Tuesday, June 6, 2006

An entry not about Wiscon

So I went to Wiscon 30, the thirtieth anniversary of Wiscon. My tribe gathered, as it does at every Wiscon; and my heroes returned as well. I saw Le Guin on a panel and she was fearless, amused, and twice as alive as anyone else in the room, as you would expect; I met Delany, and he liked Other Cities, an "ok, kill me now" moment.

But I cannot blog about that. I cannot do the namecheck of all the amazing people I met, and all the amazing people I saw again, the Dyonisian revel of dancing and karaokeing, nor the fancy outfit, nor the picking of brains, the revolutionary memes unleashed on an unsuspecting world, the silliness and the seriousness, the talking about children and childhoods, cultures and genders, worlds and words. I cannot even give you all (you know who you are) the namechecking you so richly deserve.

And this is because I am writing from a borrowed terminal, the one working internet terminal for many miles, at the Omega Institute in upstate New York. Doesn't that sound like the kind of place a Bond villain would have above his lair? That possibility has not been ruled out, nor a "The Beach"-like apparent-utopia-with-hidden-Morlocks. We're here for Esther to learn to teach meditation to her psychotherapy clients. I am watching the kids. Officially I am booked for Rest & Relaxation, but instead of mud baths, meditation, massage, and finding my chakra, my R&R consists of tickle fights on the grass, chasing after children bloodied by stray basketballs, propping up Noah when he has fallen asleep aboard a canoe beset by pirates, and evicting ants from our tent. I would not, of course, have it any other way.

There is an official children's program for over-4's, but Aviva has more or less snubbed it. Instead, she and Noah have charmed all the non-officially-childcare staff, the mail carriers and bookstore workers, who take them swimming and drawing, and let us into night movies in the staff house (this is the kind of place where the night movies in the staff house are BBC documentaries involving snow leopards).

There was like a day or two of intense day job between Wiscon and leaving for the 8-hour drive to this place, and this is the first break I've had since. Mind you, I am not complaining. :-) Yummy tofu, being rowed around a mile-long lake by Aviva (no... seriously. The girl can row), chasing bugs with Noah, and no where else we need to get to, is my idea of paradise.

But this is my excuse for not documenting that other, different, glimpse of heaven. Love you all regardless.