When life is a festival

One day soon I will wake up in a real bed, looking around the room nervously, shivering, asking myself: where am I? And more important: what just happened? Canadian festival summer is what happened! Seven festivals in eight weeks make me feel weak at the knees, speechless and voiceless. All the smiles, the dancing, the new friends in colourful dress ups, the love! I'm not even talking about the numerous weddings. It's the love of strangers for each other, flowing through music and gatherings of silliness.

Why do I follow festivals all over the world to the point where my voice is gone and legs are tired but there is no time for recovery? Why do I choose to be showerless, dusty and sweaty most of the weekends? Because these festivals change my life. They make me the happiest version of myself. They inspire me so much it makes my bones rattle with delight. Plus, nothing feels better than a hot shower after five days of dancing in the mud. A steaming bowl of homemade soup after weeks of granolabars and bananas. It's the small things. 

By travelling from one festival to another I try to make this magic last. They are little worlds where everyone is family. Hugging happens on a 500 a day base. You can dance all day and all night and you can play and be a child in a candy store and Alice in Wonderland, at the same time if you like. Laughing is the spoken language and rolling over the floor with laughter is considered normal. Your weirdness is celebrated by a bunch of other weirdos and that's when the real fun happens.

Shambhala was the cherry on top of the festival summer. A place where 15000 people gather to get glittered up, dressed up just to dance it all off. Every tree in the forest is decorated, every stage plays amazing music and everyone was overflowing with excitement for this crazy party. Jumping castles and little path ways leading to tree houses. An all-day funk jam, morning river swims and nights of getting lost in the magical forest. Pure bliss and gratefulness. Hugging new friends and kissing familiar faces, I felt like a bird in a love nest. One with laser shows, house dj's and so much glitter it gave me a rash. Yep, it's a thing. Too much glitter on your face and you wake up in a sparkly tent but with a bright red face. The glitter rash! The body's way of saying: my darling, enough partying. Wash your face and get a job. The only solution: cover your face in even more glitter to hide your glowing red cheeks, put on your psychedelic pants and get your ass on the dancefloor.

A summer of festivals

Every year it's the same story. The first day of summer, my heart starts beating a little faster. Not because of the sun on my face or the fact that people wear less clothing. Absolutely not because of that. No really, what do think of me? 

Okay, it does make my heart beat like a jungle drum and it's hard to hide a smile that covers my entire face. Hooray for summer! Let's celebrate by throwing away our clothes! But what I really wanted to say was: I get overexcited with FESTIVALS. Not nudity. Music! Concerts! Live bands! Drummers! Day time dancing in fields! THAT's what gets me through winter. The idea of a festival filled summer. The smell of beer and sweat. Hmmmmm. Goodness.

I spent June and most of July on Belgian festivals. Then I headed for Portugal, because BOOM festival was calling my name and haunting my dreams. So I had to go and see for myself what this big psychedelic gathering was about. I will tell you aaaall about it in the next post, this one is on the sweet summer festivals in Belgium, more specific Rock Werchter. The reason I decided to hang around 80 000 old rockers for a day was to see one band live now they are still alive and kicking. Exactly. The Rolling Stones. 

Of course my camera had no battery left by the time they jumped on stage. And clearly I was dancing too hard to Seasick Steve to even think about taking pictures. I'm not so much into documenting every second of my life on camera, but I did want to remind myself why these massive festivals don't do it for me anymore. Ten thousands of people sitting down. No decoration, no crazy party atmosphere. But a legendary headliner.

After many psytrance festivals in Australia and Nepal, it felt gooood to see some amazing live music. But I missed dancing day and night in a magical forest, surrounded by colourful people. Rolling Stones, you were great, but Boom was the party that blew my mind. 

Life is a festival

You live with 3000 people in a forest. You can't get the smell of cheap wine out of your water bottle. Your tent has been your home for longer than the average camping trip. The dancefloor is where you spend your days and nights. You get hugged by strangers and call them your brothers and sisters. The music never ends. The people around you get tired and when you look in a mirror you see the big black bags under your eyes and realise it's time for sleep. There are no clean clothes left, you don't remember the last time you had a shower, you don't even remember when your last real meal was. You have absolutely no clue what has been happening on facebook or in the world outside the piece of nature you reside. Yes, your life turned into one big festival. And you love every smelly bit of it.