Revisiting an Old Stomping Ground

Pretty much the same day I published my last blog entry I finished packing up my reenactment and camping gear and headed out for the Burning Man of American reenactment known as Pennsic.

It has been seven years since my last Pennsic, mainly because it blows to be surrounded by stick fighters when one can't fight themselves. It really causes this deep ache of desire, I'm like the old horse neighing and running around the paddock as the hunting party heads out. I keep thinking 'I can armor up,' and then I'm laying awake all night with tremors and sheets of fire running down my arms. I know I need to let it go. But gods, it hurts in much the same constant way my broken neck does, reminding me my life will never be the same as it was before.

Not to mention the pelvic reconstruction and what effect carrying 25 pounds of armor many days in a row might have on it.

So I threw myself into making nice, practical garb, and painting banners. It's taken the better part of a year to create acceptable, if not strict, garb for reenacting a Nordic persona. I used to cross-dress. As a fighter, wearing man garb made more sense. We call my previous style of garb 'tabard period.' T tunics untrimmed and baggy draws. Some also call that 'Genera-Celt,' which sums the style up well even though myself, I am not a Celt. If the household WiFi wasn't acting up I would give some photographic evidence of my cross-dressing but alas, it is not to be right now. Maybe on a later edit.

When I arrived at Pennsic I was greeted with many ‘Welcome home!'s. It was truly heart warming. It is possible that I had the best Pennsic I have ever had. I certainly got decent sleep inspite of my camp mates hooting and hollering all night, and my days were packed with non-martial activities such as parties and shopping.

So to end this post with a couple of shots from our camp:

The 'ship' our swordbrothers brought from the kinsmen/swordbrothers challenge. My "challenge" was for them to bring me a ship and durned if they didn't!

The Lorax, right after he was voted Warlord for the coming year.

Myself and one of my banners, also the 'horn that got us kicked out of camp.'