finding god in a compost loo

not entirely possible

Hiya!!!

I don’t think I have much to say right now about the year that’s just past. For me, it was a shimmering, beautiful, difficult, despairing type of year. Highs of manic proportions and lows that felt unbearable. It’s like any year, in any life: there was that which shined bright and that which hurt. There was growth and staying stuck, new experiences and the same old shit, there was forward motion, a couple of steps back and forward again. I’m so happy about that. To be alive even when it’s too much, even when sometimes I don’t want to be. I really wouldn’t have it any other way. So with that sentiment, I wrote this little missive about a choice I made to go to a music festival in the west of England back in June. With a lot of gratitude for you, reading this. I’m still here, still writing, with more to come in 2025.

I went to Glastonbury this year. It was a long-held dream of mine to tread that storied field. I made a wish for it in 2023 and put it out there. Then, a ticket came up through a friend, and I grabbed it. I wanted to say yes to life. I’m in the habit of saying yes to life even when I may mean no.

I regard my time at festivals as a youth with tender affection; I think I liked them — even loved them. I think what’s closer to the truth is that I liked partying and loud music, whether it was in a field, a club, a pub, a garden, a boat, or a dirty, dirty bar. I liked smoking seven packets of Marlboro Lights in the space of three days. I liked feeling like I was living out of time, on a different planet. It didn’t matter where. A festival was a good place to do that.

As I get older, I want to be wilfully contrarian about the limitations of my age and body because the ‘act your age’ constraints society puts on us pisses me off. Sometimes, though, it gets me into sticky situations because I do, unfortunately, have limitations. Which also pisses me off.

The lore surrounding Glastonbury is considerable and with good reason. It’s no doubt a cultural institution, and it really is a world unto itself. I’ve watched my favourite performers get up on the Pyramid stage year in and year out, and I’ve always wanted to be in and amongst it. I can’t think of another music festival where everyone knows the stage names, even if you’ve never been.

Upon arriving, I needed a little snack. I’m a delicate flower and my time at Glastonbury really showed me how easily I can become a crying baby when I’m in a place out of time with little control. My sweet friends helped me lug my sensible packing choices across a few fields, which included a rolling carry-on bag packed with paracetamol, hydration packets, and a few oatcakes, and a Tommy Hilfiger weekend bag densely packed with clothes that another friend lent me.

For the aforementioned snack, my choices were a suspect-looking burger, a bacon bap, or a cup of fruit. I went with the fruit. A few bites in, I noticed mould had formed along the blueberries. I was in too deep, though; half the cup was gone. The mouldy fruit became my nemesis for the remainder of the weekend. It churned in my stomach. We were in for a rocky ride.

The rest of the weekend was filled with choices. Choices about how long I could hold in my pee in an effort to avoid the loos. Choices about which carb-based meal I could eat that wouldn’t eviscerate my insides (crumpets = good, pizza = bad). Choices about which crowd to swim through to attempt to see Sugababes (we didn’t make it, swimming upstream through throngs of people). Choices about whether to join my friends and continue with my night or listen to Coldplay from my tent, wearing every article of clothing I brought with me. It may come as no surprise that I went with the tent session. And then there were many, many choices about how to get in and out of a compost loo as fast as possible.

One choice I could be proud of was the group of people I went with. I went with my married friends, which might be some people’s worst nightmare, but this particular married couple are some of the best people you could possibly know. I never feel like a third wheel around them, and they probably deserve some sort of payment or, at the very least, an extravagant gift for how much they took care of me. They were my festival mum and dad: I relied on them for almost everything (snacks, shelter, showering, sun cream, a bunsen burner). I provided them with almost nothing besides my sparkling company, which was a stretch at best.

Each time I’d go to the loo, my face contorted itself uncontrollably into a pained grimace. My head would start wagging back and forth, no, no, no, surely this isn’t real, surely this isn’t how we’re expected to empty our bladders and bowels. Surely, it shouldn’t smell this bad. Surely, there’s another way for us to do this. Surely this cardboard cup we use to cover sawdust and shit with more sawdust must be wrong. But no, there was no other way to do it, and my mild case of food poisoning made it feel like an endless nightmare.

We showered on the fence each morning with a camping shower that, again, my friends provided. I was woefully underprepared. I like to think, in retrospect, that the fence showers felt like an adventure, but it really just felt like getting naked on a fence next to a sea of tents and washing myself in public. If anything, going to festivals has always been extremely effective in making me extraordinarily appreciative of indoor plumbing.

But then I watched Little Simz, LCD Soundsystem, PJ Harvey, Jamie XX, and Sampha perform. Then, I went to the healing fields, and a homeopathic doctor gave me a remedy that helped me stop being a crying baby (for like, 45 minutes). I ran into an old friend, which always feels like a miracle to me no matter where I am. I watched Shania sing three songs, and then we all realized we only knew three songs, so we decided to go somewhere else. I walked, and walked and walked and walked. Everywhere I looked there was music and art and expression and life. And I felt like I was in a daydream marked with a few night terrors. When I got back, people kept asking me if I’d go back. Obviously, I’d love to go back to Glastonbury, I’ve never seen anything like it. But I will require the same rider and accommodations as Shania, or really just access to a working loo and a running shower. Please apply within.

My dalliance in a field was a highlight and a challenge. It’s certainly not the only thing I did this year, nor was it even the most meaningful — but it’s a tidy little metaphor for it. There were some challenges this year, dark night of the soul type of shit: that was the compost loo long drop of my year. There were sleepless nights and tangible losses and loneliness and fears and worries and illness and mistakes—the mouldy fruit. There were tears because, with me, there are always tears—the crying baby that lives within me.

But there were also accomplishments and friendship and family and new relationships; there was lots of practicing and learning what intimacy looks like; there were good meals, new opportunities, writing projects, dream collaborations, travels, and a new home; there was a movement practice that transformed my body and helped me get stronger, and there was a deepening of my spiritual life. That’s the beating pulse of the insane things we do as humans, like gathering 200,000 people in a field to make weird art, listen to music, and shower on fences. There was the endless unknown, the just never knowing what I’m going to get, and my belief that anything could happen. And, of course, the actual adventure of going to a music festival in a field with dear friends and the kissing of the toilet seat upon my return.

I’m here today to go on as I wish to continue making good choices (good doesn’t always mean sensible), living the most, even when it’s maybe bad for me (and especially when it’s good), and testing the limits of my mortal coil. What else is there?

With love,

Nora x