I found myself thinking about the friend who first brought me to Summerfolk from Montreal thirty-seven years ago. That friend wanted to introduce me to the magic of festivals. I felt that magic again this weekend.

The two in person events I attended both had a workshop format. The musicians worked with whoever took the lead to add texture to the sound. The choice of the next song was influenced by what we had just heard. There were songs I knew from performers I have listened to before, and new pieces that spoke to this moment in time. It was soul refreshing.

There were things that Summerfolk this year was not. I did not get to wander between venues and meet old friends. I wasn't filled to overflowing by hours upon hours upon hours of music. No row of fascinating crafts, though there was one stand at the amphitheatre at Kelso. No interesting food. No crammed stands for the evening concert. But there was an opportunity to hear new music from groups I did not know in the evening livestream, some live and some pre-recorded. And there were hundreds of dedicated Summerfolk volunteers making the eighteen different venues work smoothly and safely. Imagine, our area provided eighteen good sound techies to manage the microphones and monitors at all those different stages.

Summerfolk did not look the same as other years. But at the heart, it was the gift it always is. There was even a Summerfolk thunderstorm to disrupt the performances, to remind us all that there are things we can plan for and control, but weather isn't one of them. I wonder what the organizers learned that they will want to keep for next year's festival?

We keep wanting to get back to normal. We keep anticipating a moment that will get us back to the way things were in early March 2020. In the meantime, some events have simply not happened because Covid restrictions seemed impossible to meet. There have been opportunities completely lost. Some have morphed to provide something of what is important, as Summerfolk did.

At the first workshop I attended, david sereda sang a song that always inspires me, makes me think. The chorus goes, "If you want to travel, you have to move." On the surface, it is a tautology, saying the same thing in different words. But it isn't. He reminds us that traveling takes us to a new place, which means living new things, experiencing life differently. To vacation at an interesting destination, we have to leave home. And leaving home always opens us to the possibility we will be changed. If we want life to take a different shape, travel into a new future, we have to be willing to shift our established patterns, move our expectations, change.

Covid is forcing change for the moment. We hope that directional instructions in grocery stores won't last forever, although we do wish that right now people would stop ignoring them. Managing seating to keep appropriate distance was a major planning challenge for Summerfolk. Many things are still not happening. And numbers are climbing again even as children get ready for in person learning. And let's not forget that much of the global south has not had access to vaccines, has not been able to move into a post covid future at all. (BTW I detoured at this point in drafting this column to make a donation to one of the organizations providing vaccines in the global south, putting my money where my hopes and dreams are.)

It is hopes and dreams that will shape the post-covid future. A good path won't just open up for us. What Summerfolk organizers did was identify their core values, their central goals, and find a way to make those happen. This included inviting one craft vendor to set up at each venue. The one I spoke with said that many had not taken up the invitation (a lot of work with little exposure), but they had so appreciated the effort to include crafters that they came.

This summer, some things have been put on hold. Some have been postponed until after. But who knows when "after Covid" will start. What Summerfolk organizers did, what perhaps we all need to do, is figure out how to live fully within the restrictions right now.

Cathy Hird lives on the traditional territory of the Saugeen Ojibway