September | 2018 | Wendy Welch: Books, Yarn, Cats, Opioids

sketch-of-two-friends-in-a-cafe-at-a-clipart__k23830760 If you cried during the Kavanaugh-Ford testimony today, I said a prayer for you. I didn’t know your name, but God does.

You might have cried because you were one of the 1-in-6 men abused during their lifetime. Since that happens to most of you before you leave high school, you were also a child victim. And you’re one of the people who doesn’t get much sympathy because grown men aren’t supposed to cry, and shame is like hot tar; it sticks and burns long after it hits. I’m praying for God’s sheltering wings to cover and cool you.

Or because you were one of the 1-in-3 women who is assaulted in her lifetime. For us it can happen at almost any age. If the words they said made you hear his breathing, smell the background, feel fingers on your skin so that you wanted to rip it off and be nothing but air, I’m praying for God to hide you in the shadow of his hand, and help you feel safe until the footsteps and doors and voices die down again.

Maybe you cried because your tormentor is still out there, and you never got justice. Maybe you cried because you did get justice, but it didn’t make a difference to how much you still need help repairing your life. There are no “shoulds” in recovering from the breech of trust that happens to so many of us before we’re old enough to vote. I’m praying you find peace.

Were you told to be quiet, not embarrass the family, to “just stay away” from the weird neighbor or uncle? Maybe you were unsure who was at fault. Because it had to be yours.

The thing I’m praying most, for all of you who cried, is that you find someone to talk to. You need to. I’m asking God to bring you someone safe, someone who will be there, and point him or her out to you. Talk. Get it out, no matter how long it’s been in there. You need to talk.

Bless you. Be safe. Be strong.

Jack’s on time again – Musht be shome mishtake – – –

Ah! – the aftermath of our annual Celtic festival! The post-mortems and memories; what went right and what went wrong.

Actually not much went wrong, but I’m always a nervous wreck in the run-up thinking what might. This year our hard working chairperson Darinda moved home out of the area so the rest of us had to regroup and strategize. We had already had to accept that we couldn’t avoid a calendar clash with another big, but non Celtic, music festival just a couple of hours away. The weather forecast began to look more and more ominous right up to the night before.

In the end the forecast of all day thunderstorms didn’t materialize, the bike race was well supported, the parade wasn’t rained on, the vendors were happy, the sheepdogs starred, the music venues worked well and everyone had the opportunity to sample haggis, Cornish pasties, cock-a-leekie soup and apple crumble.

We probably did lose some attendance to the other festival, but not as much as I feared. We probably also lost folk due to the terrible weather forecast. But we still provided custom to the local B&B and the local hotels from folks who came from a distance and that’s partly what it’s all about.

Another perennial worry is whether we’d raise enough financial support to run the festival to our projected budget. Some regular supporting businesses and organizations had to cut back a bit this time but we got there in the end.

For me, the icing on the cake are the late night sessions back in the bookstore on Friday and Saturday. This year they were exceptional, in no small part because our good friends Tim and Eileen were over from North Carolina. Friday night saw great instrumental music while on Saturday I was transported back to the wonderful experience of being in the company of exceptional singers and harmonizers that I remember from years gone by.

I’ve helped organize many festivals and folksong clubs over the years and there’s always a constant tension between the satisfaction and pleasure when things work out and the worry that things will fall apart.

This time it mostly worked –

pipes