Last night out new neighbours had a party. It was loud and filled with laughter. My neighbours are of Maori, Tongan or Samoan descent I am sure and I was witness to something truly special.
Cars were parked up and down the street, as people poured in next door. Young, old, male and female and as more people arrived, the sound became louder, but I was not perturbed by this like usual. I could feel something building int he air. An anticipation of celebration. Of what, I did not know.
Then the drums started. A steady sound that reverberated through the ground. They sounded like tribal drums and bongoes of some sort. The womens voices carries through the air and the sound of the men with intermittent cries of tribal significance cut in perfectly through the song. Different drums would come in and out and I listened to the variation of sounds and importance of them. It was someones birthday, a rite of passage. A young woman danced with a ring of flowers set on her head, and I was in rapture.
Such sweet pain it caused me, as I watched in hiding, whispering to my partner as he fixed a car, all the things that they were doing. Before I would get caught spying, I came in to fix dinner and sobbed and laughed, wobbling on my walking stick as my body moved to the rhythm of those drums and a mind of its own. It pulled and moved me and it took everything I had not to run sobbing to those people and beg to be included.
The misanthropist and cynic had a revelation. Technology of man has been and is important, but it is the centuries old traditions that glued us together. The wheel may have improved our mobility and growth as a species, among other things, but it is that moment in time when the tribe come together and form a union, a bond, that carries through the ages. It is the tribal dance and celebration that helped us survive a very challenging planet, and for a moment while listening to them, I was human and beautifully so.
Loup
