Home from Pennsic

Wow, what a long strange, and by strange I mean difficult, trip it’s been. Three days of travel to get to Pennsic, then a trip to the airport in Pittsburgh to pick up Sean, then back to site to help with setup. Twelve days on site, three big bardic circles, four classes taught (two each week), a one hour concert on the Three Crowns performance stage, then a day an a half of travel to get home. I’m exhausted.

My friend Owen likes to say that “Only Pennsic is worth the trouble that only Pennsic requires.” I’m sure a lot of people feel the same, but I think he’s wrong, I think that Pennsic is not worth the trouble that Pennsic requires, and unless someone gives me a very compelling reason to I don’t think that I’ll be going again.

Still, as a last hurrah this wasn’t a bad end to my Pennsic adventures. I taught both the Bardic Primer and my memory class twice, and all four times they were well received. My concert on Sunday was fun. I didn’t count how many people were in the audience but I think it was somewhere between 12 and 18. I was on my game, and I was able to turn even my mistakes into entertainment.

As for my mental health, it was much better than last year when I spent most of my time miserable and hiding in my tent. There were some rough spots during setup when somethings went wrong and I didn’t handle myself as well as I would have liked. But after that I was able to settle down and maintain some sense of inner calm. I’m not sure I’d call it a breakthrough, but I would call it progress.

Now it’s time to turn my attention to my next set of tasks. I’m working on a project for my patrons that I’ve been think about for a while, I hope to get it finished in the next few weeks. I also want to get cracking on some music videos, and I’ve promised myself that I’m spend at least one hour a day sitting with a guitar in my lap writing new music. There are longer term projects on the horizon, some of them with life changing potential.

There’s much I want to do, past time to get started.