For those of you who don't know, the main street festival is an event
where the city closes a section of downtown, and the middle of the street is
lined with booths where artists display their artwork. Per tradition with most
festivals, there was music with three different venues, food paid with the
inflated currency of tickets, and alcohol, lots and lots of moderately
proportioned alcohol.
Herds in line for food versus herds in line to be food,
the circle of life in downtown Fort Worth.
As with most years, the event was packed with people inching through
the main street as they gazed at different art booths and spectators lined the
buildings for a place to eat or observe the masses. Admittedly, we didn't go
into any of the artists' booths in fear of being engulfed in the tent by other
visitors who stayed to look through every one of the artists' painting,
sculptures, or prints.
I'm not sure I noticed it before, but the art booths felt a lot like walking through a middle school science fair. Some of the artists were chatting with their visitors while other booths were cluttered with fascinated kids and adults alike by their vividly glass sculptures. Obviously, the baking soda volcanos of the event were the booths with moving sculptures-- the gigantic wind powered animal sculptures and the conceptual contraptions with delicately moving parts and spiraling metal pinballs that moved around like elaborate, never ending gum ball machines. Still, there were a few booths like the failed potato powered light bulbs that failed to attract an audience.
And if you buy any of these beautiful sculptures, people will
randomly stop and take pictures in front of your house too!
While perusing through the street, we were given a small flier about a short concert in the bass hall, which was performed by the Fort Worth Symphony. The bass hall is an immense performance theater with an extravagant exterior featuring sculpted angels blowing on brass horns. I've only been in the theater once when I was in elementary school, and I remember how big and grand it all felt when we were ushered to our seats. Now, even with its three tear balconies, I was surprised of how small it felt. I'm not implying that it was cramped, but even with its spacious lobby and 2,056 seats, it still felt intimate and personal. The symphony was great; they played a few songs ranging from classics to recognizable movie tunes with a guest appearance of Jack Sparrow while they were playing music from 'Pirates of the Caribbean.' They even let the kids on stage while they were playing, which was cute and a little distracting, but in a cute way.
Admittedly, I randomly stole this pictures from the internet
because google images takes way better pictures than I do.
Afterwards, we walked around. On the street corner near the restrooms, there were a group of people giving free hugs. It's a slightly awkward cross section where there were bound to be a lot of people standing around due to the line to the restroom and the traffic, and you feel semi-obligated to hug someone if they ask. I hugged someone after being trapped in the cross walk and my dad hugged someone right after using the restroom. If it helps, I believe there were sinks in the portable restroom hubs.
We walked through the kids' section where we noticed an abnormal amount
of pregnant ladies and kids with baby dolls. In hindsight, we had a bias
demographic, but there were a lot. There were so many kids
with painted faces caring dolls that I'm sure they could have made a killing if
they charged parents' a few tickets to get their dolls' face painted too.
While walking I bumped into an old middle school friend, and I realized
that I was out of touch with my generation when he attempted to slap my hand
while I attempted to shake his hand. We had a short, awkward conversation,
and I was very surprised that he recognized me since we haven't spoken in about
nine years.
After a while, my dad wanted to check his facebook account so we
strolled into the downtown Barns and Nobel and sat down in the kids' section
around a children's size picnic table. All the adult seats were taken. While we
were there, kids were quietly reading small chapter books, a dad read one of
his favorite books to his son, and a group of teenagers talked and giggled on
the next table over.
Before we left, we listened to a swing band play songs from Frank Sinatra
and Dean Martin. My dad recognized the songs from when his father used to play
them over and over again, and he sang along as he noticed most of the audience
had wrinkles and thin white hair while they danced and cheered along.
The next band played alternative rock music, and on average,
the audience was roughly twenty years younger.
As he dropped me off home, we talked for a while in the drive way about his old high school friends and how they would go to the beach, someone would play their guitar, and they would sit and sing, and in the words of Stephen Chobosky, '...feel infinite.'
These are all just snapshots. When I was younger, I used to play a game at annual events like the main street festival. At an exact street crossing or landmark, I would try to remember how I felt and what I was thinking about on the previous year. In certain ways, it was always romanticized. I would either try to feel like
I matured somehow or that I used to be happier in the past. But in a way,
it happened and it's always happening. It's almost hard not to feel nostalgic
for the fleeting present, but it's better to actually experience an event instead of fabricating one behind posed smiling photos or preconceived life lessons and themes for an event that hasn't even occurred.
If I'm going to miss something, I want that something to be real. And when I reminisce about those events, I want them to be so tangible that I could hold them and never let go.
If I'm going to miss something, I want that something to be real. And when I reminisce about those events, I want them to be so tangible that I could hold them and never let go.
