Renaissance Faires in the Time of Pandemic
Give directly to the people who need gas money – but overall, it’s all true. Traveling musicians and artists are fucked right now.
If you’re not fucked, find someone you can help.
If you are fucked, find someone to help you.
I want to talk about what the Corona virus situation means for the ren faire community, because I’ve seen a lot of misinformation and misunderstandings.
First, a little background about the ren faire circuit. It’s a niche community, after all, and historically pretty private (though American Princess got a lot of things right, it never really delved into some of the harder aspects). I’ve done enough traveling that I’m familiar with the lifestyle, but it was never mine. Road rennies, please feel free to correct me where I’ve stumbled or overstepped.
If you’re not/have never been a road rennie, I kindly request you sit this one out.
First: renaissance festivals are only open on weekends. There are occasional three-day weekends or mid-week student days. Every faire is different, and every year is different, but from my experience figure two paid working days per week, plus two extra days…
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Darby Wilcox and Greenville County SC LGBTQ community celebrates
So before the Great Shutdown of 2020, I had two fantastic experiences. “You had to be there live” experiences.
The first part traces back to 1996. The Olympic Torch is winding its way to Atlanta, and in a fit of political pique the County Council votes in a nonsense resolution stating that gay culture is incompatible with Greenville County lifestyles and family. The torch detours around Greenville County, all is forgotten for 24 years.
A generation later, this resolution rears its ugly head and although it had no force of law to begin with, people want to see it repudiated. Two months of political wrangling ensues.
Fast forward to March 11, 2020. A special county meeting is called with only one agenda item, a vote to sunset all resolutions after four years (and thus not affirming or negating the 1996 resolution, just making it go away.) By 2:45, council chambers were at their 217-person capacity, and the crowd swelled into the hallway.
March 11, 3PM, Greenville County chambers. The meeting started with Willis Meadows offering a long prayer filled with God’s compassion upon all the sinners. It was gracious, in the “You’re going to hell and I’m praying for you” sort of way. I like the man, and at the same time he represents everything we are shaking off as we smash the patriarchy. Many long and tedious Robert’s Rules of Orders votes later…motions, votes to call the vote, votes…the resolution to sunset resolutions after four years passes. A tiny tiny victory.
And the celebration! To see that Greenville County can have such a great number of advocates and supporters and love for all families, that love is love, and love will prevail, it was a Moment in Time. That swell of exuberant joy was a force you could see and hear, like a wave upon the ocean, not quite a tidal wave. Certainly a big one. A wave we can surf and take joy in as it crashes on the shore.
March 12, 9PM, Swanson’s Warehouse. The public is already considering social distancing – I was cautious and kept my distance from people, kept my hands clean and to myself – and yet we celebrated and rode that wave. Joy in the fact that Greenville County was moving away from condemning gay lifestyles bit-by-bit. The mood in the room was a huge party, listening to the band and engaging and dancing.
If that was my last crowd experience for a year, I am satisfied. Live shows which truly work to bring everyone along on a shared journey are precious. Live music is important and I pray it continues again very very soon. In the meantime – enjoy this playlist.
https://www.realsouthrecords.com/darbywilcox
2020 – the year of the Metal Rat
Rats, plague, metal, associated with the lungs in Chinese medicine.
Suddenly, a blog sharing TV, music, food, experiences makes sense all over again.
April Already
Crazy how time flies when you’re resting!
Engaging and crafting a legacy
How can you shift your focus from “keeping busy” to “leaving a legacy”? #Legacy
Jocelyn K. Glei asks this question as part of the Tracking Wonder Quest #quest2017.
Yesterday, I explained how my challenge is to ditch a general ledger approach to every day. Which is fucking hard toilsome laborious herculean effort and all the other synonyms in the thesaurus. I earned $56 yesterday. I spent $40 on groceries and received a $160 doctor bill. I’m just not used to the numbers. Last year at this time I received $6K a month, salaried. $200/day. Doctor bill and groceries, no problem. I knew that direct deposit was the strongest drug I’d ever taken while I was taking it. My focus these past six months has not been “keeping busy” but “doing paying work” at the expense of the long game. The long game is developing a creative endeavour that keeps me happy and healthy for the next 5, 15 or 50 years.
This question about leaving a legacy forces me to Engage with the true meaning of this week’s set of prompts, which is Engaging for the Greater Good – how to use our powers to make the world, the outside world, a better place. I’ve been obsessed with my inner landscape. I can’t reach out until I get settled – or can I? Is part of being settled knowing my environment and political leaders?
- Make a list of my elected officials, engage with them, and become politically active in my new home state.
- Talk to the county. I have experiences from living with 30 years of growth in Austin, Texas that I can bring to Greenville, South Carolina planning commissions.
- Work at the polls at my new precinct for the next election.
Engaging goes beyond the political realm. My legacy in Austin is being a great fan, an enthusiastic audience member, supporting good music and good venues. The very name of this blog came from my effusive nature. To build that legacy in my new home, I need to:
- Identify a weekly gig that brings peace, love, and joy and attend it religiously.
- Find artists, nourish them, hold “house” concerts if necessary.
- Meet the people who book venues and can book friends from other states.
- Write and share the hell out of FB events to promote attendance at gigs.
The person who provided today’s prompt has books on helping creative people manage their time more effectively. What can I do to make my waking hours more effective? How can I get more work out there in the community with that “Handcrafted by Tamara Dwyer” tag?
- Make a list of things I want to build and find/purchase the materials to make them.
- Set aside time for my own art.
- Which is the same as: Make a weekly plan for time to spend at piecework and time to spend on my own projects.
That said, it’s possible that waking up and doing what I feel like doing might be part of the growth and healing from 15 years in the cubicle trenches. Hm. Well, it was good waking up and writing today, and now onwards to doing. Thanks for being here with me.
Sacrifices
What is one major personal sacrifice you are willing to make this year in the service of the greater good? #Sacrifice
This question comes courtesy of Scott Barry Kaufman and the Tracking Wonder Quest 2017. #quest2017
When I first read this question Saturday, I didn’t think about the greater good, I started thinking about myself. Typical. But let’s continue down that path. Because there is a major hitch in my giddy-up. I did well for myself by being a type A(sshole) go-getter with a plan. I have always had more work opportunities than I can do, paying work, lots of it, I am a bona fide work-aholic. As a result, I’m 50 and have the security and funds to start a creative and artistic career.
In order to get there, I need to give up the very traits that got me to the starting line. I need to sacrifice the urge to beat myself and everyone else around me up about the money. It will be OK. There is enough $$ to get thru and enjoy this world. The work I do should be just enough to expand my horizons and keep me engaged in the world, not an onerous burden of keeping myself, the dogs, and my less-employed-money-grubbing partner in food. I need to learn lessons from my partner’s ability to lose himself in creating art, not beat him up and admonish him that he should be more anxious about making sure we earn more than we spend each day.
Breathing. Not surprisingly, I have a shitload of trouble breathing. The albuterol which opens my airways makes my heart race, which increases the anxiety, which puts me in a vicious loop of not sleeping because I can’t breathe then not sleeping because I’m jacked up. The albuterol is 18 cents a huff, and don’t you know I calculate that into the daily stress of living. “There’s another 18 cents I need to earn today,” I think each time I take a lung-opening puff. Which of course, is a constricting thought.
To engage and be present for the greater good, I first have to give up these limiting thoughts of keeping a ledger in my head. “There’s $3.50 spent on supper, I’d better go sit at the computer and earn $10.50 to make up for it.” That said, enough on this topic, I got work to do. Quilts to finish so some young boys can have new nursery decor. But I vow I’m going to be enjoying it and doing it from a space of love, instead of making it a nonsensical penny-counting endeavour.
I’m Fine, Thanks
Yesterday I watched a documentary which detailed exactly where I’m at right now. A filmmaker from Ohio traveled across the US with four others in a van talking to people who left straight jobs, left security, and followed their passions. Starting yoga studios, workout communities, barefoot water skiing, sustainable food and cleaning tips, staying home with their toddlers, writing positive thinking blogs, or otherwise reorganizing around spending more time with their families and doing work aligned with their true calling. One of the people he interviewed tells us How to Be Legendary. The movie is: I’m Fine, Thanks.
Today’s Tracking Wonder Quest prompt – Dacher Keltner, Ph.D., is the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center and a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. He asks: In your work life, your personal life, and in your community, how will you use power as a force for good, and empower those around you in specific acts that make up your day? #PowerforGood
I use my power as a source for good by providing a home for myself, one other adult, and two dogs. I’m here if more humans need a safe space. I provide a safe space. I provide order. I’m not the most witty off-the-wall fun person to be around, but I can find a fire extinguisher. And after I destroyed one oven spraying it with a fire extinguisher, I have baking soda too. Cooking, yes, there is food. Lots and lots of food. I save up for college for my goddaughter. I advocate in small personal ways for wages, health, security, happiness for others.
Yes, I want to do more – specifically building a sustainable urban homestead, volunteering time at local schools or food banks. But for now, I’m happy with what I do to use my powers to create order and harmony in the world.
Questing for my self
For eight weeks of October and November, my life was a happy mess of cleaning and organizing gear for a renaissance festival, driving thru new areas of the US and exploring, working the show, driving home to launder and shower, and repeating the cycle each week.
Now that is over, and I’m a little bit at a loss for what to do. I have three types of at-home work. I get offers for work on LinkedIn – but none so close to my home that they are tempting. I could do anything. But I have trouble putting myself first and figuring out what my purpose and art are. I write, I sew, I watch movies and read, I poke around on FaceBook, but I’m not making time to complete my art.
So here goes with two more posts towards the Tracking Wonder Quest 2017.
Susan Piver asks: Do you love yourself enough to stop working on yourself yet? Who would you be in that case?” #loveyourself
Kristen Noel asks: Where are you going to go deeper this year, where can you be brave enough to bring forth even more of yourself — to infuse your work, creativity and business with that which is uniquely YOU, thus inspiring others to do more of the same? What could that look like in 2017 for you? #BringYouForward
The first one is a stumper. I guess I love myself so well I’m not consciously working on myself. I am not a project, I an mot in progress. I watch what I eat, I’m about to stand up and do a little bit of weight training…there, 10 bicep curls, 10 tricep thingies, 10 squats with 5# weights in each hand. I break up computer time with exercise throughout the day instead of a half hour of concentrated work. Working on my “self” is much the same story. I’m medium-good on the whole self-esteem thing too – not too much baggage or unresolved issues, I recognize where things happen again and again, and I end the loops and resolve the karma where possible. But I can’t stop because I never started seeing myself as something to work on. I am someone who balances the entropy of falling apart and the work required to put herself back together every single day.
Where am I going deeper this year? What is uniquely me? That’s a good question. All I can really say is “stay tuned.” I have the pieces in motion, and I’m not 100% sure where it is all going.
Questing for 2017
Last year I participated in goal setting and writing prompts to set goals for 2016, and 2016 was a great year of change. I quit my job, sold my home, and moved from Texas to South Carolina. Now I’m trying not to be stressed out while building a new work-at-home and less ambitious and less well-paid lifestyle. It’s almost 2017, and I’m doing the writing prompts to help me find goals for 2017 again, thru http://quest2017.com.
Today’s writing prompt:
What is your vocation, your sense of callings as a human being at this point in your life, both in and beyond job and title?
Practice internalizing a more spacious, generous sense of what animates you and why you are here (e.g. as a human being, partner, child, neighbor, friend, citizen, maker, yogi, volunteer, as well as a professional). Honor the creative value of “how” you are present as much as in “what” you are doing in the everyday at work and in the world. #yourtruecalling #quest2017
My days are simple, walk the dog, fix dinner. I sew for an Etsy shopowner, and am trying to sew more of my own post-apocalyptic renaissance fantasy functional couture, and I work freelance jobs online (Leapforce, Wonder). I worked the Carolina Renaissance Festival for the first time this year, selling for Pepi. I’ve never worked Carolina, I’ve never sold Pepi’s pendants and puzzle rings, but working renaissance festivals is getting back to what I used to do. Sewing, doing piecework, is what I used to do. From 1985 thru to about 1998, those were my main jobs.
Then as we entered this new century, I decided I needed to make bank. I got a degree and a good job and I enjoyed it. Adding technology to make manufacturing run more smoothly is the right thing to do. It was creative and I was building things and making the world run smoother and products safer for consumers. Truly, getting brake assemblies built correctly for 18-wheelers is important. And getting it done right and efficiently here in the U.S. is good for jobs, good for the people and the companies who used the software, good for consumers.
After 15 years and three jobs, I leveled up to a different area, working for a manufacturer using a third-party software system. And I found that for so many people on my team, what we did was all about earning the money. I was there because it earned better money and had insurance and retirement benefits, true. But creating things, creating good things, that was my main joy.
But that’s OK, I never planned to work with software for factories forever. When I started the straight-job path, I told myself I’d do it until I turned 50. And I’d save and invest and be ready to get back to renaissance festivals. That’s where I find a lot of joyous people, a lot of creative people, musicians and artisans. Over my 15 years away, I spent time with my friends at the festivals and never entirely left.
What should I do next? I’m still experimenting. I toyed around with writing, and I might still find that the right thing to be doing. Sometimes I have grand ideas for a novel, but the seeds dry out before they get fully germinated. Pirates and Irish slave girls in early New Orleans, and on to Texas? A young woman who has trouble staying in the timeline of 2010s and falls into the 1840s? And then nothing.
[Strangely, years after the time travel idea first cropped up, I’m reading a novel from the 1970s which is remarkably similar and very different from the one I thought up. I would stay in the same place, but bop back years to a slightly alternative history timeline … but that is a different story.]
My best sewing idea is a road warrior post-apocalyptic patchwork denim line, with leather gauntlets and fantasy stylings. A friend for whom I made a “bearskin rug” out of fake fur with a big teddy bear head thinks I should try that again. Another friend knows that clothing for people in wheelchairs is hard-to-find. Walk the dogs, make dinner, make this home as sustainable and low-cost to run as possible, and have fun.
That’s what I need to make sure I do, have fun every day. The rest of it will fall into place. One thing I know after 50 years on this planet is that if it isn’t fun, I don’t stick around.
Happy
Reading the last post I made here made me very happy. The same two people and the same two dogs are still around. This time the three of us are surviving by working on a brick “shotgun” home built a year before I was born and working at a renaissance festival. And I’m no longer paying a mortgage. Everything is as it should be.
Reading some great books. 97 Orchard was interesting, there is a lot to glean from charity cookbooks and recipe sections of newspapers of the 1800s.
Speaking of gleaning, Uprooted is a FANTASTIC book. I just saw it won Nebula, finalist for Hugo, and I can testify it is literally a great book.
Back to reading.
generous splooge 