going back home

I almost got so distracted today I didn't even realize the date.  

I began the morning with coffee and muffins and a playdate and then put Gavin down for a nap.

And then it hit like it does every year.  As I scrolled through Facebook and saw the pictures of flags, and police and fireman, and the shadow of the towers, and read memories, I was surprised as always that emotions came back so vividly.  Even for me, someone who was half a country away, watching on TV like most of the rest of the world.

Something that struck me the hardest was reading some of the memories that people are posting on the Walnut Valley Festival Facebook page.  A music festival I have known virtually my entire life.

In 2001, the attacks on the towers happened the week of the festival.

And even Winfield was changed that year.  And will forever be part of my memories.

These were a recollection of memories posted by someone, and they were some of my biggest memories of that week as well...

*There was talk that it would be cancelled, that so many people in one place was a too easy a target. There was a feeling that it would be inappropriate, gathering at a place of joy in the middle of so much sorry. There was guilt in believing that we all needed to be watching, and that to walk away from the broadcast flickers was to turn our backs on the loss.

*The people working the gates said no entertainers had cancelled. But we knew that couldn’t be. Nickel Creek got stuck in Alaska. Tommy Emmanuel somewhere in South Africa. Others in places I can’t remember.

*At night, we’d sit and look at the sky, empty of the red flashing lights every Midwestern kid grows up with.

*Every act talked and sang about what had happened, working to sort it all out. But we knew it’d be John McCutcheon who would somehow touch the jangled nerve we all felt.

John and his road manager had been stranded in North Caroline, if I’m remembering right. With no flights, they drove. “Winfield needs us, McCutcheon said he’d told his manager. “No, John,” the manager answered. “We need Winfield.” We all did.

At the end of his set, John talked over simple strummed chords. “We don’t know why it happened. We don’t what will happen next. But we do know that in this place, and this country, and this planet, every one of us needs each other. And that the only way we have ever overcome any adversity has been through caring for each other."

As the chords and words changed to song, a few people scattered throughout the crowd stood, then more, until we were all standing, all holding neighbors’ hands raising them in the air…

“This land is your land, this land is my land…”

On the day of September 11, I was only 2 and a half hours from home, (in my sophomore year at K-State) but I had never felt so far away.  I know that the rest of the country shared in these feelings as well.  Winfield was home, and I longed for it more than ever.  If I could have packed up and left immediately I would have.  But I waited and headed home 2 days later.  For Bluegrass.
Going back home that year felt different than ever before.

I grew up loving and singing the songs of John McCutcheon.  So sitting there at his set on the night this person referred to, was nothing short of feeling like I was "home".  So many of his stories and songs always struck my heart strings, and on this year, even more so.  He stood on Stage 1, with the largest crowd I've ever seen in those grandstands, and he said all the things we were all feeling.   He sang a new verse to an old song...

 
"There's a hole in our skyline, there's a hole in our town, there's a hole in our hearts, the whole world around.
How do we heal, tell me how do we see, the mercy that shines in you and me...
We follow the Light."

And he sang an old song that took on a whole new meaning.

"Hallelujah, the great storm is over"

I remember singing along with tears in my eyes and everyone around me doing the same.  And I will never forget  the little elderly woman in the center of the grandstands who stood and waved a flag. Not one of those teeny hand-held flags, but a huge one, taller than she, on a big pole. One she barely even had enough strength to hold up.  This image is burned into my memory forever. 

The image of beauty from ashes.  Of hope restored.   Of a nation standing tall and strong.

This all seems like sooooo long ago and yet feels like yesterday as well.

And here we are, it's almost the 3rd weekend of September, 14 years later, and we are anxiously waiting to head back to Winfield. 

Some may wonder why the festival is such a big deal to us.  Why we pull our kids out of school for half a week, why we fight lines and mud and rain and one year even a hubby with pneumonia.

It's for SO many reasons. 

This festival is home for me.  And it's one of the only glimpses of home that I still get. 

Nearly 30 of my birthdays have been spent at the festival.  It falls during the festival almost every year.

I was there while pregnant with all 3 of our babies (I just didn't camp the years I was 7 and 8 months pregnant).  The first September of each of our babies' lives they were in Winfield. I took Dave the first year we were dating, and he fell in love instantly.   This will be our 12th straight year there together.  How completely awesome it is to have a family who has grown to love this place just like I do.

In 2001, I think I came to realize how special home can be.  And my heart aches for all those who's homes were torn into pieces that day.  

Going home that year, and heading to the festival had never felt so good.  It's always so nice to go home.  And since my parents have moved on from Winfield, the festival is really the only thing that brings me back there still. 

So today, I'm praying for those affected by the attacks on September 11.  I'm thanking God for his restoration. For the hope for a future that can only be found in Him.

 And I'm counting down the days we get to go back "home" to Winfield.

 (and because I have no internet and it took forever and a day to upload this one picture using my phone as a hotspot, this is the only picture you get.  But definitely an appropriate one for today)