Today’s Daily Stoic writing prompt: Where can I find confidence?

Confidence, for me, comes from being able to live my life in the way that rings true for me. I enjoy being around people who get me, but yet at the same time enjoying those aspects of my interior life that will live and die with me. These thoughts are mine and no one else’s.

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I’ve started working again on SCA scrolls, now that we’ve been given an actual deadline for them. I have two outstanding assignments and took on a third one yesterday. One of the three is a non-traditional scroll that involved some clever changes to an existing object, to which the scroll text has been attached. I’m quite happy at how I was able to personalize the object by changing one item and adding a couple of additional items. This award was supposed to have been given in April, 2020, and it definitely invoked some Feelings–how long ago those pre-lockdown days seem, the events that prompted the award being almost forgotten. I hope it brings a little joy once it’s finally given.

The second one, an assignment I’ve had for a number of months and had begun to design but not to actually ink, was inspired by an image from last summer. I still find it beautiful and believe it will have some special significance to the recipient.

Other things today included ordering more clicky math rocks (aka dice). Dave has given me even more dice, so once I’m done with this I’m going to check upstairs for something to act as a dice bag.

The Olympics continue to suck me in. Canada just won gold in women’s rowing 8s. I really do enjoy rowing. I am just hoping the Games can get through the next ten days as COVID cases spike in Tokyo.

It is hard to believe–but in some ways completely believable — that it’s been three years since I was at Pennsic. There wasn’t one last year, of course, and I didn’t go the year before. There’s an event called Armistice running this year at Cooper’s Lake, and I’m seeing some photos, which are a bit of an echo of Pennsic–the same land, the same general look, but much smaller. I wonder whether I will ever go again. I do feel like I said my goodbyes to Pennsic if it does come to pass that I do not return; yet if I do, I imagine it will be poignant in an almost inconceivable way. I will observe the ritual I observed on August 8/9 of that final year, although without the accompanying drinks (it’s difficult to make a Chocolate Chaucer without Pennsic chocolate milk) in all its multivalent significance, and know that Jerusalem was attained for many, many years.