Unformed musing on events

[msmemory_archive]

This is a not-quite-yet-gelled thought....

When I first joined the SCA, events were Big Deals. The rest of the month(s) would slide past in a mix of completely trivial mundane committments that all mushed together, punctuated by panicky sessions making new garb, or shopping for cheap feastgear, or cooking (badly documented) picnic fare. Then the Event would happen. I'd be there all day, it would be the focus of my month.

Lately, without gafiating in the least, I've discovered that the mush of mundane stuff doesn't take care of itself quite as readily. I can't just dash out leaving the laundry or bills untended, or the gas tank empty. I need to sleep more than 4-5 hours a night, too.

Plus, there are now multiple nearby events every month (example: within the last two months I've been to four - King Lear, Coronation, the masked ball, and May Day - and this wasn't a heavy schedule). So the breathless focus on The Upcoming Event is rather diminished when there are so many.

I'd like to get back some of the excitement about going to events. Not by cutting back to going only once a month, however. I still enjoy events a lot, so it's not a search for gratification from eventing. Yet I don't want to give up those quiet Saturdays when I have time to tend the house, make a complex dinner, see a movie, take a walk along the Charles River.... Maybe I'm just becoming a fogey after all. Hmmmmm......

Comments

[herooftheage.livejournal.com]

Sad to say, I think part of the problem is that you've done it all these years, and so your marginal utility for the next event is just smaller than it used to be. For myself, all the really seminal memories in the SCA are from my first few years - "When the world was young" is how I think of it internally. In my case, it was particularly acute, because I knew as I was doing it that these days would not come again.

The solution I have always tried for is that when I do things in the SCA, I try to do Something Wonderful. I am pretty sure I glazed over the eyes of many of the actors in Lear by constantly trying to convince them that we were going to make a production that was Good, and Beautiful, and True, and would touch the lives of our audience in ways they couldn't imagine. But I think it helped keep us all on track, and mostly excited - I know that for myself, questing for something extra made it worth the trip, even if I didn't completely succeed.

[alienor.livejournal.com]

Definately. And it's true on a larger level as well.

One of the reasons syrrichard has speculated that attendance at events in Dun Carraig has dropped in recent years is that nothing NEW has been done; the group is stuck in a rut. We're trying to encourage people to try new stuff... it hasn't always gone as well as we'd like.