Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"Advent is the time of promise; it is not yet the time of fulfillment. We are still in the midst of everything and in the logical inexorability and relentlessness of destiny.…Space is still filled with the noise of destruction and annihilation, the shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and helplessness. But round about the horizon the eternal realities stand silent in their age-old longing. There shines on them already the first mild light of the radiant fulfillment to come. From afar sound the first notes as of pipes and voices, not yet discernable as a song or melody. It is all far off still, and only just announced and foretold. But it is happening, today." -- Alfred Delp, Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings, 1941-1944 [via Goodreads]

[Today marks the beginning of the Advent season. So unlike, say, before Hallowe'en, when Christmas decorations are first sighted in some stores nowadays, "getting ready for Christmas" stuff becomes reasonable as of today. (But I can sympathize with those who would rather wait a couple more weeks, to leave some space between American Thanksgiving and Christmas-saturation season!) As I have written about before, I find it annoyingly ironic that our culture tends to "do Christmas" for far too long when it's not even Christmas yet, and then stop and declare Christmas all over for the year the day Christmas starts. (Remember that the twelve days of Christmas begin with the Feast of the Nativity and end in January.) On the one hand, I'm trying to pay more attention to Advent this year, to feel the approach of Christmas as more than just a weird sort of deadline and maybe be emotionally into the mood of it when the Feast of the Nativity arrives, instead of feeling completely blah about it until late on the 25th and finally feel Christmassy for the rest of the month while society around me says, "too late, you missed it." On the other hand, I want to be noticing Advent as Advent -- as it's own thing, not a nearly month long Christmas -- so that I'm not burnt out o Christmas before it even starts (which is another problem I've had some years). Let's see whether I can finally hit that balance that I vaguely remember from childhood. And in any case, I wish my fellow Christians a blessed Advent season, and I wish everyone else both patience in dealing with our month of capitalism-driven excess dressed up in our holiday's clothes, and that said patience isn't tested as often as most years.]

Weekend: mostly a win -- today's negative is not of the same magnitude as the positives of the past two days. (Typing this on a dying keyboard, please excuse missing letters here and there.) I don't think I'm getting back to Timonium today, though I'd wanted to. I'd hoped to get home early enough last night to not be too wiped out to get back to Chesiecon this morning, but just before midnight suddenly my eyes went wonky and my head hurt -- a friend let me borrow a room key so I could lie in the dark for an hour, and that helped enough that I could drive home, but this morning I've been moving way too slowly and suddenly it's afternoon and how did that happen? the con proper will be over by the time I coulld get there, but catching people who haven't left yet and maybe getting some music time in that we didn't get to last night were on my agenda. Alas, despite getting as far as showering and picking a cute outfit, my body and brain are going slower and slower... At least I made it to the program items I was scheduled for!

But though my spoons are all gone, the emotional recharge of Being With My Tribe the last two days lingers. :-) The "Disability and the Starship" panel on Friday ... left a lot of whole avenues of exploration and discussion lying there to come back to some other year or at some other con, because there's so much inor connected to the topic, and so many people in the audience were interested and had interesting contributions. As moderator Jan Whitley said, we could have gone on for several hours.

The Homespun Ceilidh Band concert on Saturday was fun (as expected), with a rather full room and some rather impressive dancing near the door. ("Oh, that wasn't much, I can't go nearly as high as I did thirty years ago." Well yeah, I'd wondered about that, but there are plenty of 20- and 30-year old dancers who can't get as far off the ground as she did yesterday. I remain impressed.) And then I went and joined maugorm's pick-up band for the Renaissance dancing (and realized how rusty I've gotten on some of that repertoire).

But the best of it was the hugs and the conversations, seeing old friends, meeting new people. Physical contact, smiles, in-jokes, nifty ideas and tidbits of shiny, shiny knowledge (I learned what happens if you glue tiny stilts onto ants' legs -- or have a grad student do it, anyhow), stories, reconnecting, and just being where I belong. Fibromyalgia and fatigue made me physically uncomfortable much of the time, but the emotional lift of being with my tribe was a bigger factor until my body just wouldn't go any more.

So. Chessiecon. Yay. I didn't make it back there today: small "boo". But all in all, a yay. And now I think I need a nap.