Rain, Reality, and Renaissance Faires

As many of you know, my current music gig is playing "harpist for the queen" at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire.

It is so typical that I finally get around to writing about one weekend of the Renaissance Faire and the next begins in only two more short days! Luckily though, playing at the Renaissance Faire is a bit like being in the movie "Groundhog's Day." We all gather in the globe theatre at 9:45 a.m. for a morning meeting, notes, and to receive our playing schedules for the day, then I go and putter around in the Gazebo until the Faire opens with gunshots, a burst of music, and the general feel of a Carnival. Every day at the Faire England comes under threat from the Queen's wicked cousin, there is a dramatic joust, and all is well by the end of the day.

Often I will find myself having the same conversations with Renaissance Faire characters that I have had the weekend before, such as my interactions with the Spanish Ambassador:

Myself: "Good day my lord!"

SA: "Oh, your music is bueno! I will sit here in the garden and listen for a bit."

Myself: "Well, let me play you a Spanish song, my lord!"

SA: "Oh how wonderful!"

Or something to that extent.

One thing that does change at the Faire is my accent. I will start the day resolving to be a British person and stay a British person, but I tend to mimic the accent of whatever character I am speaking to or have just heard. I range from an Irish lass, a Scott, a fine lady, a cockney speaking wench, and a piratical harpist. The only time I was seriously messed-up by this shape shifting was when I encountered a gypsy speaking in this incredibly strange Polish/Russian/Hungarian hybrid. I couldn't mimic her, but I also couldn't manage to be British while hearing her speak, so it was a bit like a computer going into over load!

Another thing that changes, and often far to often for my liking, it the weather. Two weekend ago we had a torrential rainstorm/near tornado as we were gathering for pub sing, leading Peter and I to take shelter in a New Age Pewter Shop with a monk, one of the Queen's Ladies in Waiting, and the shopkeepers. Surreal.

Luckily for the first two weekends my brother Peter was able to come along with me, but he has now picked up and gone to Austria, so I shall be facing the Faire along this weekend.

Though expect to see either Teresa or Grace there with me very soon!

The Road Goes Ever On

The blank blog that lies before me is both thrilling, because I can fill it with whatever I wish, and frightening, for the fact of its sheer blankness and unknown quality.
Ironically, this webpage very much resembles my post-college life. The past four years, while filled with surprises, were nevertheless shaped by a certain framework, the rhythm of semester, Christmas break, semester, Summer break, semester...(repeat at will).
Graduation has changed all of that. When you graduate you trade in your previous recipe for life and are presented with a counter full of ingredients but no book of how to put them all together. There is also the slight problem of sometimes not knowing quite what you want to cook. This is like the feeling of being hungry, but only knowing what you do not want to eat. Usually, by this drawn-out process of elimination you typically end up discovering what you're really craving.
Accompanying this general air of bewilderment are periods when you feel you know exactly what you want to eat, but believe that the ingredients are no where to be found, and that you will have to be satisfied with eating jello when your heart longs after apple crisp. Sometimes it is unclear which path is more frightening: being satisfied with less, or sallying forth in search of more.
The artist Georgia O'Keefe wrote "I have been terrified every day of my life, but that has never stopped me from doing everything I wanted to do."
As a young writer/musician who dreams of double-P status (paid and published) these words comfort me in this very strange and overwhelming world without the structure of school, and I am sure that you can find comfort in them as well.
If something is truly great and worth doing, the prospect of it might leave us a little frightened. Fear can actually be an indicator that we are on the right track for what God wants us to do, since it can elucidate what boundaries we must cross and what limitations we are putting on ourselves. Fear only becomes a problem when it makes us back down from a challenge instead of stepping up to it.
God is the master chef, and He doesn't want us to settle for jello when He knows our hearts long for something different. It is only our decision to stop seeking that will get in the way of His will for our lives. And if He doesn't give us the whole recipe at once, maybe it's because He wants us to focus on adding one ingredient at a time. If we are worrying about how long to simmer something when we are only chopping up the ingredients, we may end up losing a finger, or adding too many carrots, or...you get the idea. Only if we follow God's pacing will we end up cooking the life he intended for us (which is much, much better than twinkies or other promises of prepackaged happiness).
This blog will chronicle my comings and goings in the band Seasons, as well as hopefully be a venue for me to share some of my writings and hear some of your feedback (this probably could be two separate blogs, but I don't want to spread at my currently non-existant readership that far yet).
Finally, for now, I will close with a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien, as he so graciously supplied the title for this post:
"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater."




May you find fairness today,
~Mary-Kate Spring