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In Which I Bid Farewell to Secret
Dec. 19th, 2019 09:00 amLast night was my final night of gaming at Secret.
That's been the Wednesday-night Endgame replacement, since Endgame closed last holiday season, brought to us courtesy of Joss. Secret is a weird little Victorian house, whose downstairs is split between a shop on the right and a venue with a stage on the left, and with lots of people living in it, with a loft bed at the back of the venue (where we also game) and presumably more tight accommodations upstairs.
It's part of the more rebellious artsy part of Oakland that I've never been part of. Kind of counter-culturey. Joss, our host, is good folk, and all the other residents I've met there are very nice, happily greeting us, and even cooking us food(!). I'd say it's not exactly my scene, and it's not, but I was entirely comfortable there.
I mean, I missed the lofty soaring mezzanines at Endgame, where Secret felt claustrophobic in comparison. I missed the regular tables and chairs, where in comparison we were always setting up ad hoc tables at Secret, with a huge menagerie of seating.
But of course it was always the people that kept me coming back to Endgame, and later Secret. There were many people who never made the transition, but our remaining group was strong, with a few additions starting to dribble in because Joss was clearly doing some advertising and finding like-minded souls.
So last night I played Res Arcana with Eric V., Hey, and Mack, then after Hey left I played Wingspan with the remaining two. (Mack won both games; I love playing games with strong players!) And then I said goodbye to them and Joss and Belle (but not Sam, who I'll see again for some PACG games) and exchanged lots of hugs and lingered for a bit, then finally escaped into the cool Oakland night, hiking out to BART, who'd apparently just taken a train leading to Richmond out of service, leaving me in for a 20-minute wait. (Good 'ole BART. I remember when they mostly worked, 30 years ago.)
And it was the end of an era, just like the shipping of our furniture the morning before.
There are going to be lots of those in the weeks ahead.
Last night I had a dream about fighting off alien invaders with some newfound friends while a teenager at summer camp.
I don't remember many of the details, other than capturing the queen bee alien (who was bee-sized and shaped) and keeping her in a Plano box. We thought we'd cut her off from all communication with her drones, but then we came in and found a bee flying under the box in perfect synchronization with the queen bee flying inside the box, like they were connected by magnetic forces. DUM DUM DUM!
And then it was later and my friends and I were meeting up on a hillside road, saying goodbye. And it was clearly a big turning point in our lives, and as we hugged and cried, the subtext was that we'd never see each other again, because our lives were about to more forward at supersonic speed.
And I woke up thinking, "I was never that teary about leaving my high-school friends behind".
And then I realized that I was dreaming about Stranger Things and imagining Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will, Six and the rest saying goodbye after their lives inevitably moved on. That Stephen King theme of never having such good friends as those you had while growing up always touches me. I mean, it's totally bunk, because those friends I had for five or six years in Jr. High and High School are never going to match my twenty-year relationship with my wife or the gaming friends I've known at Endgame for more than fifteen years or my Cal gaming group who I've known for thirty. But there's some truth there too because of the immersiveness of play when we're young, the novelty of every experience, and our ability to give ourselves freely without boundaries before life closes in on us.
And I smiled.
And then I realized that I was dreaming about leaving my gaming friends from Secret and Endgame.
And I smiled a bit less.
But the end of an era also means the beginning of a new one.
That's been the Wednesday-night Endgame replacement, since Endgame closed last holiday season, brought to us courtesy of Joss. Secret is a weird little Victorian house, whose downstairs is split between a shop on the right and a venue with a stage on the left, and with lots of people living in it, with a loft bed at the back of the venue (where we also game) and presumably more tight accommodations upstairs.
It's part of the more rebellious artsy part of Oakland that I've never been part of. Kind of counter-culturey. Joss, our host, is good folk, and all the other residents I've met there are very nice, happily greeting us, and even cooking us food(!). I'd say it's not exactly my scene, and it's not, but I was entirely comfortable there.
I mean, I missed the lofty soaring mezzanines at Endgame, where Secret felt claustrophobic in comparison. I missed the regular tables and chairs, where in comparison we were always setting up ad hoc tables at Secret, with a huge menagerie of seating.
But of course it was always the people that kept me coming back to Endgame, and later Secret. There were many people who never made the transition, but our remaining group was strong, with a few additions starting to dribble in because Joss was clearly doing some advertising and finding like-minded souls.
So last night I played Res Arcana with Eric V., Hey, and Mack, then after Hey left I played Wingspan with the remaining two. (Mack won both games; I love playing games with strong players!) And then I said goodbye to them and Joss and Belle (but not Sam, who I'll see again for some PACG games) and exchanged lots of hugs and lingered for a bit, then finally escaped into the cool Oakland night, hiking out to BART, who'd apparently just taken a train leading to Richmond out of service, leaving me in for a 20-minute wait. (Good 'ole BART. I remember when they mostly worked, 30 years ago.)
And it was the end of an era, just like the shipping of our furniture the morning before.
There are going to be lots of those in the weeks ahead.
Last night I had a dream about fighting off alien invaders with some newfound friends while a teenager at summer camp.
I don't remember many of the details, other than capturing the queen bee alien (who was bee-sized and shaped) and keeping her in a Plano box. We thought we'd cut her off from all communication with her drones, but then we came in and found a bee flying under the box in perfect synchronization with the queen bee flying inside the box, like they were connected by magnetic forces. DUM DUM DUM!
And then it was later and my friends and I were meeting up on a hillside road, saying goodbye. And it was clearly a big turning point in our lives, and as we hugged and cried, the subtext was that we'd never see each other again, because our lives were about to more forward at supersonic speed.
And I woke up thinking, "I was never that teary about leaving my high-school friends behind".
And then I realized that I was dreaming about Stranger Things and imagining Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will, Six and the rest saying goodbye after their lives inevitably moved on. That Stephen King theme of never having such good friends as those you had while growing up always touches me. I mean, it's totally bunk, because those friends I had for five or six years in Jr. High and High School are never going to match my twenty-year relationship with my wife or the gaming friends I've known at Endgame for more than fifteen years or my Cal gaming group who I've known for thirty. But there's some truth there too because of the immersiveness of play when we're young, the novelty of every experience, and our ability to give ourselves freely without boundaries before life closes in on us.
And I smiled.
And then I realized that I was dreaming about leaving my gaming friends from Secret and Endgame.
And I smiled a bit less.
But the end of an era also means the beginning of a new one.