This past weekend, I went home. My heart burst into a thousand fairies and took flight. I was unable to contain my happiness, my joy, my weeping, nor could the rain and sometimes knee-deep mud deflate my soaring spirit.
I have often said, more times than I can possibly count, that the Oregon Country Fair is my religion. After living these last eighteen months in the long shadows of the Mormon Temple, learning to both respect and question those who are not quite like me, I soaked and drank deeply from the love bestowed from my tribe.
There were so many beautiful moments. It was as if I was experiencing the fair for the very first time in so very many ways, and perhaps, honestly, I was. Certainly it was my first fair in this incarnation of me.
I made so very many new and special and dear friends this year. Hello new friends! I also renewed cherished friendships that I am blessed beyond blessed to share with such a vast array of truly beautiful souls.
The most important lesson I learned, was perhaps something I already knew, deep down, way down in those corners of my soul that only I can possibly know. It will never matter who else may decide to go to the fair because the fair has always been about community, about sharing, about love. The abundance of joy experienced just standing amidst a throng of grooving strangers is enough to light up your megawatt smile for the entire rest of the year.
I am blessed, I am renewed, I am naked with ecstatic gratitude. And there's just 361 days until I get to do it all over again. I've a lot of loving to do between now and then, while I keep the joy and wonder alive, alive, alive!
