The Twenty-Sixth
Stuck in airports flying home for Thanksgiving gave me time to write. So today, one of a series of happy stories. Enjoy.
Sometimes, Size. Does. Matter.
Like in drums. :-)
I had heard rumors of the Great Drum of Doom. The mighty wardrum from medieval manuscript blueprints that aelkiss and niquerio had acquired for their rapidly growing arsenal of instruments. But I'd not *seen* the Cynnabar Wardrum with my own eyes until they unpacked it from their car on arrival here for grand Crystal Ball. And it was still yet more impressive to hear -- to *feel* -- it's thunder in action. The mighty wardrum underlined stately dances with a basso authority, and made the wild fast dances roar. It was awesome. It kicked ass. And so did the whole of the weekend of the twenty-sixth Crystal Ball, the third year in a row I was able to celebrate a day of music and dance with friends from all across the SCA here in my own home territory.
Crystal Ball! Mighty Crystal Ball -- a whole day of music and dancing and friends from near and far. Surrounded by dear Calontiri friends from local; surrounded by dear Midrealm friends from afar -- from my old home Barony of Cynnabar, from across Pentamere and Ayerton and so many places else. Full of happy joy had been my first ( Where Falcon and Dragon Dance) and my second ( Crystal and Doublet). And this third edition was even more so!
It was thanks to resonance42's generous offer of a drive that I had been able to take advantage of a Chicago Craigslist posting to pick up a dirt cheap travel violin just weeks earlier. It was thus with great joy I was able to offer him the exact same spare violin just weeks later, to play as a part of Mistress cantigajoy's merry orchestra. resonance42 hadn't played the violin seriously in years; he'd never really heard the music before; but he had, once upon a time, had music along with biology as his Yale full double major. And he always had been a man of singular talents. So it was through a merry day and night, that resonance42 and I were able to fiddle, side by side, through all the old favorites and many others, fiddling side by side. So it was we were able to also dance together, at a second dance event just weeks after resonance42's first ( Dragon and Phoenix). A friendship born of nearly a decade of shared medical service and activism, now blossoming in music and storytelling -- huzzah! :-)
And another wish fulfilled -- for many years, long have I wanted to make music with Delric, my lady Dancemistress' husband; Delric, a systems adminisrator who also does professional gigs as a folk/Irish musician. Out in the late november sun, he and I and old dear friends niquerio and aelkiss and others gathered. In an unseasonably warm november day, we gathered to fiddle, led by a lady fiddler with a treasure of a dark-wood violin over three hundred years old. By flute and fiddle and guitar, we msde mudic before the music, till the sun began to slip and it was time for the ball itself...
Amidst the splendor there was a special moment of pagentry. For just as knights in the society have the privilege of taking squires; so Mistresses of the Order of the Laurel, holder of the Society's Knight level award for the Arts, have the privelege of taking Apprentices. To take a student with the formal bonds of Mistress and Protege, linked by the symbol of the green belt. And so it was, in ceremony simple yet profound, my close friend and Dancemistress Tsire ( Merry Evenings in Mundanity) took my close friend Arina ( Birthdays, November 26th) as one of Her Own.
And the ball -- oh, he ball! There was singing, and there was dancing, and there was music playing, and there was music playing *while* dancing, and so much, so much more! Through dance after dance; through set after set; to midnght and the traditional playing of the dance Saturday Night / Sunday Morning; and well, well beyond. For this year, I had no duty to report to the next day, no need to end the night early so I could see patients the next morning. And so it was I joined the ranks of the hardcore, who danced and played and danced until just before dawn.
Three glorious Crystal Balls have there been since I came to Three Rivers, the twenty-fourth through the twenty-sixth. A year from now, when the twenty-seventh comes 'round, I will have moved away, but not moved on; though once again my career will have moved me, this time to Atlantia / Markland, my friends here in Three Rivers will remain as close and dear to me as my friends in Cynnabar have been in the years since I left there. The Society -- the Great Game -- is national in scope, with distances of geography meaning little in the love of music and dance that we all share. There will be Pennsics and Knowne World Dance Symposia, and Balls east and west, north and south. Wherever I am, there will be joy with old Calontiri friends and old Midrealm friends, and friends awaiting and friends yet to be made in Atlantia, Markland, the old East Kingdom, and everywhere love of poetry in motion and music is held dear.
So Vivat to the past! So vivat to the future! Vivat to dances fondly remembered, and the dances to come. As was said by Lord Byron long ago, and in another entry, another dance, another tale:
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.