Of all the Faire seasons of recent memory (now granted I’m already well famous for having a somewhat spotty one at this point), I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced or seen one quite as rough on a personal side as this one.

I don’t think there’s a producer I know of that hasn’t had deeply personal problems this year: separations, divorces, major surgery, death in the immediate family, loss of home, loss of job, everything one could imagine almost. With each next person chiming in that they had to take some personal time to step back, another story was waiting around the next corner.

It seems like another lifetime ago when I hopped into the car to head off to set up for the Symposium weekend back in Feb. I still have a particular feeling that I’d gone up the hill to Tahoe, but never came back down again. I wonder what it’ll be like to go back again next year – who will I be by then, how will it feel to go back to where really everything started (and ended).

Life goes on. So does hope, and aspirations, and love, and friendships. Even as close as it got this past year to it not going on – I learned a great deal about myself and about what I want out of life, both in the near as well as longer term.

And I learned to no longer be afraid. Of myself most notably. I’d blamed faire for many of my behaviors – but doing so was really like an alcoholic on a bar for their addiction. It was a crutch, an enabler, but I was letting myself get swept along instead of standing up and doing what I really wanted most.

Now for the Holiday season, and then to 2009. I hope most earnestly that 09 is a vast improvement for myself, my friends, and my loved ones over what came in 08.

•