Sunday, August 31, 2014

Safe in my Lilith Fair Care

Remember Lilith Fair?
I heard Sarah McLachlan tried to revive it a few years back and it failed. The thought made me sad. I still love listening to Sarah even though one of her songs is overplayed on a pet rescue commercial. I've seen her in concert several times and I've always found her music lovely and poignant.

The festival took place only three years. 1997, 1998, and 1999. My Bella went with a group of girls and some mothers in 97 and Bella, Lorenzo, and I went with a couple of other mothers and their daughters along with a few of their friends in 98 and 99.

It was an enjoyable festival! All that good music in one place always makes me happy. And taking your daughters for an event as this was bonding and memorable.

I remember the festivals as mostly just that. Lots of mothers with their daughters, lots of young women, lots of lesbians, and a few dazed and confused men wandering around wondering why this wasn't working out as an opportunity for them. Those guys made me laugh always the hardest.

At that time in our lives, the girls and I lived with their daddy in a small town so I clearly remember them experiencing an alternative type of lifestyle they hadn't seen before. That was good as well. Believe me, I worried a bit during their young years that we were doing them a disservice living in such a rather sheltered place. I shouldn't have worried - they both moved on to be very enlightened young women in spite of that. Hooray for education.

Although maybe there was a bit too much enlightenment on one of the trips.

We had decided as a group to stay overnight close to the festival so we could get a jump in the morning staking out a good spot to enjoy the music.

We were checked into a chain hotel where we ate dinner, split up into three rooms with one mom in each room.

I remember the hotel having decks that opened out onto an atrium where there was an indoor pool and lounge chairs in this huge space. We had fed the girls, told them to put on their suits, and enjoy the pool as the other two moms and I (one was my very best friend Reechie and the other her sister) pulled out our adult beverages and relaxed in the lounge chairs to watch the girls swimming.

We were talking, drinking, and giggling for quite a while and as the three of us loved to do, talking up a storm. I can yak and somehow always find myself with women of this same love. Quel surprise!

I was gazing over at the swimming pool and glanced up at one of the many TV screens they had placed all around the atrium. Because for goodness sakes, obviously we cannot just entertain ourselves without TV yes? Don't get me started on that.

So . . . I glanced up at one of the screens that were showing the same thing on all of the screens and I thought to myself, "Is that a breast I just saw?"

Oh dear.

I keep watching.

Yes, that is a breast. And a naked butt of a well-built man. Oh - there's another butt. And some more breasts.

It finally dawns on me with a thud that somehow, the channel has been changed to one of those soft-porn stations and this is showing all over the atrium probably 30+ times over.

I jump up with my unsteady legs and hightail it down the long hall in my wedge sandals to quickly let the front desk know what is going on in the atrium.

I can hear my two fellow mommas laughing uproariously!

All I can think of is that a couple of other mommas trusted me with their precious daughters and I'm letting them watch porn!
Lorenzo and Bella bottom right
Oh.my.god.

I wobble back to our chairs, sit down, take a long pull from my margarita, and say, "We shall never speak of this." Which, of course, was a huge lie. I've spoken of it a million times.

Grande surprise.

2 comments:

Ms. A said...

Good you can laugh now... I would have certainly freaked out at the time!

T said...

Good story. Fun times are even funnier to reflect on, even those that we claim we will never speak of again. Haha! Yeah, right.

I would have DIED. Just died. I can hear me goin' off now.

I miss Sarah. She had (and still has) a niche.