Michfest, Day 7

Michfest, Day 6

Safety Dance~

This morning when we crewed up at Lace the outlook for the day seemed positive. We were a little ahead of schedule and could take a few hours of reprieve to practice our rain crew duties.

Imagine, seeing an empty field on Sunday and then, six days later, there’s a massive stage on it covered with a huge gorgeous blue and white tent. Unbelievable. I stood on the night stage for the first time while Belinda talked us through the mechanics of the rain pole and its crucial function of preserving the tent and all the expensive sound and light equipment beneath.

Charles, Viv, and I volunteered to be on top of the ladder for rain crew duty. I chose the task because I love rock climbing and I’m not afraid of heights. The day before I left for Michigan I had helped Amy clean out her gutters and it had seemed like no big deal at all- ladders are fun for me.

But the first time I practiced putting up the pole, I was scared, even though I couldn’t have had a better person as my second. Crash stood behind me with her arms around my legs and reassured me that I wasn’t going anywhere.

What scared me were all these epic crazy stories of the Le Tigre show a few years back that had been so amazing to so many womyn. The massive moshing in the rain bit of it sounded awesome, but the idea of being on top of a rickety wooden ladder in the middle of a crazy thunderstorm and trying to put the metal tip of a heavy center pole in through a tiny hole that was flapping in violent winds…well, let’s just say that the idea pushed against the limits of my bravery.

The hardest thing for me about putting up the center pole was the damn safety knot, of all things. I had tied the same knot a thousand times as a rock climber. But on a ladder, with a different type of rope and from a different direction and imagining gale force winds… I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around it. Or wrap the string around the pole, rather.

The rest of the afternoon was a lesson in my limits. We had been working for six days straight without much of a break. I was tired. Lace finished up the last of the sledging and this time I had to sit out entirely for fear of ripping open (again) the miraculous stigmatas that had blossomed on my palms. I ended the afternoon feeling small and a little lost.

I wandered off alone to the acoustic stage to try to make sense of how I was feeling. Once upon a time my spirit path had opened up in the middle of the Ferron show in this very spot, and the next day I had found the grounding I needed here at the healing ceremony. I went back to that stage looking for the same door that had opened for me last year, but it had closed. Or moved on, rather. The land laughed at me, gently, playfully, and said, Oh no. You can’t expect to come back to the same place a year later and find the same door. It’s not that easy. The world has moved on. You’ll find that door again, but where you least expect it.

I was probably a little cranky that evening. Everyone was talking about the dance that night, but sheesh! All I wanted to do was sleep! Emily Huber kept reassuring me that the dance was worth it, that I’d get a second wind, that the first dance was the best, but oh, my little yellow tent looked so inviting!

Oh man am I glad that I didn’t sleep through one of the best nights of pre-Fest.

The dance was incredible. During the week I had started to get a sense for some of my fellow sisters personalities, but it’s always a surprise to see how this translates on the dance floor. Who would have known that Paige, my (as of yet) fairly quiet Lace-partner-in-crime would prove to be a dance machine?! And Justin! Damn! After a long week of work, it was exactly what we needed. I danced until I was so hot that I needed to step away for a bit and cool down. There were womyn that I hadn’t even talked to yet, but met them energetically on the dance floor. Fucking amazing.

Not long into the dance, I noticed that the safety knot that Charles had tied that afternoon had unraveled and the string was dangling above the floor. Oops. Lori came over and swatted at it like a cat. Fearing a potential future accident in which my knot negligence would drop the string on Ferron’s head mid ‘Souvenir’, I vowed to have a knot consultation with Viv who, incidentally, looked fabulous dressed in a tie and no shirt.

Oh, how we danced! KT took a turn as DJ and we only danced harder. One song in particular had everyone stomping in unison against the stage floor. That’s our ply!!! All those boots together made a hollow staccato against the wood that my crew of four had taken out of Oliver earlier that week. Unbelievable.

Em and I took a much needed break to cool off. We walked along the catwalk to the end and laid down with our feet dangling off the edge. In the darkness I got the sensation that we were sitting on a pier overlooking a vast starlit ocean. With so much space out there it seemed like anything was possible.

Back on the Night Stage, we danced until the music was over, then we begged for more, and the DJ broke her curfew to play us one last song.

We kept right on dancing.