Viva la Verano

Today Ash and I went to the Summer Fest. It was last minute and lovely. We went not because we had any interest in buying things from the booths or waiting in line for hours on end to board an electric whirlygig of whizzing neon splendour, but because we wanted to see these things and smell them and hear the racket of the crowd and be pushed and squeezed and reminded of how many human beings we share these little plots of land called cities and towns with.
The ground was thick with footprints and we almost felt sorry for the grass, but it was just doing it's job.
We weaved in and through and out of bunches of people we've never met and Ash said it made her feel old because there were so many teens that we no longer felt any affinity with, and I said it made me feel young because I saw so many families, parents with little kids running around waving glow swords and cotton candy--I'm not old yet because I don't have any of these little creatures called kids.
And I remembered what it was like to see a carnival when I was six years old--radiating light and resonating color, spinning and shouting into the night, candy and popcorn and games offering prizes that were bigger than I was. And I remember how much I loved my mom, because she hates carnivals but would always take me anyway and sometimes let me ride the rides--even though they were really over priced.
We heard popping and a boom and we ran down the street to find a good spot to tilt our heads back and watch blooming fiery bouquets in the sky--red and gold and purple sparking blossoms opening and fading into crackling cinders overhead leaving nothing but smoke and ashes in the night after a thousand oohs and aahs. Fireworks so big and close that the repeating booms felt like a second heartbeat pounding in my chest.

This experience reiterated the fact that there are some things that will always be filled with a great deal of magic regardless of how old I am:
-Fireworks
-Bubbles
-Snowfall
-Fireflies
-Thunderstorms
-Rain
-Waves on the Shore
-Campfires
-Frozen Lakes
-Mountain Peaks
-The Sound of Crickets
-Cities and Crowds
-The Desert

Every time I experience something on this list I am again brought to a sense of childlike wonder.

After, we went with friends to a giant house in the middle of nowhere in Mapleton to join a freezetag tournament.
Thirty people. Three taggers. Three full floors full of long hallways and winding corners to pursue and evade. At times it felt like watching a heard of antelope in your living room.
Somehow, nothing was broken and no one was injured.
We played the sort of freezetag where you have to crawl between the legs of a frozen comrade in order to free them. My shining moment of the night came when I dove head first down the stairs passing under three arched sets of legs to set them free.
Somehow, I had gotten it into my head that I was too old to play tag.

Tonight I realized that I may never be to old for tag, or fireworks, or a carnival, or even diving down a curving set of stairs head first between someone else's legs--or at least I hope I'm not.

Long live this Summer.