I'm so envious of your Michfest buzz, vagina.
One thing I've noticed with a lot of women who recount their stories about Fest is they tend to mention feeling
stronger afterwards as a result of being in that space and not having their strength (emotional, physical, intellectual, what have you) questioned during that time (at least not to the extent it is by the outside world, anyway!). Was this something you found? Did you notice a bit of a culture shock when coming back, having to readjust yourself?
As I mentioned, next year will be my first Fest (where I will be dragging my vegetarian ass out to flag down some red meat-loving, beer-swilling women in RVs, apparently, as per HGL's sage advice
), but I have had some similar experiences with women/girl only space in the past. The closest I've had to replicating Michfest was in all girls/women camping space as a kid and teen. There'd be anywhere from 50 to 300 of us plus about 10-30 counsellors/guides. I particularly loved as a kid and teen being around the older women who were there in a supervisory capacity and having access to their knowledge in such a welcoming environment. Being exposed to their different perspectives and benefiting from their wisdom was truly life changing for me as a young girl because what we talked about wasn't filtered through a mother/aunt/grandmother lens where one has always been a clear authority figure in the relationship. There was a kind of honesty and frankness to the discussions we had that, yes, sometimes had a maternal feel to them but weren't as heavily censored. As a young girl with a bit of an anti-authoritarian streak, it helped me to see the humanity of the women in my family more clearly by contrast. The whole experience can best be described as humanizing.
I bring this up because I actually think that that's one of the stronger points about Fest, the ability for young girls and women especially to see older women respected, taken seriously, as capable and willing participants in their environment (whether it's through archery or axe throwing workshops, setting up/helping with the stage, holding their own in heady discussions, etc.) and just having women
visible in that way, especially older women. In my opinion, having those women seen as complete human beings goes a long way to healing this incredible fear so many of us have as women in regards to aging (which is really, really woman-specific).
People always snark and say that women and girls, young ones especially, dress for and compete with each other and maybe that's true to some extent, but I don't think it's natural (I know these are all groundbreaking thoughts for you all here, haha
). Young middle and high school age girls definitely have the reputation for being not particularly kind to one another (whether or not it's deserved) but my experience a few days in was that this mostly fell by the wayside in the absence of boys and men in favour of a gentler, more understanding, and, interestingly enough, more silly (!) space.
Women and girls are
funny. Like,
really funny. We don't give ourselves enough credit for just how funny we are and we don't have enough spaces to be that way without judgment or fear. I think that's one of the most consistent and interesting things I've noticed in women only spaces. It never seems to take long for the laughter to start and the jokes to fly. One of the fondest memories I had as a young girl in these camps was when we would stay up until the wee hours of the morning telling jokes and seeing who would be the first to either start snorting or crying from laughter. The woman who was assigned to our tent was an older woman named Maxine whose daughters and granddaughters had aged out of the camp but she still held on as a chaperone because she loved it so much. Maxine had a wicked, bawdy sense of humour which made her lots of fun to be around, but the best part was that we had discovered she made this funny and endearing laugh which can only be described as halfway between a wheeze and a snort. One night we were being particularly silly and gross in the way that only pre-teen girls can be and we had Maxine laughing so hard until she suddenly jumped up and had to excuse herself. We didn't know what was wrong or what had happened. We later found out through overhearing some of the women at breakfast joke that we had made her laugh so hard she peed and had to go change!
Giggles all around for our sleep deprived group! One thing which stuck out to me was that it wasn't presented as bad or something to be ashamed of. It was just understood as a thing that sometimes happens, especially after a certain age and birthing a certain number of kids, which was really nice. The girls took their cue from that and if anyone ever said anything about it being gross, I didn't hear it.
Later that afternoon, we saw that Maxine had come back from the store with a little blue package. She shouted "now I'm prepared for you girls!" and cheerfully chucked her freshly bought package of MaxiPads at one of the older girls. Our tent was forever known thereafter as the MaxiPad.
It's really quite fun to watch how everyone reacts differently to being free in a female only environment. It feels like you're catching a glimpse of something you wouldn't otherwise see, women and girls being fully human, like a little bit of that lost female genius Beauvoir talked about, eh? I can only imagine how much more so this must be evident at Michfest.
One other thing I found interesting about Fest is that so many keep mentioning "home". Is it that the actual physical space feels like home because of the mood and who's there or is it more like coming home to yourself? That's always something that's intrigued me and seems to be a recurring theme in just about every conversation about it I've been privy to!
I have to say that I really love the stories about everyone's experiences and what made Fest for them, to the decked out RVs and U-Hauls, to howling women, to Collette's many new notches on her bedpost (tent pole?), the friendships, how Fest has changed, to not feeling like such a minority as a butch or a femme. It makes my heart swell.
Can I also just say that seeing "pityphuck" show up in my CP makes me giggle every time!
