Tag: folk fest

some things are too exquisite for the lens of my camera

Ravers blinded by lasers.

Last night’s dancing aches all the way into the marrow of my bones. It’s surgical, how my muscles are taut, leaning on my sinew, tight, as if I were a supplicant who crawled to her pilgrimage, high voltage, a stanza of sore and continuous dull pain. I move slowly today, proposing to each group of movements in turn. Please, my left, my right, my feet, my hips and belly and back, only five more steps until we get to sit, rather than stand, rest rather than walk. They are deaf, restricted, injected with distrust for higher brain functions. It’s you who got us into this mess! they cry, as heavy as a wounded heart. You and your dancing, your twisting wrists, your skirt flaring more lightweight than rain! They are sassy, unhappy, a smashed set of porcelain. Save me if I ever have to run.

The festival was beautiful. At the last, I stood in the pit between the fenced off crowd and the stage, eyes stinging as a thousand people held hands and sang. Security shooed me to the very front, smiling at my camera, at my shining, perfect moment. I wished with all my heart for someone to hold there with me, to pin me to that place and time, and keep me there, a flower blooming precisely, forever in shared memory.

Best seat in the house, barring the stage, that. Best seat anywhere.

I’m looking forward to my pictures.

mike is still stranded in new mexico, so no that 1 guy

After all day at the folk fest, I’m wiped out. Too tired for a reasonable, decent, glad report. If you missed it, I’m sorry you did. It’s magical, our festival, it’s right by the ocean, cradled by mountains and lakes and forest and city, all at once. It’s the only event in Vancouver where I regularly look around me and think, “this city is beautiful”. I’m going back again today, to sit and listen to music and dance as much as possible. I don’t expect to be home until tomorrow.

I was part of the lantern procession last night, I carried a heart made all of fire, and dipped it over children and held it over the heads of smiling couples. I think I changed a little girl’s life last night, she looked as if I had shown her the moon.

starving for change

The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart of the City.

Persistence. It’s important to try. The boxes have been melting away, leaving the clear bones of a more functional home behind, newly blue and shiny red, that will be nice to live in, once we’ve finished sculpting muscle from the remaining meaty mess. I still need to buy brackets for the glass shelves, chemicals to take the tacky glue off the big hall mirror, wall-paper glue and a smoothing brush, put up the shelves and the last mirror, drawer my clean clothes, arrange the hall closet, shelve the still-to-be-mailed packages, rinse the last two batches of the dusty dishes, sort the last pots and pans into under the sink, catalogue what’s being given away and post the list on-line, launder the dish towels, fold them away, organize the bathroom, disinfect the counters and sink, bathe the cats, inventory what’s left, (as I’m sure to miss something), schedule an optometrist appointment, sweep the hall, vacuum, all of which will likely take me until Friday, if I don’t get any help, then take a week off. Finally.

That Mike‘s going to be in town not this weekend, but next weekend, playing the Folk Fest as a featured artist, which will take a bit of the stress away. He might even be coming along to see Crispin Glover with us, (us being, so far, me, Duncan, David, and possibly Lung), which I expect will be oodles of fun. It won’t be until after he’s left that I’m going to tackle the wall-paper that’s going up in the living-room, a vogue knock-off pattern of black and gray flowers on white. I need some time where I’m not concentrating on cleaning, on tidying, on sorting and shelving and assimilation.

Hanging the wall-paper will be an entire day’s work, even if I move all the furniture and wash the wall the night before. I’m not looking forward to it just yet, though I know after a break I will again. The Folk Fest will be a perfect distraction. Already I’ve started figuring an itinerary, planning on who to see and when. Start Saturday with Mike at Stage Five, with Kobo Town and Dubblestandart, move on to Eliza Gilkyson at Stage Three, snack on a delicious picnic, spend some time at the super sekrit backstage hammock, wander, dance, find Mike’s next show, and end the night with the glorious Béla Fleck. Sunday, more of the same, except with Jayme Stone and Mansa Sissoko, Jorane, and my once acquaintance, (friend of Shane and Mike), Michael Franti, who let me stay on his couch once, back in the nineties.