SCA

The bar

At Beltane, on Friday night I phoned it in… hard.

We set up camp, headed off site for dinner, returned to site, put the child to bed and then I decided I wanted to spend a little while sitting by the fire.

This last year I lost 65 lbs and gave away most of my dresses. I currently own two dresses which I can wear after I put on my underkirtle. Beltane is two days long. So I planned to wear both of my dresses. I didn’t want to strip down and re-dress in my underkirtle just so I could wear (and potentially dirty) one of the two dresses I needed to wear that weekend. So instead I asked my husband if I could borrow one of his tunics to “just throw on”.

I sat by the fire for a bit.. but then I got cold so I threw on the only coat I had with me, my 16th c. red wool Flemish jacket. It still has pins on it where I’m trying to attach the facing.. and I haven’t yet finished putting the hook/eye on the front edge.. so currently there’s now way to close the front. So I sat there, by the fire, in my own camp, with a much-too-big-for-me 10th century tunic thrown on over white tennis shoes, jeans and a t-shirt and a red 16th century jacket over it all. To top it off I put on a fuzzy wool hat to keep my head warm. In short.. I was a hot medieval-oid mess.

SCA Corpora says you have to “make an attempt at pre-16th century clothing”. This was (however weak) an attempt.

When I told this story to a group of friends my apprentice asked if I at least hid my Laurel medallion. I specifically hadn’t put it on. I knew when this was happening that I was phoning it in. I knew that my level of garb was okay as far as Corpora. I knew the garb police were not going to hunt me down and take away my medallion.

At the same time.. I knew I should do better. Not necessarily because I am a Laurel.. but because I do better. I get to choose where my bar is.. and I knew I was not meeting the bar I had set.

I will not try to tell others where they should set their bar.. and I will try not to judge others for how they meet or don’t meet my bar.. but I definitely get to set/reach my bar… and I will do better.

This also reminded me that I need the project “make clothes for myself and my family” to have a much higher priority.

1 thought on “The bar

  1. Folks who know me know I have a moderately high bar for my clothing….I want to look as though I walked out of a painting. Assuming there are paintings of whatever class and period I’m wearing at that time, of course.
    But comfort takes priority. If I am tired, going to be cold, and depressed, I’m not going to be wearing my nice garb. Or period shoes–I can handle cold with period shoes, if there is someplace I can warm up–but cold and wet is too much. I have mixed periods as well when something is missing from my wardrobe at the event –I am still working on non-Irish 16th century outerwear for warmth and dryness.

    And I have a fair amount of garb, most of which still fits. You don’t, at the moment–I am sure you will again.
    Comfort trumps the bar–at least until you have period clothing for every weather condition, activity (including sitting around the campfire after setting up pavilions on Friday), and period you play with (and that is a lot of money right there…it’s unlikely that people consider that to be a reasonable expectation). Safety/health also trumps the normal bar. And being too tired to change is a health thing.

    Just my thoughts,
    Maister Bran

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