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2003-01-17 - 11:03 a.m.
I just got done reading Jess's entry, who had just got done (as had I) reading Beth's entry. There is something to be said for both entries, I particularly like Jess's retrospective.
So a modest proposal:
(I bet you all think I'm going to say 'fuck them' or 'fuck heralds' or something like that, but I'm not, so fuck you...)
We should pick some little piss-ant event and just go and have a good time. No fighting, no court, no fancy garb. Wear something crappy. I think I'll wear by black watch kilt and a pair of dock-sider looking Birks. Maybe Laura can wear her morris dancer outfit (complete with facial hair) and Bob can wear his middle eastern technocolor garb. Susan can wear her bog dress, with her celtic pins holding it together.
I think garb may be the key. Once you are dressed to the gills, there is this sort of mandate that you take yourself seriously. We'll all sit at some table in the back of feast hall (no high-tables...) and laugh and be loud and sing out of period songs. I can wander from table to table telling my favorite new heralds joke.
Maybe I'll buy some trashy looking sword and walk around proudly with it.
Lisette can spend the evening being evil, while Greg manages the baby. MENG can sing us some songs, and we can all sing some catches. We can pick out someone and make fun of their garb, not because it isn't period (BECAUSE IT IS!!!), but because it looks dumb.
Then we can feel guilty and take over the kitchen cleaning. I'll flick water at Laura and Brian will pop me in the back of my head. Tara will try and get everybody to do her bidding while Robert gives her the evil eye. I'll manage to get dirty dishwater all over my shirt, but I won't care.
Then we'll wander to the cabins, or hotel, or home and sit around and drink more. Laura and Tara will slip out and smoke their cloves, maybe I'll get the guitar out and pretend I can play something. Maybe we'll get a sad feeling when we leave site.
Maybe, just maybe for one moment a soft, innocent smile will pass our lips as we indulge in the guilty pleasure of having a good time for ourselves.
Kynnyth
p.s. A confession: I know that there is still something about the SCA I love. Its that some people try. More people than in the real world. *THIS PS IS GOING TO BE LONGER THAN I HAD THOUGHT...*
I told our Queen a story this last weekend about a Knight who was somewhat disrespectful to me, and then came to my camp later and appologized. He meant it, I truely believe this. No one does that in the real world. Because it may cast him in a poor light, I told her Majesty that that would be the last time I told the story, but I think most of you know it.
Another thing, color me goober, and maybe we're too quick to assign that title to someone who is really just trying to have fun, but I really, really, really like Born on the List Field. Not only that, but the sheer fact that so many people do like it is a good thing. It means that at the very least they can recognize the glory and honor in the song, and feel that it is a great thing, a thing that can move you.
I was in the SCA for more than a year before I heard the song. I had been told of it, but nobody had sung it. But when I first heard it, even though it was from a drunken off-key kah-nigit, it really moved me. I think the day that song doesn't do something for me, I think that day I will simply quit the SCA.
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