Now and Then

It is 6:30am and the people rise with great discomfort to the sound of Kanye West’s good morning, then the unsubtle sound of shouting scout leaders. The scouts must find their uniform. Listen how the gentle groan descends upon the circle in the middle. This is not a happy time. This is a time where your body is awake but your mind isn’t, the worst type of sedation. The daily notices fly over your head, in a trance like state you get ready for breakfast, preparing for what the Dutch throw at you. To not dirty their plates they make jam sandwiches for breakfast, and for lunch. A stumble to the tents takes one into a cesspit of clothes and bedding where one must pull up the ground to find their wash bag.

You have started to awake, the mind is catching up with your body and the clouds start to separate, to see a different landscape. The senses start to turn on, you can smell the dutch forest air, hear the sounds of other beings experiencing the same epiphany as you, feel the breeze go through your bed hair. You pass through the miniature tower bridge, carefully avoiding the mud patches, where you reach the haven of sanitation, the toilets. The people of the camp clean their teeth in sinks which hold a mixture a food debris, spit and a little bit of sick. This concoction made for great teeth but couldn’t be said the same for the drains. The same journey was to be made back to the camp where the leaders were preparing the cards to determine your destiny in which activity you will be doing. Like any truly random process, everyone just swaps the cards for what activity they want to do and everyone pretty much gets what they want, so a true democracy. You turn up at your activity which can vary from a fairly disappointing quiz or can be a rather entertaining session of Ultimate Frisbee and this you must perform with the type of scout enthusiasm to ensure you’re not insulting the leaders in some sort of twisted way. To curb your enthusiasm a little, you must endure your squashed, wrinkled jam sandwich half way through which was constructed earlier this morning, the sort of piece which started as a Vincent van Gogh but soon turned into a Jackson Pollock. So that your food doesn’t get too settled you must continue to do a activity that you have been pretending to enjoy for the last hour and a half, the enthusiasm starts to fade and people just start to wander back to camp, so you follow suit.

A bit of free time is gifted to you, which is the best thing that has happened all day, except if you are doing the cooking then you will be spending half the time decoding the recipe and the other half getting  someone else to cook while you still pretend to decode the recipe. The sounds of Ultimate Frisbee ring through the air as everyone enjoys it through a collective naivety which brings together all the different cultures. Everyone seems happy, except you, you’re still pretending to decode the recipe and as you think about it you realise what you’re doing is pretty counter productive, so you start to help…. and guess what It works! everyone is eating food, Incredible. Each person picks at the food and the sudden realisation that you don’t need to do the dishes crosses your mind. It was all worth it.

The sky darkened and hearing has become your primary sense, this place isn’t lit like London. A relaxation descended upon the camp, no more work today and tomorrow feels like a distant land. You go back to your tent and decide what to change into after a long day, the rave is happening tonight so you dress into something more appealing than Slazenger tracksuits and a sweaty sport shirt. A pair of chinos and a Monster Energy Drink T-shirt will do just fine, topped off with a bucket hat. This combination must attract some female counterparts, but this is life and life just doesn’t work like that. There’s a smell of youth in the air, as everyone is getting ready for an explosion of sexual tension but this is just a tease, the booklet says the rave ends at 11:30pm, typical. You gather up the friends that you can find, which turns out not to be that easy but you find enough to make sure you’re not too lonely. The walk to the designated area is a tantalising one, being joined by many other people from different camps on the way, which fills you with a sense of excitement but a slight nervousness; Hopefully the Euro pop won’t be too bad. You reach a squelch of mud under you feet, you’re here, but to not realise you were there a mile ago would be difficult. You can feel the sub woofer rattle your body, your atoms rattling about, kinetic energy increasing. The heart rate increases, your temperature increases, a tingling feeling surrounds you. You have fallen in love with the world. The DJ is a very handsome looking Mediterranean gentleman, who has the type of grin showing he doesn’t know what he’s doing but at least he looks good doing it. The music, people, dancing and everything blends into one beautiful portrait, the best type of sedation.