SWEET BLACK TEA & HONEY BREAD

lantern, Calgary Folk Music Festival main stage field

They wound through the crowd, bundled up in rain coats and hoodies, carrying lanterns on bamboo poles, as Ani DiFranco commanded the stage with her big small presence:

"i don't need anyone to hold me

i can hold my own

i got highways for stretchmarks

see where i've grown"

and as I stood along the side of the crowd, hugging my sweater around myself against the cool night air, I thought about growth and strength and how it's really true that the beauty is in the scars, the places we've hurt and healed and hurt again.

and I felt strong, and proud of these wounds, that wandering, those rememberings.

there were so many great moments during the folk festival weekend - hearing my favorite band-of-the-moment (Jay Crocker & The Electric Apes) perform a sizzling set, hearing Stew's funny song about Ken doll realizing he's gay - eating tabbouleh and cookies and baklava dripping with honey and salad with sunflower seeds drenched in sour vinaigrette dressing and spolumbo sausage and barbequed hamburgers. dancing to african rhythms at the north gate, as I performed my 'Production Security' volunteer duties, checking for passes, with the wind whipping through the trees, freezing my butt off. 

A cute photographer passed by and took pity on me, lending me his old, grey hoodie with the holes in the cuffs.  Epiphany: realizing that a major bonus of being single is that I can have these random crushes on strangers and know {in an alternate universe where I wasn't so shy and not nearly so busy} that if i wanted to, I could actually do something about it... ah.

There was warm soy chai and kettle corn and twinkling lights and earthy, funky jewelry, and so many great words, great songs.

"Rage against coffee machines, go ahead
I’ll take that sweet black tea
And honey bread

Cause you know,
Sadness is so fucking common
It’s not worth a song
So let’s sing of happy happy happy things
Happy things the whole night long..."

-STEW,

in a song about a café in baghdad performed during the All Mod Cons workshop on Sunterra Stage 5

Comments

[kathrin]

Hello Julie! what a joy to meet you this morning. And I meant to tell you how much I looooove your new look here. shame I always mean doing stuff instead of just doing it. miss your beautiful beads, K