Staithes Arts Festival

There are times when you forget the innocent beauty of your childhood; when the days were endless, the opportunities bounteous, and the adults seemingly in a perpetual state of happiness. Welcome then to the Staithes Arts Festival, a place where I have never felt more joyous or optimistic about the chance for humanity to lift the human spirit in such a way that it could fly, quite literally, on the wings of the oxygen of possibility meeting reality.

I remember times, as a boy, when I would measure my joy at the side of my Mother's face. If she was giddy with laughter, her own fathers love and jokes lifting his Joan-Anne, then my spirits too would rise and I would be released to live the life in my head where I could do or be anything. You can tell that my Mother is everything to me, and so when I caught a glimpse of her walking the alleys of Staithes today, her happiness complete as she wandered in and out of the 81 galleries on show, well I knew true contentment. Mum actually isn't here but she was, through me, here, here in the most blessed of villages.

Early this afternoon in the glow of a late summers caress, we stood outside The Staithes Gallery as the harpist and singer Sarah Dean let her music stroke our souls, and we knew that this place had most definitely found us. It made me think how do we find in our normal day to day these luxurious moments of perfection?

One thing in this festival is abundantly clear: this festival is about the soul. Money simply doesn't come into it apart from the obvious needs to balance books. Locals open up their homes, artists share their talent, musicians play their music and choirs walk the streets looking for a welcoming corner to sing on.

Last night we stumbled up the High Street after much fun with a dear pal and her lovely children at The Cod, and there on Cleveland Corner were 200 people or so watching a playback screened on to a wall of old Staithes photos as the pianist, Filip Cleslik, played pieces of great beauty. We literally sat on the cobbled road, knees crossed, as the silver slide show pictured days gone by. The notes from the hands of the pianist made us smile and cry, this ability to tear open our very insides a testimony to the setting of the most magical of evenings. It was a moment that will never ever be forgotten or equalled.

We bought a few pieces for small sums and ate and drank at various places, and each and every person was grateful, thrilled, content. If I can but take some of this home tomorrow then, my friends, I will have moved forward in my life.

Peace, love, and simple things really do cleanse the soul. That and Bushmills & Ginger.

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