folklife in the city

folklife in the city

In Seattle now the weather is that specific combination of whipping wind, grey, short days and freezing rain that is the winter in the Pacific Northwest. The streets are full of people leaning forward into the driving rain. The only umbrellas are in the hands of tourists, the Seattle-ites just thrust their hands into the pockets of their REI jackets and move on. You also understand in this weather the importance of the coffee shop - a cosy haven with pools of light spilt on the floor, warm, friendly aromas swirling like dervishes, the clattering of companionship and conversation and the hiss and splutter of steaming machines working their alchemy.

As I sit in the coffeeshop, the rain knocking at the window, begging to be let in, I think of the Northwest Folklife Festival that Sahir and I went to a few months ago. A day very diffferent from this cold, windy winter day.

Each year, on memorial day weekend, on the sprawling lawns of the Seattle Centre, in the funky 'flying-saucer on a swizzle stick' shadow of the Space Needle, there is a strange smell that gathers.

Violating cruelly the sanitised, hyper-chlorinated confines of American society, is a combination of deep, dark, unwashed body odors, with whiffs of marijuana, trampled wet grass, the cuisine of two dozen countries and popping kettle corn.

This is a part of what has come to be known as the Northwest Folklife Festival. Ecstasy and extortion in unequal parts, it is an awkward collection of strange people, strange things and even stranger hairstyles. I usually go as I usually am in Seattle around this time, it being around my son's birthday.

We went on Monday, Memorial Day, and just as we did, the sun burst through after many days of Seattle gloomy drunge. It was crazy beauty, with colours just going wild, liberated from days of grey. All the leaves twittered and fluttered, suddenly oily green.

As we entered, my son and I, through the chaotic tangle of tie-dye shops, turquoise and silver jewelery, hand-tooled leather and serene women braiding the hair of children with colourful bits of string we followed a pattern we had set ourselves.

First we went to a little shop that sold stuffed toys and bought a little beanie dragon. A drageen he calls it. This is to match the two he already has from previous years. Then we went to get a huge chunk of curly fries - a serving bigger than his head.

We sat by the sloping sides of the huge fountain where children more adventurous and physical than my son ran and threw off their clothes. We ate the too-salty fries and watched people go by. The sun was warm on our faces and hands, the fries were crisp on the outside and soft inside and it was good.

After that we walked, following the sounds of music - African drummers all frenetic and fluid with a hundred crazy dancers paying obeisance - elegant women with silver hair and adopted children from Cambodia swaying sinuously, bald hippies with stringy grey beards hopping up and down, African immigrants stunned to tears by the powerful and familiar rhythms made strange by the context showing them everything right and wrong about life, Gothic teens and yuppies who yearn for freedom without knowing from what.... they were all there with the assorted tourist and wandering stranger.

We saw the long haired country singer who wanted the crowd to take back the country from the Bushies, the street performers and magicians doing their thing as if they were at Cirque Du Soleil, the professional singers unsure as to what this strange mixed-up crowd wanted, making weak jokes about their suburban lives.

It was all wonderful and we could not help but be happy there. And as we left it seemed to me that my son loved me more, and I him more too. With all the love around it was inevitable we should take a little home with us.