Ahhhhh, 2012.  A very special year.  I've begun to crawl in to this experience, this place that always calls me deeper.  Next year will be different, that has been promised.  That is the future; I can still taste 2012 on my lips.

I arrived with intentions.  "This year I will learn more about how this organization runs, is led, and what a feminist, intentional community looks like from the inside."  Since I discovered just before fest that I wouldn't be at any of the "community" meetings held for crew, I chose patience as the value I would work on this year.  I am not a patient person.  I jump up and down when waiting for Red to get off an airplane.  I call people ten times and hang up before their voicemail picks up when I am trying to reach them.  I buy books rather than wait for the library.

Being on the land before most people arrived was very good.  I loved being a festie and the sweet anticipation of the gates opening.  Helping to build the festival is amazing.  I liked everyone on my crew.  Nancy I called "Coach", BB was my mentor.  Maya and I got to know one another and I can feel a friendship developing.  I followed Rosie around like a puppy.  Her wife Rhonda made sure to remind me several times that Rosie and I are purely platonic.  I am a flirt, but a harmless flirt and Rhonda turned out to be quite the flirt herself.  Rosie seemed to make certain I had a great fest.  I had a wonderful schedule and I hope my crewmates were as happy with the schedule as I was.  We did pass it around and choose shifts. Maya wound up with five nights working so I traded her Sunday night for Sunday day and she seemed good with that.

My very good friends were there as campers and my girlfriend was working her first year on Shuttle.  I do wish I'd had more time to hang out with my friends.  I felt as though I had enough time with Red because she worked split shifts and we could sleep in together on my mornings off and could spend time together later in the day.  I missed seeing my friends as much as I am used to hanging out.  Some of that was early risers/late risers and mostly it was me working 8 hours a day and also helping Red get through a very tough fest.

Oh, that picture reminds me of how very many things I got to do this fest, things I've always wanted!  I got a haircut on the land for the first time.  I brought my clippers and V gave me a nice trim, giving me a most excellent mohawk.  This look was "in" this year, with quite a few butches sporting the shaggy hawk.  I also got to visit Hell's Kitchen and spend some time there getting to know some of the womyn.  It was very nice, and I will be back.  My friends there were very loving and supportive and I see now a small slice of what BDSM has to offer.  It was fabulous.  I also learned how to eat fire.  It is something a friend learned as a Lesbian Avenger, and she taught us.  "The fire will not consume us; we take it and make it our own."  They were doing it at the Triangle firepit and I chanced upon them.  Amazing.

Monday night after the gates opened Kirsten, Lisa and I wandered downtown, watching the night stage techs work on lights and fog machines, we sat out in the field and counted shooting stars.  We laughed until we cried about goofy stuff and we felt such love.  I went to parties, flirted nonstop, and opened my heart.  I missed my kids and learned lessons again, reconnected.

Since I've come home I have had a few conversations with great friends about how happy I look at fest,  how different I look.  I glow, I shine, I am home.  Of course I want that all the time.  Every year I try and bring a little more of that home with me and keep up the friendships and the love that deepens over time.  I guess that is patience.