Spotwood 2018

Every year since 2006 my daughter The Spare (I just like that better) and I have gone to a festival near York, PA that celebrates the faeries. The festival was held on a charming farm property with a Jane Austen-era farmhouse and a babbling brook.

I'm using the past tense. This year was the final Spotwood Fairie Festival to be held on the farm property.

EXHIBIT A: THEN

EXHIBIT B: NOW

Spotwood drew thousands of free-spirited people like me -- people who liked to drum and dance and join tribes and put together amazing outfits from thrift stores and honor the faeries. It's one of two places I've visited in the last decade where I met people I really wanted to get to know. I thought Spare was outgrowing the festival, but she got swept up in the spirit on the final day and was loved by all the folks who have gotten to know her over the years.

But Spotwood was a victim of its success, growing bigger every year and facing challenges from Mother Nature. Word has it that the festival will relocate elsewhere. This is a solace to the people who have become family because of it. But what about the land?

You see, I do believe in faeries, and I do believe they are present on the property. They don't just pack up and move to a neighboring campground. It's a lot more complicated than that. The special qualities of Spotwood Farm will be very hard to replicate because faeries exist. Spotwood has faerie energy, and that's not found everywhere.

I'm telling myself that Spotwood had become a habit and that maybe, if I got less lazy, I would find more places with people like me. Brushwood, for instance. I've never been there. But right now it's hard to be optimistic. About anything. That's why I haven't been writing much. I used to be silly, but now I'm sour. I feel burdened by the ugly soot of the Trump regime. Snobville, as if this was really possible, has become even snobbier.

Where do I belong? Where's my land base? I knew I wouldn't always have Spotwood, but the ground is just shifting dramatically under my feet. I don't know who I am in this post-farm, post-daughter, change-ridden landscape.

I don't even recognize America. Do you?

Anyway, sorry for all the tears and self-pity, but I really will miss going to Spotwood, not just for all the fun reasons but for the spiritual ones too.

(My regulars will see that I misspelled the name of the farm throughout. This was deliberate, I haven't gone completely around the bend yet.)