Watching The Workshops go 'Bye

Photo_08, originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

I've been sitting in the dining tent for hours. After a crazy night of post-workshop jubilation—it's always strange and exciting to go to parties where people don't really know each other that well—I dragged my somewhat-slightly-dazed ass out of bed at 8am and shambled to the tent in hopes of a greasy breakfast. This wasn't easy for other reasons, too, namely, it was pouring down rain for the first time all week and I was all done. That makes for a pretty convinding case for staying in bed, no?

But I didn't want to. I love this place and the people that are here with me, and I just want to drink it in some more. Today is a day of teary goodbye's for most, and I've just kind of camped out since breakfast, through lunch, talking, laughing, sharing photos, and really having my eyese well up with tears more often then I would admit.

Every conversation seems to yield new things. I've even made new friends among people who were on their way to the airport in moments. I can't wait to talk to Molly some more about Holga. I've talked endlessly to various people about the contagious exhuberance of Bob Sacha, who I'll be revisiting in a month at the Mountain Workshop, along with a few others from here. And I've delighted in the shared wonder of nearly every person here at The Workshops.

My class is over, and this week is pretty much closing down. I'm alone in the dining tent, and the industrious kitchen staff swabs the deck, the rain relents, the sun comes out on a glorious Maine day, and the staff falls back and prepares to do it all again for tomorrow's incoming students.

It's not a wrap for me yet, though I now kind of move into a different mode. I'm staying to cover the Union Fair and my "Beltie Girls" as they show their cows for ribbons. And delightfully, I've made arrangements to stay exactly where I am until Tuesday, my room in Kate's Cottage (the students here are scattered around in a variety of dorms and motels and houses; Kate's Cottage is kind of ideal in terms of being "right down the road" from the campus.) and I even get to keep my "eatin' priv'leges." So I'll be kind of a lurker, but will get to visit with a few of my fave peeps who are staying for yet another workshop.

It is so great here. I've got tears again.