The Yurt and the Story
On the last day before Brexit slammed the doors shut we travelled from Germany to Cornwall on the British Isles. Just before the pandemic. The plan was to do research on my ‘festival-book’ (which is the working title for a novel on gatherings) and maybe visit Glastonbury the quintessential hometown of the modern version with a deep history on the phenomenon. We, our family of three, travelled as volunteers. Workawayers. Visiting projects and working part of the week for food and shelter. Along the way we could get a taste of the celtic-druid land and those weird pale island people.
What a surreal experience it became. Near Lands’End in the far southwest, we met some fellow travellers who had fled Italy and where truly spooked about what went down there. Worrying, but not affecting our plans yet.
You have to take in mind that planning was already on the back-burner for us. We felt our way forward at this point. Reading the signs, following opportunity.
That month we lived near an ancient stone circle that I visited a lot. Not sought out, it found us, so to speak. Circles play a big role in my book.
Next, was the small town of Frome (near Stonehenge). Staying with a man who commuted to London we felt the panic rising first hand. Talk of lockdown, which I didn’t expect would actually happen, and then the panic shopping. Half empty supermarkets. The Covid response became real.
Time for action, because we didn’t want to get stuck in a family house, in an urban environment. We found a project in Devon that would have us, and travelled on the last possible day.
We had bought online train-tickets but the station was deserted. Almost no trains running. Government announcements on an empty platform. Us with our suitcases. It felt like a dystopian movie scene.
We chose to trust and did get on the next best train in the right direction. It stranded less than half way. A tiny station in the middle of nowhere with one coach waiting. A fear-full bus driver, that put us in the back of the empty coach, keeping half a mile distance. We where the only passengers and the roads, and the skies, where empty. Slowly approaching the South coast. We almost made it. Stranded again, on a parking lot in Devon. A few phone calls got us a grateful taxi-driver (his first fare in three days) who could bring us the last fifty or so miles to Salcombe. Then to be picked up by our new host.
There on the high windy cliffs, half a mile from the deserted beach and the Atlantic we spend a magical spring and part of summer with a colourful bunch of total British weirdos who where drunk and/or high on pot half the time -but mostly friendly- and just as dumbfounded by the situation as we where.
Early spring in a yurt. Just cloth, no insulation. A small wood stove kept us comfortable most of the time, and a car battery provided lights and charging power for phones and writing equipment. Living in a round tent is like walking barefoot. Not entirely comfortable in the beginning, but so nice and light when you get used to it. Inside and outside get closer.
Having had the chance to be alone whenever you wished on a stunning beach that would normally be crawling with tourists is one of the best memories. Walking the coastal paths. Foraging. Long quiet mornings before the alcoholics woke up. Setting up our biggest vegetable community garden yet. Getting a good taste of community life with a random set of strangers depending on each other to keep things working was a learning experience with a steep curve.
My story idea was based on the fact that organising gatherings was in danger of being regulated impossible. Modern society likes commercial parties but no so much the enclaves of freedom, the unregulated space, that a festival provides. The premise of my story got swept away by reality overhauling it. Glastonbury got cancelled. And alongside basically all the festivals of the world. Making live music, dancing, physical contact, meeting people, celebrating, was no longer allowed. Gathering had become malicious from one day to the next. How unreal.
The plot of the story evolved around the idea of ‘the last festival’ and the risk that comes with ending a deep worldwide tradition. The lineage was in danger. But what I intended on working toward had already happened in a way that is typical of reality. It exceeds all expectations.
I thought I had lost the best story-idea of my life with already two years of pre-writing, exploring and research put in.
Loss is a theme for me.
A small flashback. Two years before, I lost my business, a big shop in art materials. Trying to get out of the rat race backfired and left us with debt and without a home. Another plan that got kicked in the stomach by reality.
I tried to reinvent myself by circling back to the festival grounds of my younger years as a professional drummer. I joined a local initiative as a volunteer and helped set up a cultural gathering. As artist in residence I painted some big imagery and helped shape the temple grounds.
A total druid led a crazy group of alternatives towards a unique three day event. It took three months from the build of a large green-man sculpture until the loud celebration. I was immersed in this very physical experience. Moonrituals and toilet building. Drumming and problem solving. Gathering past date food for the crew of about a hundred. Picking up gifted materials. Getting help with painting my large goddesses from several real life goddesses. Listening to the life stories of these outcasts. There I got the idea. I saw first hand how alive and diverse the underground movement was. The circus-people, the unconventional, the misfits, the rainbow folk, the fire-dancers, the dream-builders, the improvisers and the crosseyed clairvoyant creatives. I asked myself: how far back does this timeless bunch stretch, and how much longer will this be possible when surveillance and risk avoiding have completely taken over? Is this a dying breed? Do we really want to cultivate away the irregulars? Smooth out all texture? That triggered. That planted seeds. A handful of wild flowers sprouted right there and then.
Had I lost it? This wonderful gift? Had I missed the short window of opportunity? For the plot maybe, not for the underlying story. Those three months I met the first characters to populate my fictional arch about the invisible force that carried culture through the ages up to this historic point. There was a story. A rich wide tale lay waiting. It was more important than ever to allow this to take shape. The calling had only become stronger. I needed to up my trust and keep writing.
A story is a gathering too.
We grew a lot of tomato plants in the polytunnels in Devon. There where four of those long inverted half pipes in which we ate our meals, held pizza parties, had solar heated showers. I painted a mural on reclaimed carpet, worked on several outdoor kitchens for the yurt camp and had long discussions about the state of the world with the many -very illegal- guests dropping by.
There we set up five yurts, beautifully handmade ones, to be ready for the season if the restrictions would be lifted.
When the travel ban finally did end we went back to Holland to visit family after the prescribed fourteen days of quarantine. Unsure about future lockdowns. We never saw an English pub from the inside, we didn’t get to pick a single tomato from the huge crop, we never got sick, and we never got to visit Glastonbury.
What I did not realise at that point was that all the ingredients where in the vessel. Slowly the fermenting started. Soon to be topped up with one more crucial element that would bring the whole dish together.
Now, a bit more than two years later the yurt and the story (both very different than expected) are nearing completion. I’ve started translating the Dutch version and will soon be sharing the book for paying subscribers (a chapter each week, feuilleton-style). For active subscribers helping to get it out there I will try and set up the reward system...
More next week, I’ll keep you posted.
Wow, what a story!
Ooh, I didn't know it was being translated!