In Month Eleven of the Pandemic, I am Craving the White-Hot Misery of a Music Festival

Oh, festival grounds! How I have forsaken thee! Thine crowds (though they are horny), and thine grass (though it is trampled and hot, often hurting the bum) now possess me as thine beats once did!

Oh, festival grounds. If life could but afford me the pleasure of once again worshipping at the altar of thine beats! Beats which thickly bump like a living force existing directly beneath the feet, exhorting the masses to dance and dance poorly!

Oh, to feel a throbbing in the chest, to be at the whim of the bass drum — to wonder if it’s healthy for the body to feel such internal thunder! To worry that the sound is maybe affecting your cardiovascular health!

Oh, to wonder if maybe this whole thing is maybe too loud! To worry about the fools on the front row, standing directly in front of speakers powerful enough to make one’s chest throb even from hundreds of feet away! Oh, to wonder if they’re maybe dumb to do that! To stand so close to the metal-meshed machines, acting like it doesn’t hurt, when we all know that it does! That speaker is very loud, Troy from Nantucket!

Oh, to be in the presence of holy evidence that perhaps the body was not meant to live this way: with a dirty, dirty bassline felt distinctly in the chest — but, oh! to kind of love it anyway! To devour thine potatoes on a stick! Those little waffle things that are shaped like fish!

Oh, festival grounds, thou only knowest why the waffle is fish-shaped! Only thou knowest how to keep safe so many of thine disciples from dangerous dehydration!

How my heart yearns to once again have my body’s basic needs at front of mind, for they are gravely endangered! — oh! To worry about heat and rain! To fret about being swallowed by a crowd whilst in search of water, never to be spat back out! Oh, to be dry-mouthed yet having to pee! To be so proximate to the threat of the elements and thine own body’s betrayal! To have thine outfits judged by teens in matching Adidas!

Oh, festival grounds, how I crave the awkwardness of some stoned person’s request to dance with me, saying, always, “You look fun!” — simply because you are headbanging (which is sort of the bare minimum)!

Oh, to graciously receive such a compliment, and spend 30 seconds using one’s dance steps to carefully inch further away!

Oh, to feel sort of bad about inching away from the stoned person! But to also feel justified in doing so! Oh, festival grounds, how I long to once again curse my agreeable aura! Oh, to accept a joint from the dude you’re paying to pitch a tent in his backyard — and, oh! to hope that one is holding it right, and is taking a polite amount of puffs!

Oh, festival grounds, how I crave the silent fear that one might be offered something much harder than weed. Oh, to mentally rehearse a polite and easygoing way to say “HELL no! Please be careful with that!”

Oh, the lines! The crowds! The overpopulation! But at least we’re all spending time outside…so, nice…!

Oh, the potty mouths of the youth! Oh, the worry brought on by a girl of eighteen, happily sharing a story of the last time she “dabbed out”! Oh, festival grounds, how I miss finding one bar of cell service in order to google “what does it mean to dab out,” and “dab out brain damage teen”!

Oh, festival grounds, how I miss your sweet misery!