Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears ...

 'Tis been a goodly long time since last I have posted any of my doings.  This be mostly because I've had nigh onto nothing of worthwhile import to impart.  Thusly, I shall simply leave ye with a poem.

Sonnet CXVI 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to ev'ry wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosey lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out to the very edge of doom.
     If this be error, and upon me proved,
     I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

 

Most sincerely yours,

Wm. Shakespeare

Friends,

     It hath been some time since last I posted mine own thoughts in this forum, but 'tis time to do so again.  As I write this missive I am entering the Eleventh weekend (& second of Halloween) of the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire, a place that hath been a goodly home to me for many a season.  I started in this place assisting a vendor six years ago, moved into the volunteer cast five years ago, and three years ago joined the full-time, professional company.  There have been many, many memories garnered hereupon the Shire of Mt. Hope, some bad, but so many more good, and a few even fantastic.

     Mt. Hope, on the Globe Stage, is where I proposed to my fiancee.  Mt. Hope is where I met some of my very best friends.  Mt. Hope is where I became William Shakespeare.  And yet, as the end of the season draws to a close, I cannot help but feel a sense of loss, a feeling of possible finality.  Not for the Faire itself, no, nay; but rather for myself.  It feels as, possibly, this chapter of my life is coming to a close, and I very much do not yet want it to end.  I am not sure whether this feeling means that my days as The Bard are numbered, or merely my days at the PRF.  All I know is that a feeling of melancholy is pervading my very soul.

     In the end, all I can say, I suppose, is that the ride has been fantastic.  You have been fantastic, and you know what?  So have I.  If it's not yet over (and I hope not), then maybe this is just an overblown case of end-of-the-season blues.  If, howe'er, this is my curtain call, I have few regrets.  The Shire of Mount Hope and myself have been good to each other.  If we cannot stay married, at least we shall part the closest of friends.  But, again, I hope that that day is a long way off.

     In any event, let's enjoy the time we have remaining, for as the song goes: The Faire time was a fine time to know.