(no subject)

HLEleanorsdress posted a lovely description of her Laurel ceremony today.  Reading it reminded me so much of my own elevation a year ago.  I never have written much about that weekend, or what that elevation means to me, even though many of you who couldn’t be there asked me to.  I hate writing in any case (which is why updates to this journal are so sporadic), but I realized that something else has stopped me.

 

No one told me how different it would feel to play this game of ours as a Peer.  I have been in the SCA for 30 years.  In that time my participation has varied, but I’ve played pretty intensely.  This is a huge part of my life.  My children were raised going to events most weekends; I met my husband at an event.  I’ve been a fighter, an inspiration, an officer (the only baronial offices I haven’t either held or been deputy are exchequer and marshall), a Courtier, on retinues.  I’ve autocrated events. I've sworn fealty, although very rarely.  With all of this, I did not realize how much different it would  feel to place my hands on the Crown of An Tir and swear fealty as a Peer.  I’ve taken the King’s shilling now and somehow that makes it all mean so much more.

 

I have been hesitant to express this to anyone, especially in writing.  I think we all have seen examples of those people who have forgotten that their medallion/coronet/awardofchoice and $1.50 will get them a bad cup of coffee at Starbucks, those folks to whom the game has become real life.  I’m not one of them.  I have a good and full life outside the SCA.  I don’t look to the SCA to make up for any shortcomings or failures in that life.  I am active in the SCA because I want to be, not because I’m a starry-eyed newbie who hasn’t seen the seamier side.  If I hadn’t before, 2 years of being Baronial Seneschal would have cured me of that.  I have seen people hurt. Some of my good friends have left the SCA for good because of it.  I, better than most people, know that for some people, Chivalry and Honor are just words and the game they play much different than mine.

 

However, that being said, this is not merely a game, a hobby.  Isabeau once compared it to being a member of a fraternal organization, and I think that’s probably closest, but that’s still not quite it.  It’s a place where I can put all of this research I’ve done to active use.  It’s also the place where I can bring Melusine, this fictional person that I’ve fallen in love with, to life.  I love the history, the research, the learning, the pageantry, the ceremony and splendor, yes and even the politics and intrigue have their place, as they did in the times we recreate.  However, what keeps me coming back for more is that sometimes, for brief, shining moments at a time, we attain Camelot.  Not the Middle Ages and Renaissance as they were, but as the ideals of Chivalry, Courtesy and Honor that we wish they were.  In one of the early editions of the Known World Handbook was an essay on how in the SCA, we play at being who we really are. 

 

Sometimes, for brief, shining moments, we are really the people we strive to be.