Con Report: Anthrocon 2006

[lhexa]

"My first Eastercon was Seacon in Brighton in 1984 -- a huge and wonderful affair. I was 23, wide-eyed and delighted by the convention. Bumptious, gawky, ransacking the dealer's room for Lionel Fanthorpe books for Ghastly Beyond Belief, occasionally mistaken for Clive Barker (why?) and starting to suspect that I might have found my tribe. And now, 24 years later, I'm some strange old-timery creature, at an Eastercon of 1300 people that's the biggest since, er, Seacon in 1984, and, despite the worries that friends have expressed to me about the greying of fandom, there seem to be an awful lot of people here the age I was at my first Eastercon or younger, an amazing amount of enthusiasm, and a lot of people who are having their first convention, and who may even now be suspecting that they might have found their tribe." -- Neil Gaiman

That is a worthy story, but it is not my story. My story is below.

The people present in this story will recognize themselves in it, though I apologize to the two friends whom I have momentarily made into archetypes, and thereby only described insofar as they relate to my experiences during the convention. It's only for the story's duration, really. *grins* For those who can't stand reading it, pardon my style. Also, thank you, Orin, for inspiring me to write the report of my first convention, even though it is a bit late and I no longer remember the exact order of events.

***

Ah, this beautiful liquid of gestures, costumes and talk! I am enamored of you, furry fandom, and I will know you. I attended this convention because I had been promised the presence of both a guide and a sage. The sage was here with many of his students, who all wanted to learn the ways of empathy. The guide, who was to arrive on the second day, knew how to lead me to the sage, and also to other worthy people. But on the first day I was left to search these many camps for the face of a newly nomadic friend, from whom I begged and was granted a place to sleep.

Awaking within this strange mass that fluidly changed friends to merchants and performers, I had no reason to linger in the company of my benefactors, for after leaving the convention I would soon return to interacting with them normally. I wandered, and discovered the halls and the river, with everything flowing to and from them. The guide arrived and met me, then allowed me to follow as he tracked down the sage and introduced me to him. But the time of a sage is precious, and I could not yet demand any of it, so I joined all the others who were swept along in this group. I thought: Yes, I sense the patterns which surround me. In time, I can learn them. I am immersed in the element, but I am not yet of the element. Am I approaching that mythic emotion which all my friends name with awe? This individual stream of people at last flowed to a still pond, but my guide was turned away with the harshest of words at the door to the place where the sage rested. As I later realized, a student of the sage of empathy is still capable of cruelty.

The guide, though he had not achieved his central task, still had much to show me. Together, we wandered and eventually met an interesting person who, despite the rush of events, still retained time; leaving her, we dined together at a place far from the convention; and we wandered the nighttime streets of Pittsburgh in pursuit of further sustenance. Eventually I left the guide behind: to my shame, I abandoned him, though I could not do otherwise. The sage and I have never since met, nor have I or the guide since been able to lead one another. I returned on my own to the beautiful liquid, to be in the element, but not of the element. I happily observed everything occurring before me, and when my eyes were full I turned to the literal river and was alone; more, I repeated this pattern many times. I returned to the familiar discipline of alternation which defines the role of the outsider. I learned.

How gladly I thrive on the feeling of not belonging!