When did that happen?
Feb. 28th, 2012 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eveglassI realized last night that sometime since returning to Montreal in 2006, after my MA, I lost interest in my local SCA group. First it was a lack of interest in local practices, particularly after they split up into separate activities on separate nights. For several years, I'd skip out on practices and only go to moots, events, and quarterly A&S scholas. I tried a few times to get some bardic going on fencing nights, but it never worked out.
Then I stopped going to scholas, and sometime after that, to moots. I really don't know why. I suppose I just felt disconnected, and there always seemed to be something else going on in my life that was more important.
This coming weekend, we've got a local SCA event coming up, our Baronial Investiture Anniversary. I realize I still don't know whether I'm going, to the point that I haven't even been reading emails on our barony's email list about the event. I don't even know where it is or how much the gate fees are.
I can think of a number of reasons why this is the case:
1. Health reasons. For the last three or four years, indoor SCA events have started triggering my asthma something fierce, so that I'm a little ball of miserableness by mid-afternoon. Yes, I need to get this treated better. I've got a GP appointment in April. But until then, I'm no longer willing to subject myself to 3-4 days of difficult breathing for the sake of one day of event. Once, I was. Now, not so much.
2. Boredom / Lack of bardic. Over the last decade, I've found my niche in the SCA: bardic. I really don't care for most of the martial activities, and I don't generally do too much non-bardic A&S. Most of the projects I'd bring to events are things I specifically cobbled together to give myself something to do at the event itself. There have been many local events I've attended where there hasn't been any bardic at all, and the ones where there have been, it's been an impromptu afterthought, between removes at feast, when my voice was already gone due to the aforementioned asthma and I could barely speak, let alone sing.
And before you say, "If you want it, you do it"... I do. I sing to the kitchen staff. I go tell stories to people who seem to be sitting around with nothing to do. I enjoy that. But a true bardic circle involves more than just me, and most of the people in our barony who do bardic are busy with other things during the day -- fighting, fencing, autocratting, etc.
Yes, there are other things I can do during the day, most notably volunteer. And I enjoy doing that as well. But it's not what I go do an event for, it's what I do to pass the time until we get to the stuff that really compels me, i.e. bardic. And if all I'm doing at an event is passing my healthy hours volunteering, only to be too tired to sing at the end of the day, or, worse, to put up with the asthma only to find there's no bardic at all... I can't be bothered.
3. Not fitting in. Okay, this one needs clarification. Obviously, I have friends who make me feel valued, and our local group is a very welcoming place. What I mean is that most local SCA events aren't really the right time and place for my brand of bardic. Oh, I'll sing "The Chandler's Wife" or "Whiskey in the Jar" if that's what people want. But recently I've been moving more into poetry, particularly pieces based on stuff that's happened in the SCA or stuff that happened in period. There's a time and place for that. Cariadoc's fire at Pennsic is such a place, so are some pick-pass-play circles. Our local sing-along bardics aren't that place. Just as I wouldn't bring most of my material to the Harpwood Hall jam sessions, I don't generally bring them to "The Conrad and Cairn Show." It's not the right venue. We don't have the right venue here in Montreal; they do in Concordia of the Snows. Which is why I'm more likely to travel five hours to an SCA event than only one. What they do in Albany fits more often with what I do.
4. Real life intrusions. The problem with having a bunch of hobbies is that they often conflict. For the last year or so, I've been playing roleplaying games on the weekend. Somehow, probably due to the above reasons, my biweekly 7th Sea game seems more enjoyable to me than going to a local event. This weekend, a friend of mine is hosting a pillow-fort-building night, and I'd rather go to that than attend feast, particularly if I'm already asthmatic. There was a time when the SCA was my primary hobby, now it's probably tertiary. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but it did.
Now, all this said, I still like being connected with the SCA, and Pennsic is still my favorite two weeks of the year. Somehow, though, that enthusiasm has waned in relation to my local group. I'm not sure whether it's something I want to regain or not. Maybe after I get better control of my asthma.
Then I stopped going to scholas, and sometime after that, to moots. I really don't know why. I suppose I just felt disconnected, and there always seemed to be something else going on in my life that was more important.
This coming weekend, we've got a local SCA event coming up, our Baronial Investiture Anniversary. I realize I still don't know whether I'm going, to the point that I haven't even been reading emails on our barony's email list about the event. I don't even know where it is or how much the gate fees are.
I can think of a number of reasons why this is the case:
1. Health reasons. For the last three or four years, indoor SCA events have started triggering my asthma something fierce, so that I'm a little ball of miserableness by mid-afternoon. Yes, I need to get this treated better. I've got a GP appointment in April. But until then, I'm no longer willing to subject myself to 3-4 days of difficult breathing for the sake of one day of event. Once, I was. Now, not so much.
2. Boredom / Lack of bardic. Over the last decade, I've found my niche in the SCA: bardic. I really don't care for most of the martial activities, and I don't generally do too much non-bardic A&S. Most of the projects I'd bring to events are things I specifically cobbled together to give myself something to do at the event itself. There have been many local events I've attended where there hasn't been any bardic at all, and the ones where there have been, it's been an impromptu afterthought, between removes at feast, when my voice was already gone due to the aforementioned asthma and I could barely speak, let alone sing.
And before you say, "If you want it, you do it"... I do. I sing to the kitchen staff. I go tell stories to people who seem to be sitting around with nothing to do. I enjoy that. But a true bardic circle involves more than just me, and most of the people in our barony who do bardic are busy with other things during the day -- fighting, fencing, autocratting, etc.
Yes, there are other things I can do during the day, most notably volunteer. And I enjoy doing that as well. But it's not what I go do an event for, it's what I do to pass the time until we get to the stuff that really compels me, i.e. bardic. And if all I'm doing at an event is passing my healthy hours volunteering, only to be too tired to sing at the end of the day, or, worse, to put up with the asthma only to find there's no bardic at all... I can't be bothered.
3. Not fitting in. Okay, this one needs clarification. Obviously, I have friends who make me feel valued, and our local group is a very welcoming place. What I mean is that most local SCA events aren't really the right time and place for my brand of bardic. Oh, I'll sing "The Chandler's Wife" or "Whiskey in the Jar" if that's what people want. But recently I've been moving more into poetry, particularly pieces based on stuff that's happened in the SCA or stuff that happened in period. There's a time and place for that. Cariadoc's fire at Pennsic is such a place, so are some pick-pass-play circles. Our local sing-along bardics aren't that place. Just as I wouldn't bring most of my material to the Harpwood Hall jam sessions, I don't generally bring them to "The Conrad and Cairn Show." It's not the right venue. We don't have the right venue here in Montreal; they do in Concordia of the Snows. Which is why I'm more likely to travel five hours to an SCA event than only one. What they do in Albany fits more often with what I do.
4. Real life intrusions. The problem with having a bunch of hobbies is that they often conflict. For the last year or so, I've been playing roleplaying games on the weekend. Somehow, probably due to the above reasons, my biweekly 7th Sea game seems more enjoyable to me than going to a local event. This weekend, a friend of mine is hosting a pillow-fort-building night, and I'd rather go to that than attend feast, particularly if I'm already asthmatic. There was a time when the SCA was my primary hobby, now it's probably tertiary. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but it did.
Now, all this said, I still like being connected with the SCA, and Pennsic is still my favorite two weeks of the year. Somehow, though, that enthusiasm has waned in relation to my local group. I'm not sure whether it's something I want to regain or not. Maybe after I get better control of my asthma.
