The Fair

I felt lost. The deafening wailing that announced the beginning of a new ride on the roller coaster, distorted voices shouting something I could not understand and loud music as thick in the air as a physical obstacle. Somebody took my hand, I was so dazzled I did not even look who it was. The mass of people, chatting, laughing, shouting, pushed me, somebody pulled me through the stream of bodies. Sometimes I succeeded in focusing on a face but I recognized no one. So I retreated further into myself from this sea of noise and strangers. I followed my guide meekly, numbed by the smell of grilled mushrooms, cotton candy, sausages, fish and fries. After what seemed like hundreds and hundreds of years, my eyes had grown so tired that I closed them. Instantly, the whirling roller coasters, the dancing colorful lights and the jungle of posters and signs receded into the background. Occasionally, a particularly bright light made it through my closed eyelids as I stumbled over the cobblestones, struggling to keep my balance and holding on tight to the warm soft hand of my guide.

Eventually, we came to a halt. I was exhausted and felt like life was flowing from me, sucked into the liveliness around me. I lost the warm hand for a minute and while panic was building up inside me, someone shoved a cool plastic cup with beer into my hand. I took a sip and slowly forced myself back into being present. I was standing shoulder to shoulder in a circle of people who were all clad identically in jeans, black t-shirts and leather jackets. Somebody screamed something into my ear. I did not understand but I forced a smile onto my face and nodded. Somebody offered me some food but I was too repelled to eat. How could people enjoy this? I took another sip of the light tasteless beer. Its characterlessness, its simplicity was soothing. “Hey! Do you remember Sam?” This time I understood. I also recognized the voice although it was much more high-pitched than usual. I turned to my left and looked at Jess. She had been my best friend since kindergarten. I deliberately stopped the flood of memories (camping trips, the first beer, school) that threatened to drown me and instead followed her hand that was gesturing towards a huge guy. “Hi, Sam,” I yelled. I had no idea who he was.

The evening dragged on with beer, one word conversations shouted at the top of our lungs, beer, roller coaster rides that made me want to throw up, beer that did not relieve that feeling, fried unidentifiable food, beer, endless strolls trapped in the slow wide stream of people, rolling over the cobblestone street of the historic city center.

I buried my face in my hands. I felt nauseated. I breathed deeply and slowly, sitting on the cold street. The noise, all this noise, had receded as we had entered the side street. I was waiting for Jess who was in line for one of the smelly porta potties. The smells and sounds had changed but they were no less oppressive. I had forgotten the names of five childhood friends and not recognized them. Last year it had only been three. I pressed my forehead against my cool fingers. How had I felt at peace here? Free, entertained… or had I never felt this way? Was I romanticizing my youth in retrospect? Or had I really perceived it as pleasurable at the time and only now could see that I did not enjoy it at all?

Eight years of living in another city, far away, meeting different people, realizing that there were alternatives to spending every weekend drunk at the only club for miles and miles. But I still came back every year for the fair. Tradition, said my Mom, her eyes clouded with memories of decades of fairs she herself had experienced. I came back for the sake of my Mom, for Jess with whom I had less to share each year but towards whom I still felt a warmth that no amount of distance could completely dispel. I liked the pre-partying for the fair that always took place in the same friend´s garden. I liked to hear my old friends talk as they always had, to get sucked into their lives that were as familiar to me as my favorite novel. I liked that nothing ever seemed to change their sense of fashion, their opinions or their daily life. It soothed me. So I became a watcher, gazing intently at the drama unfolding when we came across an ex-partner that was greeted with a cold nod of recognition by the friend group. We ran into old teachers, the lady from the grocery store, the guys from the next town's soccer team. I, naturally, still could do the dance, put on a disguise and pretend I was just like them. People, especially my friends who knew, were not fooled and sometimes glanced at me inquisitively, sensing that I was not telling the whole story, but they always let it slip, satisfied with what I gave them.

I wondered when I truly had left my home town for good. I wondered when I had lost this connection to my friends here. I wondered when the idea that changed my opinions a little too much to go back had entered my life. I had not realized it at the time and now it was too late. It was irretrievably lost. While I laughed with Jess, drank with Sam and took a last roller coaster ride with Henry, even when we stumbled towards the party-tent, our arms intertwined, I could not help but think what my best friend Anna whom I had met in my intro to sociology class would say. I could picture Nick, my boyfriend, laughing when I would tell him about the heated conflict at the beer booth kindled by the local soccer team´'s recent defeat and some teasing comments from out of towners.

Or maybe I would not tell him after all. Suddenly, I felt weirdly protective about the past, these people who knew as well as I that I had “moved on,” whatever that meant, but who let me in, tolerated me, the new-old stranger, because it was the fair weekend. The weekend when you hugged old acquaintances and had beer with your entire school, because it was tradition.

I smiled while I felt the loss of this life with a pang that made me uncomfortable. I never wanted this life to begin with, but now that it was gone for good, the bittersweet sentiment of being a tourist to the fair in my hometown overwhelmed me. Now that I had refused this place, I had to make a new home for myself somewhere. I looked around me with the fond but stern look only a good friend can have. I took it all in. Then I shrugged and for the first time this weekend, I felt relaxation washing over me. I was free to go, I would find something that suited me, but for now… I would have another beer with Jess who hld up the tarpaulin and beckoned me inside with a smile.