Summer Festival

Walking in a crowd, dodging other people in a crowd--this is a summer festival in a northern city.

Garbage overflows from bins, napkins in varying degrees of cleanliness fly by. The sound of songs you know sung by a band you don’t mixes with the regular city sounds of subways and horn-honking and crazy people. You eat and drink in huge quantities at stadium prices, prices that seem bloated, even in this extortionate town.

You meander through bodies, sidestepping children and dogs and the inebriated masses, feeling a little lost, a little overwhelmed. Then you see the hand in front of you reach back, searching for your hand. And you provide your hand for the seeker—such an easy thing to give, really. It is no trouble at all, really.

And all at once you realize that you have been found.