Missing Those Three Days in July

It was just one festival too many. It was 1978, and with two small daughters in tow I had celebrated spring at the Easter Be-In in Stanley Park, walked, rallied and sung with the crowds on International Women's Day, and walked, rallied and sung for peace with the throngs in April.

I was festivaled out. So, I decided to skip the first Vancouver Folk Music Festival in July. It was a decision those two daughters — both now passionate folk festival aficionados — have since caused me to regret.

“You decided what?”

“We didn't go just because you'd been to the Easter Be-In?”

“I can't believe you had a chance to go to the very first festival and didn't!”

But we've since made up for it.

Except for one other July when we were in England (I came to regret that decision, too), we've done our best to help keep the festival afloat. We've attended religiously, volunteered, served on the board, bought raffle tickets and donated.

My sister went into labour days before the 1996 festival, so we've celebrated nearly a quarter-century of birthdays there with some pretty spectacular treasure hunts, including one that challenged the kids to come back with photos of themselves with their favourite performers. We've gathered on “the blanket” — which in the past few years has included two patchwork quilts made from decades of folk fest T-shirts — in annual extended-family reunions.

Over all these years, the festival has been one of the happy places that have held not only our family but our community together. It has provided not just a mid-summer respite from the workaday world, but an annual respite from a world ravaged by right-wing authoritarianism, poverty, famine, inequality, racism, homophobia and climate change. A temporary retreat into a world where we have the luxury of three whole days with like-minded folks, absorbing inspiration from the people, the place, the performances and the politics.

The magic of that moment when we all stream through East Gate reminds me of that magical childhood moment when our family walked through the gates of the 1950s PNE, us kids carefully guarding the spending money we'd saved up all summer just for this day. Then, my brothers and sisters and I were the kids surrounded by our adults, knowing we had them all to ourselves for the entire day. At Jericho Beach, it is three whole days where the children know they have their adults all to themselves — and the adults know there will always be other adults to take over for an hour as they browse through the CD tent or sip a glass of wine in the beer garden.

Now, 42 years after that first missed festival, I cannot imagine the summers — the generations — without those three days in July: the Main Stage, Little Folks, the banjos and the fiddles, the throat singing, the bhangra, the story telling, discovering Sweet Honey in the Rock and Veda Hille, dancing on the grass.

So even though I knew it was inevitable, when I got the email announcing that the 42nd festival was cancelled because of COVID-19, I wept. It was only the second time this pandemic had made me weep. The first was when John Prine died. Both times, it was the music that did it. The music and everything it signifies.

Four generations of my family have cherished those three days in July. My mother came through the gate free, not because she loved listening to music on the grass in a crowd but because she loved the idea of her whole family gathered together at Jericho, and so she could take any of the little ones who'd had enough home to bed at Grandma's house. And now, I'm that Grandma. While I still love listening to the music on the grass in a crowd and the idea of my whole family gathered together at Jericho, my enthusiasm has started to wane for the late-night concerts. So, I'm more than willing to be the one who takes home any kidlets who would rather be in their beds.

Our children's lives would be different without those three days that last all year. Those days that lodge in their earliest vocabularies as the “folk fextical,” the “folk festical.” That launch them into independence with such anticipation and pride as finally they too can go off on their own with the big kids. That become the first job on their young resumes. That envelope them in a loving conspiracy forged by sharing a tarp, an adventure, an elephant ear, a card game encircled by the safety net of their whole family, by sitting cross-legged and heads together in a tight little circle of cousins.

Watching them trailing behind the lantern parade as darkness descends is a luminous memory for me as much as it is for them. Etched into the Jericho sunset.

The body memories of four generations criss-crossing each other. Blurring into one another. Reading books on the blanket against a backdrop of family. Little ones falling asleep in strollers, in arms, in sun, in tents, in sound. Big kids leaning into their adults who are leaning into their partners who are leaning into their chairbacks. Walking hand in hand through all the people. Walking out with the glow-in-the-dark ships and butterflies and birds and stars.

We each walk through the gate on Friday into our own folk fest world. The costumes, the characters, the friendships, the flirtations, the music that is one of the soundtracks of our lives. The renewed faith that this world is full of enough people who are committed enough to keep fighting for it. And we each walk out the gate on Sunday night just a little better for it.

These three days lodged so firmly in our lives. Come hell, high water or COVID-19, they are part of who we are.