I never thought I’d be here, where I am now, doing the things that I’m doing. I suppose very few of us ever really do. But I’m really damned stubborn, as any of my friends (and enemies) will tell you, and through all these years gone by, getting here has all been a matter of repeatedly saying that I wanted and needed to do this. And I cannot live with the idea of not following through on the things I promise to do, for me or anyone else. Of course there are thank-you cards unwritten within the desk and borrowed CDs forgotten in a storage unit box somewhere in Novato. But the big promises are very, very important to me. And who uses CDs anymore, besides? (Though I may never forgive myself for not yet organizing my digital photo collection into the Perfect Taxonomy for the Ages, which I promised to myself many years ago, and the pictures keep getting added.)

The number-one reason that I want to be a man of my word (dreamy-minded or not) is because of the amazing people whom I know. I want to make good on the things that I promise because I feel gifted beyond belief to be accepted, tolerated, respected, liked, empathized with, smirked at, appreciated, or included by so many of the world’s most beautiful people. How did this happen? I’m self-focused a lot of the time, and I’m insecure all of the time. My heart is in two places and I can’t always decide which idiom to use with all of the switching continents this past decade. I forget to tell many whom I love that I love them, instead telling them what I love. I forget to do the dishes sometimes, even though I (near-horrifically) adore doing them. But I want to give back all of the time. I want to contribute.

I’m now far away from all of the building that has gone on since 1995, when I landed, butter-side up, into my first career that was founded the glorious moment that Monster Manual was opened. I feel so distant from the place behind the counter where everybody knew my name after so many years of making our clubhouse a place where everybody knows your name. Occasionally I get to catch a fleeting glimpse of them on the other side of the camera when we take care of business via conferencing, and it always warms the bones of me. Yet it was the right time to move, and move forward, and I still feel that way through the pangs and warm memories.

This year’s birthday, this year’s Beltane, waaaay over here in the land of heather and larch once again furnished me with the incontestable reminder that I have everything one could want and more – once again, waaaay over here. Friends gathered for food and laughs, friends treated to care and curry, a million friends used technology to bridge the gap, even just for a thought, just for a moment. My cygnine selkie and I walked amongst standing stones and were inspected by a line of horses when we got too close to the center, and some people say that magic doesn’t really exist. I know that it does, even in this age of technological wizardry and digital dungeons. You’ve shown me that it does.

The academy of learning, that white tower besieged by seething, draconian intellects, used to intimidate me. But the games that are undertaken here are merely child’s play compared to the epic adventures we’ve traversed so far in real life, and we’re only halfway through, if you live with that sort of temporal consciousness, and I do. The tables that we’ve built along the way on both sides of the world – the ones on which we’ve played, conspired, argued, eaten, arm-wrestled, and made passionate, monster-chick love in a fantasy world nearly as magical as our own – are also the ones at which I’ve learned how to contribute. I won’t forget that, even if it feels that I sometimes do.

What a thing to say, indeed. Which qualities make a follower unto death out of one who loves life so acutely? Principle, vision, or honesty, perhaps? On this very same night, 119 years before Lincoln became the first U.S. President to be killed by another’s hand, many thousands of men were ready to follow another charismatic leader into the withering fire of cannon and musket for all of these reasons and maybe none at all. On the eve of the Battle of Culloden, some five-thousand Jacobite soldiers from all over Scotland – and many from other countries – were directed to undertake a clandestine, nine-mile march through thicket and wood in order to surprise the commander of the British army at his camp in Auldearn, on the Inverness-shire coast. Ironically, it was also that British commander’s birthday, this 15th of April, and he and his men enjoyed cheese and brandy whilst singing songs of triumph in anticipation of a bloody battle that was to come the next day.

This foray into the night, led by a great tactical thinker in Lord George Muray, showed how skies and minds alike can become so cloudy when storms are darkly brewing. It was a bold move that maybe should have been a success, but the third-class citizens of the Jacobite army had been marched through Highland and byland for nearly a year, once twenty-five miles to London and now just four miles to glory when the head of the tartaned snake ceased communications with its tail. Lord George had aborted the march on the outskirts of the British camp, and after so much hunger, exhaustion, and so many failures to materialize sufficient support throughout the campaign, he directed them back to Drumossie Moor without sending word to his commander-in-chief, who was riding at the back of the army. Why Charles Edward Stuart was bringing up the rear is not clear, but the numerous layers of listing judgement on this night would prove to be the final undoing of the Jacobite army. It hit the immovable rock of the government lines the next day and cracked in half before sinking beneath the swell of the Hanoverian state. The day after his birthday, William Augustus, son of the King of Britain and victorious leader of its army, hefted his titanic frame upon his horse before giving the order to give no quarter. Those still on the field had little chance of survival; they were trapped there under the successive waves of redcoats.

Flash forward 166 years to the same night, and a great ship filled with people great and small spilled its guts over the North Atlantic, in just as visceral a fashion as at Culloden. Much ado has been made about the lack of lifeboats aboard White Star’s RMS Titanic, but the British Board of Trade had dictated a lesser requirement than the twenty carried by the biggest passenger ship of its day. The problem was that no one expected this disaster could possibly occur. Its owners, builders, and crew were supremely confident in the “unsinkable” ship’s ability to claim the crown of being the fastest and most elegant method of crossing the Atlantic. Its marvelous societal cross-section of occupants were all there to be a part of something special, but no matter the area of the ship in which they were segregated, they were each equally enslaved in Titanic‘s enormous steel hull and also her kinetic and idealogical momentum.

By the time the distress call was sent out, it was already far too late. Captain Stanley Lord, commander of SS Californian, the nearest vessel to the scene of the iceberg strike, apparently did not see it fit to respond to Titanic‘s distress rockets, even though they were allegedly visible from his ship with the naked eye. Even with only twenty lifeboats aboard the sinking monster, there might have been enough time to ferry every last passenger to a prompt and ready rescue ship that was miles closer to Titanic than RMS Carpathia. But from Lord, the doomed passengers never got the support that they so sorely needed. His prevarications and inconsistencies at subsequent trials both in Britain and America might go some way in proving that his failure to jump into action secured the demise of over 1500 people that night. But it also might not have mattered. The entire voyage was pitted with unpreparedness, and the ultimate blame for so much death and drama is still being argued and feuded over today.

The parallels to these two disasters don’t end here. But on this night, one-hundred years to the night of the sinking of the Unsinkable, I’m thinking about the unthinkable: how so much pain came to so many followers who put their trust in bold, charismatic leaders throughout our many lives. To say the least, there are lessons to be learned.

In fancy, I would like to be in attendance for a screening of James Cameron’s blockbuster Titanic (in 3D, if he liked) with Donald Cameron of Lochiel, first to take hold of the Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite Banner in 1745. I suspect there would be some interesting conversation over much watered ale and claret. I would tell him about the ridiculousness of David Cameron, as I think again about tax day back home, and ask where his Bonnie Prince is now. We’re sending up the rockets.
 

]]> http://www.funkyplaid.com/2012/04/15/a-night-to-remember/feed/ 4 http://www.funkyplaid.com/2012/04/15/a-night-to-remember/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/funkyplaid/~3/sRdjE0nwDPg/ http://www.funkyplaid.com/2011/12/31/forward-motion/#comments Sat, 31 Dec 2011 17:44:17 +0000 FunkyPlaid http://www.funkyplaid.com/?p=810 Dear Last Day of the Year:

So much has happened between us and your many forebears that I barely have the words to express how overfull of emotion I am at the prospect of leaving. It’s been one wild ride, and I’ll never forget all the changes you and your ilk have brought to my life. We’ve enjoyed both great and hollow days together, and like many fruitful relationships, I will sometimes regret the space that you will leave me with. But there are things ahead for which I do not think that you are prepared, and it is a noble thing that we do on this night to make the transition easier for both of us. We owe it to each other.

You’d been listening to me threaten to leave home so many times. And as comfortable as you tried to make me, including all of your scheming together with that promiscuous minx San Francisco, with her gorgeous food, hotbed of technology, and pendulous foghorns, it felt like it was all a disingenuous ruse to get me to hang my many hats there forever. Every time I left the house, I was frustrated by all the negative feedback. You tried to tell me that it didn’t matter, that as long as I stuck with the comfy routine it would all smooth out. But it didn’t, and I resented you for it. I was tired of staying indoors with all of that beautiful weather just beyond the threshold. It’s true: your home was lovely. Our days together were incredibly busy, but fascinatingly fun. And you really do have the best friends of anyone I know. (Feel free to forward my new address to them if you don’t mind.) But you, my dear, have done quite enough – consciously or not – to ensure that I remember why I stayed, and also to understand why I must go.

As it comes to the end, however, I want you to know what great things you brought to me, because that is what will stay with me after tomorrow, and also what will remain in my consciousness as your great importance in my life. You deserve to know this, because you helped it happen.

We had a year of passion, of hedonism, and of projected nostalgia. It seemed like every night was filled with a new taste or smell, and even with all of the activities we playfully noted down upon your deliciously flat stomach, it still didn’t feel like we got to spend enough time with everyone whom we loved so much. We certainly played much more than we argued, but I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that each meeting might very well be the last (my fault more than yours). Through all of this, you kept a straight face, and soldiered on like this was how it was going to be…forever. That total acceptance did so much for my confidence, and you couldn’t have possibly known that it would actually bolster my final decision. How selfless of you, in retrospect!

Last Day, you remind me this very instant that I was worth everything I dreamed. You made many things easier during the process. Sure, some of this was by sheer fortuitousness, but it wouldn’t be right not to ensure that you get the credit for much of it. You introduced me to great new friends and reminded me about the old ones upon whom I could really rely to help out. You took care of my loved ones while I was deep in internal transition, and made sure I had the time and space to be in close contact with them through the whole thing. And, perhaps most important of all, you showed me a brand-new, rich, green playground in which to spend my downtime, and I loved it so much that I decided to stay a while. You did a good thing for me, with good intention, and I’m sorry that there’s not enough room to bring you along. In the long-term, I honestly think you wouldn’t be happy here. And I really do want you to be happy, with or without me.

How can I ever thank you enough for these things? Well, Last Day, I thank you by moving on and no longer being a burden for you to manage. I hope you won’t linger behind, because I’ll be looking ahead. The future is so very bright for me now, and I’ll always remember your contributions that helped get me to this point. I won’t see you tomorrow, but I’ll be singing our favorite song for many Last Days to come.

Xo.

-FP

And though I always feel a bit geriatric talking about those two, there is no doubt that they are small, furry lights in our lives and we’re oh-so-happy that they made the transatlantic move with such ease. They first met already past their prime; both are the same age and have always been only-children and indoor animals. Moving them in together when Cygnoir came to Le Chateau was a shock, and though cats adapt to change pretty well, it was a case of one moving into another’s space for the first time, and it showed in their interaction. A cordiality grew over the years, but never a camaraderie. Now, after a stressful trip together and an equal number of jowl-rubs on items throughout the new flat, they’ve been closer than ever before – and maybe even a little bit like friends. The fact that we can all be in the same bed together is a real treat, and we’re feeling like proud parents who have painstakingly ironed out long-standing familial differences. The truth is that we’ve done very little except give them a new home, the same thing we’ve been given.

Luckily, our productivity can only be boosted by the upcoming inclemency. I’m still doing quite a bit on the Gamescape front, all the while amazed that there can be so much hands-on from so far away thanks to the wonders of modern technology. I talk with and advise the boys on a very regular basis, and I’m able to remotely access pretty much anything I need to monitor, including the entire digital aspect of the operation. It’s inevitable that my product knowledge and immersion will fade as time goes by, so I’m doing as much as I currently can to help with the continuing transition – especially now that Black Friday is here and the holiday season has started. This is the first year in a very long time that I am not in a Pavlovian-like retail state, head-down and gearing up for the next six crazy weeks. For this, I mostly feel sorrow for the guys and a bit of guilt that I cannot be there to physically assist and help keep their morale and energy up. But they’re sharp and savvy, and I’m proud of them for taking things in hand and continuing well, seemingly undisturbed by the major changes.

I’ve been making a number of new websites for various projects in which I’m currently embroiled, but I’m not quite ready to make them live. It’s safe to say that there’s something related to my doctoral work and something else connected to the gaming industry. Both should be fun reads when they finally get going. For now, I’m learning a ton about faux-coding and bashing out things visually the way I want them, with lots of late-night questions for Cygnoir, who is ever the whiz on all things digital.

My painting desk is assembled and almost entirely set up, which means I’ll be able to get some time away from the computer and start flinging some acrylics very soon. I have noticed that not being around the go-to community at the store deprives me of the instant commiserative geek-out factor that is normally an everyday occurrence in our sector. But that’s to be expected, and it just means that finding more local folks with similar interests is an eventual priority. And hey! I’ve finally created a BoardGameGeek page, so feel free to connect with me there if you’re hooked in on that gawd-awfully-formatted site. I guess I never did it before because I owned ALL the games and didn’t want to spend my downtime cataloging. But now I’m a PhD student, which means I have nothing but time.

The final bit of news is that I’ve signed up for a volunteer position with the National Trust for Scotland as an assistant gardener at Culross Palace. In a seashell, the Royal Burgh of Culross is a tiny Medieval hamlet established in the 16th century by a descendant of Robert the Bruce. The place was built on salt and leather, and is now like a living museum, looking almost undisturbed in some areas since then. The Palace has a gorgeous, terraced garden filled with period flora, herbs, and vegetables – all grown organically – and it’s absolutely huge. Because the year-round work can’t be done by one head gardener and his part-time assistant, I’ve signed up to spend two days per week there helping out with anything they need. From the first meeting, I’ve discovered that this includes planting and harvesting foodstuffs grown in the Middle Ages, crushing shells to line the pathways in between the garden plots, stretching the necks of surplus Dumpy hens who wake the neighbors up too often, planning and plotting sections of the garden for refurbishment and public events, and plentiful amounts of woodworking to decorate the posts, reborder the plot beds, and spruce up the benches and gates. Considering we don’t really have a garden of our own at the flat, I suppose I can take a hit and borrow one from a Medieval burgh. No biggie. It’s a good thing I brought my tools over.