Brinniel & Boise, Part II

Driving down was no placid, leisurely pleasure (though it could have been), but was a rather anxious day, growing ever the more anxious as the day wore on. A part of it was the fact that, as a virtually first-time Canadian in the States, I was hypersensitive to every little difference from home (and they really are little…), and just felt generally uneasy. This may say more about Canada-US relations that anything else, because Montana and Idaho are definitely more similar to Alberta than Quebec is, but I felt more at home in Quebec than I did south of the 49th Parallel.

Mind you, there was also general background anxiety… I was utterly terrified that I was making a mistake, that I was going to get there and make a horrible first impression. In general, this nervousness is nothing more than a general tendency of mine to be both rather shy and a bit too much of a tendency to run through worst-case scenarios. By the time I pulled into Boise, I was not only shivering from lack of food and cold air-conditioning over the hands, but I had practically convinced myself that Brinniel and/or her parents were going to utterly hate me and/or the my car was going to die a horrible death, probably taking me with it.

Anyway, I pulled into Brinniel’s driveway, phone in that I think I’m there, and within a minute, Brinn’s standing in the doorway, clearly recognisable as that face from Facebook, and the tension eases, I meet the family, and all is well: I’m not a socially inept nervous wreck, Brinn and her parents and quite normal and very hospitable, and my car is not a burning wreck somewhere like Pocatello. In short, all my irrational fears, all of which I had known as I thought them as irrational, were clearly demonstrated to be baseless.

I’m still not entirely sure, even having done it now, how one is supposed to “meet” a Downer. I mean… do you treat it like a first time introduction, formally and with bows and hand shaking? Or do you go to the other extreme and not even bother with introductions? Or do you go with the emotional end, embracing and wild? We went more or less down the middle, felt just a tiny bit awkward, and then got onto the business at hand… which, if memory serves, was late night refreshments, pet talk, and Europe comparisons that night.

Was Brinniel what I expected her to be? If I have to limit it to one word… “no.” However, I’m not exactly sure what I expected. The girl I met was certainly the one in all the Brinniel pictures, knew all the references in the Brinniel posts, and fit all the known trivial facts. She was neither (overall) more mature or less mature than the Brinniel online. And yet… she was quite a bit different. Although she was the girl in the pictures, instantly recognisable, she did not look like them (I know, I know… 2D image of a 3D person, but still…). She sounded every bit as American/un-American/Downergirlish as she ought to have, and not quite what I expected—even though I still don’t know what I did expect. Perhaps the best way of expressing it is not to say that I found the secret identity, the real person beneath the Brinniel mask, but rather that I felt like I had discovered the superhero identity of someone I only knew the real version of… as if, in a Downs-centred world, the “real” Brinniel is the one online, and the flesh-and-blood Brinniel was the front created to save the world. It was as if Brinniel in person reminded me too much of people that I know and not enough of avatars and text posts.

Of course, there was plenty of thought going on in my mind about the oddity that is the Barrow-downs, the oddity of all these random people coming together and building such a strong community. It struck me as particularly odd that I would drive 16 hours from Edmonton to spend a weekend with a girl I’ve never met, when a similar sort of weekend would probably never occur with “real” acquaintances and friends except some of the very closest. I’ve noted before, back when I worked at Panago and had no life, that the Barrow-downs friends are often closer and longer-lasting than most others.

And all because of a book? Somehow, that seems not quite right. Tolkien may have dragged us all in, and certainly there’s a genuine fan in most of us, but it’s not the Lord of the Rings that gives us this community… it’s the people themselves. In my own case, it’s the time spend Werewolfing, and subsequent private messaging, and then the leap to instant messaging. Many of these Downers were better friends before they ever posted a picture online or gave out a full name on Facebook than people I’ve known since Grade 3. And that, I think, may have been part of the reason why I was so terrified about meeting Brinn, given that I was definitely smart enough to know that people in person are not the same as people online. After all, I’ve definitely had enough mental misconceptions thrown horribly out of whack by the Pictures Page (right, Lhuna?). Knowing this, there’s the uneasiness that maybe… what if someone who’s seems a good, funny person online turns out to be mean and self-centred in person.

I need not have worried. Brinniel is every bit as fun and hospitable in person as online—maybe even more so. The sense that one gets from the “I met a BDer!” thread about all the Downers who meet each other being really nice people, and fun to hang out with is, at least in Brinniel, totally true.

Now, the upshot of this awesome experience is that I, 100%, totally want to meet as many ‘Downers as possible. And while, with a couple exceptions (Oddwen, Gil-galad, Valier…) this is definitely not possible this year, I’ve got wild-eyed dreams for next summer, involving either a trip to Europe or a grand tour of North America. Not only did I get myself pumped up for Werewolf, but I’m pumped up for everything ‘Downsian in a way I haven’t been in two years. I mean, I’ve been more active this spring than I have in some time, so this is not a spontaneous trend… I might not have even met Brinniel if I hadn’t been able to spend more time online, but the interest has multiplied hugely as a result of the trip.

Finances are a big reason for not getting too optimistic about next year. After all, gas is going up, so drive or fly… it’s only going to get more expensive. Then there’s also logistics, such as planning around a job and ordinations and such…

But…

There’s a wee bit of hope in there too, and I wouldn’t trample it just yet. After all, I REALLY enjoyed this weekend, and REALLY want to do similar things again.

Next time, I’ll just be paranoid about the car, though.