Friday, Nov. 19, 2010 2:35 p.m.

reenacting

I've been meaning to write about last weekend. I attended another Civil War reenactment.

You know what's funny? I can fairly vividly remember being in college, maybe freshman or sophomore year, back when we girls use to watch A Wedding Story religiously. There was one episode where they had a Civil War-themed wedding and all of us girls commented on how 'weird' it was and how can people be that obsessed with the Civil War and they must be backwards and racist to get out there and re-create battles. And I went along with this thinking, just because, well, all the other girls were talking about it, and how could I disagree with them?

It's definitely ironic that I've now taken it up as a hobby. It's so much different than I thought it would be. It's like taking 4-5 weekend camping trips a year, with the same community of a couple hundred people, all while exploring and participating and recreating history with other people who are just as interested in history as you are. I love trying to experience mid-19th century life. I love the connection to my ancestors - it gives me a greater understanding of today, and of time in general. I have more interest in current events and current fashion and technology, because I'm now able to view everything as simply a product of the time period we're currently in.

When I first tell people that I do Civil War reenacting, their first question inevitably is: Are you North or South? I find this question demonstrative of how limited people's thinking and understanding of the world is. For the majority of the reenactors (I have to say majority, because there's always an exception, though no one I know in the hobby falls into that exception, but still, I'm sure there are some that do), it has very little, or nothing, to do with "sides".

Since I am a female, and since I enjoy dressing in the pretty dresses and don't want to camouflage my gender as a soldier, I reenact as a civilian, so for the most part, I get to play neutral. I'm not on any side. The ladies in the civilian group I reenact with are friends with both union and confederate reenactors. They both come into our camp, they both help us set up and eat our leftover food and play drinking games at night with us. We don't care one way or another.

Technically, we are supposed to be playing Southerners, but that's for the fact that logistically speaking, the majority of the fighting was on on Southern soil, and if we're playing women in a town near the battlefield - we have to be Southern.

Though I suppose that I do find the Confederacy interesting, only because as the losing side, I know that it is the victors who earn the reward of retelling their perspective as 'history'...and I'm curious as to the other side of the story. I'm not naive enough to think that anything, especially a political issue as deep as this one, is merely a black and white conflict. For something to tear a country apart and persuade hundreds of thousands of people to die for a cause - it can't be as simple as the textbooks make it seem.

Anyways, so I'm clearly fascinated by the history of the Civil War and how it defined our country. And I'm slowly starting to commit myself to the hobby of reenacting. I love talking to the public that come to events. Come on, I am a teacher afterall - how could I not enjoying getting to educate? :)

Not to mention that I think I'm really fitting in with the group. As in, I think I have actual friends. Considering that I've been growing increasingly lonely over the past couple years - friends are good. Very good. These are friends that I share common interests with: sewing and history and camping! Hanging out with these people is such a nice change of pace from hanging out with the more spoiled, city, "Hollywood" people that I'm usually forced to hang out with with K. They aren't afraid to get their hands dirty and fix something; my usual 'friends' wouldn't have the ingenuity to find a solution to the kinds of problems that often present themselves while camping at events.

To be honest, I also enjoy hanging out with all of the other guys that are in the reenacting hobby. To many of them, reenacting is a way for them to get away from their wives and families (who often don't share their interest in the hobby) a couple times a year and just hang out with the guys. To most of the ladies in my reenacting group, events are used as the same, only to get away from our husband and/or kids.

Most of the ladies in my group are around my age, and the fun ones are just slightly older than me, early 30s, married and maybe with a young kid or two. We're a pretty lively group of women...and there's not a lot of women in the hobby...so our little group makes friends with the guys pretty easily. :) The best part is that there's a freedom in all our interactions. The guys come over, and help up set up and take down camp. We give them our leftover food. We drink and play dice/card games with them at night; we dance with them at the evening (period) dances. We have a good time.

But there's always something very gentlemanly in their attentions. Perhaps it's the very clearly defined gender roles to it all. Even our dress is explicitly gender specific: they wear pants, coats and hats; we wear bonnets and big dresses that swoosh. They are the men. We are the women. Or perhaps it's that these events are one small place in the modern world where they have the opportunity to be men...and we get the privilege of being women.

I really find myself enjoying Civil War reenacting, and it surprises me how normal it feels and how normal most (not all) of the other reenactors are. But then I wonder what people's outside perceptions are, and if they think I am as weird as I once thought reenactors were.

But I guess I kind of don't care anymore.

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