Revels and Favors
Musicians and Morris dancers and merrymakers, oh my!
In Atlantia and Revel Grove alike, the late summer and early fall is always a special time, filled with merry friends and music. But this season, made even more special, for having someone very, very special to share them with. :-)
Atlantia is a merry, merry place, filled with zany musicians, trobadours, bards, jesters, and assorted other silly folk. The Bright Hills PAGE Guild, Clan Cambion, Thrir Venstri Foetr and so many others - many are the troupes and groups that have warmly welcomed me in my years here in Atlantia. Battle on the Bay is one of the annual gathers richly filled with musicians and performers. And thanks to a lucky stroke of timing, elzkitten got to meet so many of them, at this year's event. :-)
aelkiss, dear friend from Cynnabar days, had very kindly earlier in the summer gifted elzkitten and I a beautiful bowl-backed mandolin. Jesse and Zach had generously brought it back to Baltimore for us. And so elzkitten and I brought it and a pair of violins, and spent a misty August day ensconced in the magic of Atlantia, sharing with her old songs and old friends.
Late summer season brings with it of course Faire season - Maryland Renaissance Faire season - once again. The chance again to perform with so many generous friends, my third season as a regular unofficial player at Faire. Thanks again to Maggie Sansone and Brigid; thanks again to the Estys; thanks again to acroyear70 and faireraven, for the chance again to make the little kids dance to "Pop Goes the Weasel" and fill the air with jigs, and to once again be among the very, very lucky few who don't just get to go to the show, but *be* a part of the show. :-)
And as every season brings with it something new and special: this season, I got to play my first gig with the Mason-Dixon Morris Dance company, in their "invasion" of the Faire. One of several troupes in the DC/Baltimore area keeping alive the Morris dance tradition. Morris dancing is, as one Morris dancer put it to me, English Country Dancing with bells and wings and lots and lots of extra silliness. A good and apt definition for a very, very fun enterprise. :-)
A great deal of fun, and perhaps we - m'Lady fiddler and I - might get a chance to join them again, in times future. :-)
And of course, there was the grand, glorious traditions to close the season. There was the traditional Danse Macabre, now over thirty strong, our traditional end-of-season procession through the Faire, in rememberance of absent friends. And there was the magic of the last, twilight Pub Sing, with old favorite songs and dear friends at hand, to celebrate together one more season, end to end, of friendship and joy.
But as special as the last Closing Weekend and last Closing Day were and always are, the pinnacle of this particular Faire season was not there at its end; but actually near its start...
Those of my closest friends who have followed this LiveJournal from the very beginning, and the Open Diary that came before that, know how through the fourteen years I've been writing online, my sincerest hope was to someday be worthy of a wonderful Lady's love. More than a decade ago I had first expressed that hope, and many times since. Many a time during the history of this diary I had written of how extraordinarily fortunate I was so lucky to be gifted with so much - family and friends and the chance to fight for them all: that in such a richly blessed life, the only thing more I could hope for, was to be gifted with the love of a lady determined and imaginative and kind and geeky and silly and wonderful.
And then, a year ago, somehow: I was gifted that, too.
It was at Maryland Renaissance Festival itself, a year before, that elzkitten had given me the extraordinary gift of her love. A year before, in the autumn twilight of Revel Grove, that elzkitten had made that very very oldest and deepest wish, come true. And the subsequent twelve months, as successive entries have tried to capture, have been the happiest of a very happy life.
A year of swing dancing and celtic fiddle jams, Mountain hikes and stargazing trips and sunsets, Stardust and Firefly and Pirate Feasts and teddy bears and milkshakes and roses and dreams together of things to come. A year of joyful revels better for being shared togehter. And a few moments of the terror and horror and grief that is part of the profession we both chose, that were better for being borne not alone.
elzkitten knew she couldn't make Closing Weekend. Her one chance to spend the day at Faire was much earlier in the season. But somehow in the fury of studying for her second national Board exams (on which her score ultimately substantially beat mine); admist applying to residency and 4th year subinternships and everything else, she found time to obtain a new spectacular crimson dress to celebrate in; and even more extraordinary: time to hand-sew a belt favor - a personal belt favor; with which she gently surprised me with, at the end of our Faire Day together.
Somehow, elzkitten had found the time to obtain a length of her own family Tartan - the blue-grey and black and white of her Scottish ancestral clan colors. Somehow, she had found the time to embroider a length of purple ribbon - purple for her own favorite color - with hearts and notes and love. Somehow, she had found the time to sew them together into this belt favor, which she with a kiss presented to me, in the clearing before the Maypole, in Revel Grove where it had all begun.
In all my years of SCAdian and Rennie life, many a song we'd sung, of the gentleman who won the honor of wearing a special Lady's colors. Of the privilege of bearing the favor of the one who held his heart. Many of my gentleman friends in the SCA and Renfaire worlds did indeed, literally, bear their Lady's token upon their belts. And now, elzkitten gifted me with her own; to wear and bear with humble honor until the end of our days.
- I hope that I will always be worthy of that honor.
- I will spend the rest of my life, striving to be so.