Forward into the Past

Greetings from Sciath ingen Aort, a Gael from Dal Riata circa 600-ish A.D. She is good-natured, if somewhat stubborn, and prefers the wilds to civilization. She wears simple tunics and leggings most of the time, but has a bog dress and some simple pins and torques for ceremonial occasions. Because there were historical Celtic female warrior chieftains, and also female remains in barrows that gave every indication of being those of important warriors, Sciath's role as an archer and light fighter/hunter/ranger is somewhat reasonable. The last thing that Sciath would be doing is attending Court, addressing people wearing ornamental head-gear with honorifics, and kneeling to them. She would be more inclined to be aiming at them.

And such is just one of the anomalies of Life in the Current Middle Ages, as the Society for Creative Anachronism likes to phrase it. It rests heavy on Sciath, and I'm none too pleased with it, either.

I joined the SCA under duress. I was a member of a much smaller group of friends who had been debating Celtic myth, history and languages for years. At some point in time, a couple of our founders ran across some SCA folk at some lecture or other, and they became friendly, and soon we were being dragged into all manor of aggravations such as Court and lessons in how to recognize and properly address SCA nobility. I've told them from the very beginning that not only is this historically inaccurate when it comes to our particular era and culture, but I find it personally distasteful. I usually avoid the whole mess by avoiding Court and walking away when I see people with funny pointy metal hats coming my way.

Be that as it may, I was a card-carrying Scadian for about 4 years and then I just got burnt out on it all and let it lapse. The main "War" that we attend is the Great Western War and it is held in the Kingdom of Caid (Southern California), where our friends live. In Caid, we have a household that now numbers over 35, and we are thus guaranteed an encampment and food and drink, and companionship. Unfortunately, we live in the Kingdom of the West (central and northern Cali, Alaska, Nevada and the Pacific Rim countries). The West is the original SCA kingdom, the elite of the elite. And it is incredibly difficult to find a niche here. There are more pointy hats and elite warrior/knights and artist/scholars ("Laurels") and organizer/scholars ("Pelicans") than it is possible to avoid. While some of them try to be helpful, there is more often than not a certain unconscious arrogance and clique-ishness. Many of them have known one another for decades, and there are now people who are third generation Scadians in the West. Since we only go to Caid once a year, in order to progress within the SCA we tried to find friendship in a local group, and it didn't work well. The Sig tried harder than I did, because that's just the kind of nerd he is. He researched period cookery and won the Kingdom level cooking award as the damn very first thing he did, which of course meant that we had to go to Court at our first event in the West, and we didn't have our household/friends around to show us the ropes. No one knew who we were, and you would have thought from the looks that he got that he had arrived at Court via teleportation from the Stargate or something. But soon enough, he made friends with the West archers. The Kingdom archer at the time was one of about 5 people in the West who went out of their way to try to assist us and teach us a bit, but he was difficult to access most of the time. Eventually, the Sig was just planning archery events and winging it. And then, I injured my knee two years ago this month, and since we hadn't really made any West Kingdom connections or friendships beyond the Ranger folk (and they tend to be a very solitary lot by nature) we kind of gave up as I was no longer able to trek around in the godforsaken areas that were set aside for field archery.
Last October, the Great Western War was cancelled due to our long-time site having a literal meltdown from the heat wave which fried much of the wiring for the lighting and control buildings. We didn't see our household in Caid again until this year, at the new GWW site in Bakersfield. And as happens EVERY DAMN TIME we all get together, the Sig and I began to get energized again about archery, and brewing, and cooking. We successfully avoided Court.
We came back and looked up the local group, and were very excited when it appeared that the local group was just forming up. Maybe we wouldn't be noobs again -- or at least, we could be noobs with other noobs. Sig has already volunteered to travel to Tres Pinos next weekend to judge a seige cookery contest at the Crown tournament (please, don't ask me to explain tournaments and Crown and heirs and succession. It's insane).

I am cautiously hopeful, but I have since learned from email correspondence with the Shire Marshall that the group we had thought was just forming was in fact an established group that had been inactive for awhile. If they are very needful of members, we will probably have found our SCA niche. This is about the fifth time we've done this, though, and the other four times never got us to the goal of fitting in and feeling comfortable. In fact, we'd been talking about selling the pavillion tent (don't ask...) and the period encampment gear. So, in about a month we'll have a better idea of where we stand here in the Shire of Mountain Gate (El Dorado county).

What does this have to do with housing? Not a thing. Which is good, even if this Shire turns out as disappointing as the old Province of Golden Rivers (Sacramento/Arden/Carmichael). Because obsession with the housing bubble and the MLS is even more boring, frustrating and aggravating than Court. Sometimes, you have to walk away from it and take a breather.