the last hours of 2013.
2013 had been a pretty good year for me already. Then came a glorious Faire season and the gift of elzkitten's love at it's end, and the autumn of wonder and joy that followed; and 2013 became a glorious year. With elzkitten, and all the family and friends who wrapped us both in joy and welcome, and the months since have been the best of a very happy life. And so, as Auld Lang Syne was sung and the crowd in the Spanish Ballroom counted down to midnight, elzkitten and I greeted the New Year's together, with an embrace and a kiss.
Neil Gaiman once wrote, in a now classic New Year's benediction: May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful. Almost twenty years of adventures since I left home for college and beyond: in 2013 that dream in its truest sense finally for me came true. :-)
Twelfth Night is traditionally a day of celebration and revel in the SCAdian Kingdom of Atlantia, as it is in many others. Just a year earlier, Brigid and I had travelled to the far end of the Kingdom for the celebration. And back in Cynnabar days, Midrealm Twelfth night celebrations with Jesse and Zach, in music, dance and song. elzkitten herself had marked such revels in Athelmearc, her own first home Kingdom, long ago. And faireraven had been a SCAdian before any of us had been. And so, when Twelfth Night came to Storvik / Washington DC, all of us gathered, with so many others, to celebrate the day. :-)
There was playing middle eastern tunes with Nina and her belly-dancing compatriots in the Hafla. There was traditional dance tunes in the rotunda. There was all kinds of musical silliness with SCAdian friends from over a decade. It was elzkitten's first formal SCAdian event since graduating from Cornell eight years ago (and for the occasion she sewed up a brand new set of garb for herself), and our first as a couple. And together with so many friends, a marvelous, marvelous time. Many and sincerest thanks to all my dear friends who came out to celebrate with us. Both those active in Atlantia whose welcome has made Atlantia a home for me since I began playing in earnest two years ago; and those who *haven't* been active in Atlantia, but came out specifically to welcome and share musical joy with elzkitten. It was a wonderful first SCA event together as a couple. We look forward to the adventures to come in the Dream - including perhaps this summer her first voyage to mighty Pennsic - with joy. :-)
And then a glorious day at the Shriner's became a merry evening at silmaril's, who and Breno generously hosted the whole lot of us revelers at her place afterwards, for a long evening of more singing and music and company and joy. *Many* times over the years has silmaril's home and hearth been the setting for bright celebrations, going back nearly to the turn of the millenium. And to share that warm magic with dear friends was a perfect cap to a brilliant day.
Every winter for thirty previous years, one evening in February Master Chort hosted The Company at The Olde Mill Inn. Rakes and corsairs and privateers, all the boisterous merry crew gathered for one night of revelry and cameraderie at Master Chort's Pirate Feast. Many a joyful moment and happy beginning was celebrated there over three decades of story. Master Chort's Pirate Feast was among the very first stories I read in silmaril's LiveJournal a decade ago; and three years ago, I was lucky enough to become part of the Company for the first time.
At the previous year's gather, Master Chort had announced that he was drawing the grand tradition to a close. And so it was to end the tradition with glory that old and older friends gathered at the Adelphi Mill, to raise tankards at Master Chort and Mistress Paula's Pyrate Feast, one last time.
With blueeowyn and javasaurus, with vvalkyri and leiacat and undead_q,with silmaril and Breno and Zach and Jesse, with dglenn and fidhle and the rest of the Homespun Celidh Band; with Mistress Paula and Master Chort, the grand hosts of the great Company. And here, here in the last hour and the last chapter of the great and glorious story: with the bright and bonny pirate Lass who so kindly captured my heart, elzkitten.
The Homespun Celidh Band very, very kindly invited elzkitten to join us all on fiddle. elzkitten and I rehearsed together in person and over Skype, and through reels and waltzes and jigs elzkitten got to join the rest of us musicans in the fun. Songs were sung and dances were danced and toasts were raised and stories were told, and The Company filled cellar to rafters with celebration, one last time.
Many and sincerest thanks to Mistress Paula and Master Chort, for all that you've given us, and let us be a part of, all these many years. And a Health to the Company, the merriest company, that any could ever ask to be a part of.
Admist the fury of her own clinical rotations, of her own scrubbing into surgeries and studying for shelf exams, elzkitten somehow found the time to create and craft a very special elaborate surprise for my very first Valentine's Day. :-)
As my friends who have been following my online Journaling over the past thirteen years know, I've always been a romantic. I've never liked the term "hopeless", preferring instead the adjective "defiant", all that I wrote about twelve years ago in a Valentine's Day entry that captured my hopes. The twenty years since I first left home for college and beyond have been richly filled with celebrating the love family and dear friends have discovered in their own lives, as so many stories in this Journal have told. And finally, at the end of two happy decades of celebrating with my family and friends their fortunes in love: I discovered for the first time that magic for my own, under the golden leaves of Revel Grove.
Not everyone is a roses, teddy bears, and candle-lit dinners kind of romantic. As it happens, elzkitten and I both are. :-) Even more happily, my first Valentine's Day happened to line up with a weekend she was on home-call at her apartment instead of in-hospital call. And so after wrapping up my patients in my Friday Bone Marrow Transplant clinic, I picked up crab cakes and side dishes and sparkling cider and roses and bear and made the three hour drive out to the West Virginia mountain town where she was currently rotating, for a very traditional Valentine's Day. <3
We're both romantic traditionalists; but we're also both romantic *geeks*, too, and fun-in-the-outdoors types as well. elzkitten is also a crafter and a creator and an artist - a costumer and a theatre techie in her life before medicine. And so elzkitten had spent the previous weeks planning and crafting an elaborate surprise for my very first Valentine's Day, hiking out into the snow the afternoon before for the final setup. On a bright sunny winter's day, against the spectacular backdrop of the snow-covered mountains, I opened up my first clue - a set of GPS coordinates for geocaching. And with elzkitten's iPhone GPS in hand, we set off on the winter adventure she had made, just for me. :-)
The clues she had designed and the drop-points she had selected were cleverly made. And the messages of love that she calligraphed to be found at each drop point were deeply touching. elzkitten had made the whole multi-part geocache trail a celebration of all the happy moments we'd shared together since that first magical sunset when she gifted me with the privilege of being her girlfriend. If I didn't already know how much she loved me - and how deeply in love I am with her; if I didn't already know just how extraordinary a geek lady I've had the extraordinary fortune to have won the heart of: sixteen individually hand-written and mounted missives hidden in a series of sequential geocaches, now all mounted in a frame on my wall over the home desk I work at every day, say all that could possibly say, literally and figuratively.
My lady made me a multi-part Valentine's Day geocache. Yep, as a geek guy... yeah, pretty much I'm the luckiest geek guy in the world. :-)
elzkitten and I have already talked about a early summer trip to Cedar Point. About fireworks on July 4th. About the possibility of going together to the glory of grand Pennsic later this summer. To return to Revel Grove this fall. And beyond.
For years, I've celebrated with so many of my dear SCAdian, Rennie, and Geek gentlemen friends the special loves they've shared. Watched the romantic stories they weaved with their loves, in dances under the stars and music in revel halls, adventures in forest glens and stories worthy of the songs of bards. The legends they made together, as golden seasons followed one after another with moments of romance and love.
And now, thanks to the extraordinary gift of elzkitten's love: now together, we're getting to begin to write and live legends of our own. :-)
Next: Hanami Hanabi Ai.