You are in for a treat or not perhaps depending on your point of view but you are about to get a very rare and a very personal look into the persona who is Searlait Nitschke.  If not interested, *grins* then move along… later on you can find more product stuff, fun and bouncing like usual but for the moment…. there is a bit of a different goal in mind.

It is a familiar place for me now, the perch high above in the trees of Evensong Wood.  A favored place that I had created, my steps carrying me back and forth over the wooden structures that were first raised months ago, then changed… altered… their form taking shape over time as it came to me.  There is a story… of the elves, of a lady, slumbering beauty and the moon… little things I made up as I worked placing the characters I had created within the cold landscape breathing life into it as I went so I could see it.  Feel it.  Imagine it.  Yuale Nura and the wood became something more than just a sim to be built for Fantasy Faire.  I believe strongly in RFL anyways and Fantasy Faire allows me to meld things that are meaningful to me in one place.  Fantasy, imagination, creation and flights of fancy with a meaningful cause, the fight against a disease that has like so many other people insinuated its way into my life one way or another through the years.

Whenever I create something for RFL there is usually someone in mind.  Last year I was asked to do a 1/2 of a sim along the Relay for Life track, a decorative piece really.  The theme was something to do with time and I put together a piece with gears, time pieces and angels… with an alchemist hidden within the ruins, long struggling to find the cure but never giving up.  I created that for my other half…. clockwork angels, standing the test of time even as the rust creeps along the gears and statues.  I enjoyed that very much and could be found lounging within the rolling hills, flowers and trees there gazing up at one of the angels quietly.

This year when asked to do a Faire sim I couldn’t quite put my finger on what to do, tree city type was thrown around as an idea… I’ve always wanted to do it but never had the nerve to, challenge me and I tend to try it.  Then the idea of winter… I latched onto that and like I said in the interview for the faire, there is a time of the year that is very personal to me where I go out in the night when it is bitter bitter cold gazing up at a cloudless sky to breathe in the season while the tree branches creak bending within the frigid night… soft sounds, a light wind perhaps rustling what might be moved.  Wrapping my arms around me taking in the moments in a meditative sort of way.  I find it beautiful, invigorating, and awe inspiring, I wanted to try to get that across.

But then there is more… more to it, the part that I didn’t write about in the interview.

I said it was corny… it might be, never know what someone else will think of your personal thoughts, I don’t often extend them and why I am on the blog… eh, it’s because I like to write, it is a venting, a release, a way to place into words things that I might not otherwise utter. A sharing.  I have for years written things, but it is rarer and rarer that I put it forth.

Look up above the towering trees into the darkness surrounding us; like a blanket of sorts hiding what may or may not be seen within the brightness of the daylight… there… do you see it where the branches and foliage leave a small gap.  The smallest of windows, stars glistening within the wide expanse… the light shining from so far away and there…. the moon.  Round and full looking too big for the sky.  Hanging above us full of mystery and mysticism.  The snow sparkles beneath it within the night each step you take feeling as if you might be breaking sacred silence, the ice and snow crunching under your feet loud to your ears before we pause.

It’s cold… very cold.  Your breath hangs in the air as if it too wishes to linger within the frigid cold for a few extra moments.  I catch my breath as we gaze upwards together, the threat of tears shimmering in my eyes.

It’s beautiful isn’t it?   It is for my sons that I built this too…. he who cannot be with me… and for he who struggles, they gaze upon the moon for their own reasons pointing it out to me rather like I have pointed it out to you.  One from so long ago… whispers carried on the wind that can no longer be heard the voice lost to memory.  Then we look upon the moon wishing and hoping…  when I am gazing to the moon…. I think of you… my sons.  No matter where you are know that when you gaze upwards you are never alone, and in those moments perhaps there will be times when we are watching it together.  It was a promise I made years ago and one that I keep still this day and will continue.

I built this for you, for them, for relay, for imaginative flights of fancy, for somber reflection, for all those who know the pain of being separated from loved ones whether it is by choice or design or taken by a disease that haunts us.

I relay, and I fight…. and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing this journey with me.  For traveling the sim, for donating, for giving time and energy to a cause that means so much to so many people.  This is why I create…. hoping to find the moments to share.  I am sad as the faire sims will be disappearing soon… I stand upon the walkways pacing back and forth not wanting to let it go… knowing it will soon be gone.  Gazing to the moon.  Though even as I lament the passing of this years Faire I already have begun to look forward wondering what magic will be brought about for the next chapter.  What people will see, what we will contribute… what beautiful wonders will be put on display next year.

Until then….