Photos kindly provided by Jesse's family and

There was singing and laughing and being ridiculously silly all the way from Ann Arbor to Maryland. (Something like twenty-five *years* of higher education, eight completed or in-progress academic degrees, and a quarter-million dollars worth of investment by the NSF & NIH collected in Aaron's car and you get eight-hours of non-stop silliness at 70 miles an hour. I have marvelous, marvelous friends. :-) ) And there was still more music, and home cooking, and stories told and read when we arrived at Jesse's childhood home, where her parents and brothers kindly shared their hospitality, until deep into the evening.

And then there was Faire itself! There was Shakespeare and swordplay and music, music, music! In the end, a Ren Faire is basically a ticket to a dozen shows of every kind, performed in the crisp autumn air and crystal blue skies, with the chance to jump the line from audience to performer hanging right there. And much more than that, there was the celebrating of friends well-met, old friends from years past. The Michigan Renaissance Faire, my ostenstible local Faire, is a place I go with friends to enjoy the show. Maryland Renaissance Festival is a place where many of my friends *are* the show. And it is why I consider a Faire 800 miles from where I currently live to be my Ren Faire home. :-)

Dance and music -- oh, there was dance and music aplenty, with us all not just on the sidelines watching but swept up within. Eowyn the veteran MDRF cast member knew people and the behind-the-scenes all across the Faire, and all through the weekend kindly hooked us right into the thick of it. I'd long, long ago promised my friend Kirsty a dance; and on the boardwalks and in the wooded clearings of Revel Grove, I was finally able to honor the promise. :-)

And then to cap it all off, there was the Dance Macabre...

The Dance Macabre - The Dance of the Dead - has a history in European cultural life going back centuries. It took many forms, had many meanings, so I am told; in one popular incarnation, it was itself a ward against death and disaster. In an age where the Four Horsemen stalked Europe, to protect their village from the spirits of plague and misfortune musicians and dancers would take to the streets in full force. Garbed as ghouls and specters, finery overlaid with veil and skeletal mask, they would drive and clear their spectral counterparts from the town. Be off, ye demons and devils, the players of the Dance Macabre would demand in spirit, for this town be already claimed! In that way, in that form, the Dance Macabre was no celebration of death -- it was a challenge and gauntlet thrown down definantly against it.

Cyd (of Cat and the Fiddle Morris) and her collaborators had recieved permission to bring the Dance Macabre to the streets of Revel Grove at the close of the Closing Weekend. They in turn issued invitations to a select group of MDRF's regulars and friends. The famed Fool Named O was involved. So was Morwen as a musican and Eowyn, long-time member of MDRF's cast. Jesse got an invitation, too. And to my stunned and giddy surprise, a few weeks before the close of Faire, they all extended an invitation to *me*. Me?!?

Imagine being a Shakespeare enthusiast who is able to attend a performance once a year or so, who suddenly one day gets an e-mail from the acting troupe wondering if he'd like to join them on stage for a play. Whooooot! :-)

Photos kindly provided by Jesse's family and

And so it was, as the sun began to set on the final day of the 30th season, that all the players, musicans and dancers involved gathered together in the Reveler's Bower, deep near the rear of the Faire -- at this point, happily including Kristy as well. Skull masks and face-shrouding veils were passed out, the company organized, the musicans struck up tune on fiddle and recorder, cymbals and chimes -- and forth came the procession!

Photos kindly provided by Wildwose.

Down the streets of Revel Grove we ranged, capering fools and whirling ghouls. Jesse and Kristy spun like dervishes at the Dance's edges. Cyd and Morwen played at -- and were -- the Dance's heart. And I was lucky enough to dance right among and with them as we processed down Revel Grove's leafy ways.

We marched, we capered, we processed, and in the squares and gathering places we stopped to dance as well. Everywhere the crowds parted way, cheering us (or cheerfully casting appropriate curses on us) as we made our way down the length of the Faire, even winding our way through the crowds gathered at the White Hart Tavern itself. It was tremendous fun, a roaring success, and an for me a wonderfully, wonderfully memorable experience, for which I am extremely grateful to all responsible for letting me be a tiny part.

And then it was swiftly off with masks and veils and finding our places at the White Hart for the last, last PubSing of the 30th season. And through Fear A' Bhata and Mist Covered Mountains, All Around my Hat and Blowed and Torn, through each of the old sentimental favorites a hundred voices - all of us, all of the many of us mentioned all above -- sang as one, right to the end, right to the Bells and the last closing cannon.

And then came one, last, moment, magical above all.

The last lights had dimmed on stage. The casual fans had long ago left. And now the security staff was gently but firmly sweeping the last of us to the door. All that was left was for us to make our last fare-the-wells and until-next-times -- what would truly be our parting fare-the-wells, as us Michigan folks were leaving literally from the MDRF front gate immediately westbound for home, not even staying 'till morn.

Jesse and Aaron and Monique had very kindly held their departure from Michigan that previous Friday until I could finish my last day on Ob/Gyn; now they were planning to drive in shifts straight from Revel Grove so that I could get back to Michigan in time to report for my first day on Psychiatry. Their generosity was the only way it was even possible for me to stay for last Closing Weekend instead of having to catch a plane hours earlier, and I am sincerely and forever grateful. Not least of which because it made what happened next possible...

By the time we began our last drift down the length of the Faire, the sun had set completely. The stars of evening filled the moon-lit sky above us. There was almost no one left walking along with us except for us, friends all. None of us in any real hurry, none of us in a rush to sunder our fellowship any sooner than we must.

Somewhere along the line, through our wanderings together torwards the gate, I had ended up as part of a small group of four of us walking together in the darkness. Somehow, we just came together, shoulder to shoulder, side by side, hands and arms woven together. A wonderful newly met friend at one end, one of my very closest and oldest friends right at my left; another of my very closest friends right at my right. All of us holding each other close in a walking four-abreast-line, together.

There were a few whispers. A quiet song, shared by the lady who wrote it. And then I think we all realized, as Morwen later put it best: there we were, surrounded by some of our very favorite people in the world, at one of our favorite places in the world.

One of the four of us gently whispered into the silence: I want to *remember* this moment.

And in our line, four sets of hands clasped tightly together as one.