I've said goodbye to Razz and Farelle, Tri and Otter, driven across 2.5 states, and slept the night in the place where my stuff is. I'll still drive four hours to Dallas today, but basically I'm back from RCFM... back to the everyday life where people conform and I'm the different one.

Last week I talked with a friend about what "home" was... it's an easy word, one of the first we learn, somewhere between "cat" and "No!" Anyone who's lost a home, or returned to one after a long absence, knows how powerful the attachment to a place can be; yet a place is not a home. Our belongings, tools and toys and souvenirs, are parts of our selves that hurt to lose, but just having our stuff in a place doesn't make it a home. Our trusted communities can give us security and strength; yet oftener than we'd like to admit, our churches or schools, families or lovers can betray us and make horrors of our lives.

Yet we'll make a place special by being there, by filling the space between the four walls with meaning and individuality. The church is filled with wedding guests, the cubicle with children's drawings, the corner table with laughing friends, the empty arena with roaring fans waiting for the first skate blade to touch fresh ice.

For a few days, we occupied a series of rooms (really good ones to be sure) filled by many events and guests before us, and which will see many more after we leave. In these rooms, we hugged and laughed and annoyed each other, made art and money and weird faces and cried on shoulders. I'm writing this under a roof that none of you have ever seen, but I'm not alone here, and neither are you. I carry my silver pencil everywhere to remind me that whatever else happens, as the movie says: I'm an artist, and I'm pretty proud of it.


WE3: "Home is run no more."

Song: Freuer "Doot Doot"

Pics from RCFM are mostly in my scraps starting here with a few more to come tonight.


ModernFelvet's journal on signs of abuse

youarenotcrazy site on learning to deal with emotional abuse

NYT article on the !Kung people's use of storytelling to survive harsh conditions.

"It may also have played a role in the development of culture. People who made exquisite gifts and told enthralling stories would have been more successful in maintaining relationships. They might have been the ones who would have had better opportunities for survival and to pass their genes onto the next generation."


-Peace, Pteryxx