[Darkwood-SCA] White Shield thank-yous

Cassandra Rossignol cheekymonkey at monkeymanor.net
Mon Mar 17 13:58:37 PDT 2008


I did not enter the lists at White Shield. I didn't earn any awards or 
prizes. I wasn't the autocrat, or even on staff. But if you'll indulge 
me, I have thank-yous to distribute, just the same.

Due to ongoing health concerns, White Shield was the first event I've 
been able to attend since last fall, and I want to thank everyone for 
making it fun and memorable...and possible. I have been bedridden for 
the better part of 14 months now and I'm having to face the fact that no 
amount of medication or careful planning will allow me to continue to 
feign the level of health & independence of movement that got me through 
my first few years of playing in the SCA. To be seen in public this way 
makes me feel vulnerable, awkward, useless, and unnervingly uncertain 
of, not my welcome, but how much of a burden my presence places on those 
around me. I am trying to unknot the thorny question of how much 
assistance I can reasonably request, and how frequently I can request 
it, before it begins to detract from other people's enjoyment of the 
events.

These are things I have to work out for myself, I know, but in the 
meantime I wish to thank you all for what you've been doing to make this 
transition easier on me...

Thank you for getting me there and back again. Thank you for carrying me 
*and* my wheelchair to and from the parking lot when the soft, bumpy 
ground rendered the wheels inoperable. Thank you for braiding my hair to 
keep it out of my face when my own hands refused to do the job. Thank 
you for coming to talk with me under the baronial sunshade, knowing I 
was immobile and couldn't seek any of you out on my own. Thank you for 
fetching more and more water and picking up things I dropped but 
couldn't bend down to pick them up myself. Thank you for bringing me 
strawberry & chocolate treats and for waving as you passed by, even when 
you couldn't stop to talk. Thank you for struggling to get me and my 
wheelchair over the stairs and bumps, and for hauling me up and down 
those long, steep ramps every time I needed air or a privy break. Thank 
you for not making a fuss when my medication proved inadequate and I had 
to do a glaringly anachronistic breathing treatment right in the middle 
of the feast.

Thank you for your smiles, your careful hugs, your stories and 
laughter...and your warm welcome home. It means more to me than I can 
express.

  - Cassandra






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