And those were my first thoughts while waiting for Kristen for a moment after getting everything at least physically where it needs to be on Thursday at about noon. From there it was four days of madness – and with notes and over 1,100 photographs (not including what’s on my phone) and about 12 hours of video, it’s going to take me a while to process physically, much less mentally. Let me just say that this Falcon Ridge Folk Festival was like none I’d ever attended before, passionate, highly emotional. I laughed a lot and wept openly twice.
I often talk about how I have the best job in the world. There’s something about Falcon Ridge that brings the bones of that job very, very close to the surface – for me at least – so many people talk to me about leaving all their stresses behind “on the Hill”, or how they step out of their real Lives here – but for me, it’s like everything I do AMPLIFIED and FOCUSED. Joy is that beautiful synthesis of laughter and sadness that is a true distillation of the human condition – and there was a LOT of “joy” for me this weekend. I haven’t felt as close to finding the underlying reason for – not WHY I do the things that I do – but the underlying reason for why I HAVE to do the things I do.
I talk about how I have the best job in the world – but it’s not a job, or a career – it’s a compulsion and close on to being an illness – but it’s also the solution to the sickness. The salve for a LOT of sicknesses – and I am desperately self-medicating even as I try to inoculate those around me with words and sound and talk and sheer force of presence.
Teavolve open mic :
1) ilyAIMY
2) Pat O’Neall
3) Elise Major
4) Zach Seals
5) Jon
6) Dave Benham
7) Kate Fleming
David Amaya
9) Karlie Barthalomew
10) Talya Tavor
11) Ebony
12) Douglas Christian III
13) Taiese
14) Jamie Katz
15) Bruce
