It is Renaissance Faire season, and my "home" faire has opened. This means that there is a more or less public place that I shall be at, where I am not habitually shielded. I pretty much go "shields up" every time I leave my home, dropping them only when I have arrived at what feels to me is a safe place. Public spots rarely qualify. My home faire is one of those places, and I've been known to say that my faire day doesn't really start until I've been served my first hard cider and a small child has seen me and said "Look, a witch!"
This past spring, I attended two other faires and had a chance to run a small experiment. At the first one, I dressed identically to the way I've dressed at my home faire. But this one, held on an open college campus, did not say "safe" to me, and so protections stayed in place. I spoke with people, including children. Not one looked at me twice, I was a tourist faire attendee, just as they were, watching the chess match and debating the wisdom of eating a turkey leg.
The second non-home faire was held in a park, although in a somewhat enclosed area. Many of the attendees were familiar to me. I was not wearing my usual attire. I wore bright blue, with a circlet of gold flowers in my hair. But the place felt safe, so the layers of protection came down. And a little girl pointed at me and said "Mommy, a witch!"
I am glad that I do not scare these children when they really see me. But except for those rare and special places, the shields will stay in place.
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Vote. Don’t Back Down.
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3 comments:
I think being yourself is a great thing and the chance for others, especially smaller ones whose minds are still a bit palable to see you and experience you is all the more fascinating. I hope you share some of your photos with us... I always love the many changes fall starts to bring us.
yep, children do see so much better than adults. I was lucky enough to talk to one of my students around halloween about how the witches I know are all nice and not green with warts. She went home and talked to her aunt and mom, who agreed. She then spread the info to everyone at school- which was cool. Let them know young not to be biased.
There are few places where we feel like we can be completely ourselves, aren't there? I admire the truly confident people who show up and say, this is who I am, if you have a problem with it, I don't care. They aren't afraid to stick out or not conform. They don't fear criticism or taunting.
I know few people like this.
But it's great when you can find a place that is accepting. I find that I feel most at ease at book events. They're accepting of serious, somewhat shy people!
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