The why of Faire

While on the way home from Tahoe this evening, I started thinking about why we all do this crazy thing called Faire. I've come to believe that we're really all there (most of us, at least) for the same reason:

there's something we crave, something we need, that the rest of the world has forgotten, but this community still knows that it's important.

What that something is varies from person to person, of course. Here are some of mine:

• the idea that music is something we do, not something we buy, and that "play" means picking up an instrument rather than pressing a button

• the sort of stories that arrive fresh from the lips of the teller or the actors on the stage, as old as time and as new as the day they were first spoken

• all the builders, crafters, artists, cooks, and organizers who know that profit is a necessity but isn't the real reason they keep coming back weekend after weekend

• the understanding that history is not a list of names and dates from dead and musty books, but something that lives and breathes and grows, full of songs and stories and people

Thanks and shout-outs to everyone who makes it happen; I love you all!