An AfFair of the Heart...

It is fair time again here.  And I just love this time.  I think I mostly love it because my kids and I have been doing it for decades.  It is odd, that I love it so much.  It is noisy, loud, dirty and there are way too many people.  None of which are my favorite but for 12 days every August, I rally.

So far, I have attended two concerts, eaten a veggie corn dog, a potato thingy off a stick, almost thrown up after my favorite ride, the Tilt-a-whirl.  I have walked like 30,000 steps.  I have perused the animals which is always bittersweet for me.  I have to pretend it is like a great pet adoption fair and they are all going to good homes where they will live forever...otherwise, I just have to skip it.  It is kind of a one and done kinda thing for me.

I have met some new people.  Stopped at every single vendor and looked at all the crazy shit people think we need in this world...

I have not yet had funnel cake, cotton candy or ridden the ferris wheel, but that is coming!

I think the thing I love most about the fair is my history with it.  Every year I go, I get to reminisce about all the years prior.  Who I was back then.  Who my kids were back then.  I have only attended the fair one year with an actual boyfriend which is kind of weird since every other fair attendee seems to be partnered and/or married.  But I have one photo of me on the ferris wheel with a dude I was actually dating.  And a couple with dudes I was not dating.  It is totally bizarre that despite the very family/relationship vibe the fair puts off, I still love it and I do not feel out of place. 

Unlike that time I stayed in a honeymoon spot in Bali.  Where the sweet women at the front desk asked me every single day, “Your husband come today?”  Next day, “your fiancé come today?”  Next day, “your boyfriend come today?”  Every day when I would tell them that, in fact, no man would be joining me at their amazing hotel, they looked like I just told them their favorite aunt died.  I really appreciated their care and concern and even worked through how much of a loser I felt like every time they asked.  They weren’t trying to be rude or uncaring, they just couldn’t fathom why anyone would come to a destination like that alone.  I was like, “I go everywhere alone!”

And I will even go to the fair alone.  I have been jilted by my kids many a time.  And I still walk around and look at shit and wander through the photography exhibit for like an hour.  Every year I say, “next year I am going to submit one of my photos!”  Every year I do not.

I think my love of all things fair is because it reminds me of a simpler time in life.  For a little while, we are all just people enjoying our community together, having fun, eating shit we like but is totally not good for us and watching live music nightly.  I remember carnivals as a child and how magical they seemed.  My dad and I wandering from ride to ride and then eating ourselves stupid on cotton candy and Carmel apples.  It was such a simple treat.  And makes me now remember all the amusement parks my dad and I went to. All the fun he had riding roller coasters.  He only attended the fair a couple of times because his health and mental abilities just didn’t allow for it in his later years.  But going to the fair still reminds me of all the good times I had growing up with him in similar venues.

I am a big fan of tradition because it allows for the experience of things that have passed, people that have passed, all while allowing for an experience in the now which is related to but completely different from the prior experiences...

8 days left, get your tickets now.  Hope to see you in some sort of line somewhere over there.  FYI, wear a hat, it is windy down there, and for God sake do not wear flip flops or sandals.  EWWW!  I will be marching around in my boots and a hat, loving my affair with the fair...

Again, still...