Bits of Yesterday

I was online last night, talking to a friend. It was an odd juxtaposition of primitive - campsite, woods, darkness punctuated with stars - and modern - computer, cell phone charging at the wall, fairy lights along the ceiling.

I wrote some thoughts I wanted to share, things from yesterday, but never blogged them last night - so today, it is!

There was music, yesterday. Throughout the day, music. The Birembau in the morning. A man strolling the road along the Merchant's walk, playing a jaunty little tune on his concertina.

A woman stopping by our booth, two little girls in tow, offering to take Bird along with them to play. I didn't know her name, nor she mine, but I let him go, because...well...youd have to be here, part of this odd, annual community, to understand. I did introduce myself to her, at least. Bird walked away with her two girls, holding hands with the youngest, a happy little boy. He came back for dinner and was just fine.

After dinner, he stood beside the road outside the booth, blowing bubbles. He offered lessons to anyone who wanted them, and asked all passersby "Hey, would you like to blow some bubbles?" He stopped a pod of pirates (Is that what a group of them is called? If it wasn't before, it is now...) and chatted with them in the middle of the road. They were game. Bless 'em. No one is a stranger, to him, and here? Everyone is a friend. Adults intent on some business or another still stopped, talked to him, and an astonishing number of them paused and blew a few bubbles.

After he went to bed, I wandered to the cafe and plugged in, linked up, and talked with my friend for a couple of hours. In the distance, the drums were pounding, people were singing, dancing, enjoying the fire. I was enjoying the beat, the rhythm, and the solitude of the dark cafe. While I sat and typed, people wandered by and chatted, moved on, sat, left, came back, ebbed and flowed. One of the farm cats paid a visit and hung about, hoping for pets and food. A raccoon waddled across the stage in the corner, intent upon the trash cans to one side and hardly paying us a glance.

Eventually, I unplugged, chatted a while longer, and went back to camp - hours later than I'd intended, but that seems to happen here. The cat followed me, and I believe she would have slept with me if I'd let her.

This morning I woke to the sound of happy singing and the truck that comes to clean the port-a-potties, another odd juxtaposition.

Bird has been enjoying his first morning of child care, and I'm about to go collect him. As I typed this post, a good dozen people have stopped to chat. It has taken me more than an hour to write this, but I don't mind.

I wish you were here...somehow, writing about it just doesn't express the oddity, the beauty, the grace of being in a community so free, so loving, so welcoming...and I wish you could be here to understand...to grok, as it were...but since you can't, I'll keep trying to capture bits and pieces and send them along the wires to the Blue Nowhere and my online community, Blogopolis.