Monthly Archives: August 2007

Festival at Sandpoint…or the sewer, depending on the wind

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As a resident of Sandpoint for the past 28 years, I’ve become accustomed to the smell of the Festival at Sandpoint. I throw together a picnic, grab a blanket, pack a sweatshirt and zip down to Memorial Field, home of the Festival each year. It all looks beautiful! Twinkling lights, lilting music set right by the lake with a big full moon hanging in the sky above. Everything is perfect…almost.

The field sits next to the local water treatment plant. By water they mean poop…which is what perfumes the evening. The gentle night breeze both soothes and tortures the many people that wait in line for great seats, only to enjoy their hard-won spot on the grass as the malodorous stench wafts by.

Moving the Festival is not an option, and it seems like moving the “water” treatment plant might be difficult too. Much to the chagrin of everyone in attendance last night.

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I took my son and daughter to the children’s concert, and through it all I heard more than a few kids whisper to their parents or siblings: “Did you fart?”, which kept me laughing all night! Isabelle got her face painted by Amy Tessier, the brilliant artist, and we came home laughing with great pictures.

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All in all, a great time…in spite of the smell :)

Heartache

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Browsing through blogs today (with an angry toothache coming from a tooth scheduled for extraction) I came upon this:

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“Tucked away in picture frames, hidden in a box I kept you safely from me. Yet star-lit eyes seemed to grin like demons as I discovered my forgotten treasure. There you were, as if I had never left you. There you were, as if everything were the same. Quickly, I brushed away your image, tucking it into the pile of hard memories. Another box, another prison and I would be released from you. But never could I simply throw you away. My heart had long forgotten how to beat and yet each picture returned its rhythm. I could not stand the betrayal of my own affections. Had I not buried this love long enough? How could it continue to live in the shadows of my mind? Each smile, each glazed eye, the awkward angle of your hand, the slope of your brow. Each conjured the dead, raising them in the broken pieces of my heart. The war is undone by the mere image of your face, I am defeated…What great lesson is this? God’s cruel trick… My only hope for salvation is to find someone else. To tack this undying monster onto an undeserving soul in fragile hope I can be saved. Yet I fear, it too, will be no match against the black hole of our star-crossed connection. Much to my dismay, you will always be there with smiling eyes and a flippant grin. Like a specter, you will always be there.”

Sigh…