Above water | Late ignition of the merger

"I haven't been to a festival in six years and..." The wind blows away the rest of the sentence. I've taken refuge with three other people under a tree at the edge of the campsite when the downpour starts. "... kissed and... wanted to throw away my wedding ring... you get it?" Behind me stand two women and a man in their mid-30s. The man says, "Hmm," and the second woman, "Sure." Then the clouds break, the rain subsides. My friend emerges from the bushes where the footbridge begins, beaming.

I was always a late bloomer, catching up on my high school diploma, starting college in my mid-20s, and having my son in my early 30s. I started swimming and writing novels late in life, and discovered soccer . At almost 60, I'm standing at the entrance to Fusion for the first time – a space of possibilities, a temporary utopia, as the organizers put it. "We dance. Not as an escape, but out of defiance. Not as a distraction, but as a response."

My girlfriend and I are performing as artists among the 70,000 visitors to the festival, which offers music, talks, games, karaoke, yoga, a human car wash, and a thousand other things around the clock from the last Wednesday in June to Sunday. We tell history and stories about feminism and punk rock, are allowed to travel to and from the festival by shuttle bus, are driven to our hotel in Mirow , and are provided with all the necessary amenities.

On the first evening, we walk through the deserted village to the dark-green lake, throw ourselves in after the highway closure, the excitement, and the performance. Everything slides away. A boy throws a ball to his father in the shallow water, a red kite circles above the church steeple. The beach café closes, the lifeguard packs up, the wrought-iron gate remains open. A Hansa Rostock towel flutters in the wind, midges fly by. The Fusion booms from the other shore, lights dip into the clouds.

We return to the cultural cosmos and wander between the hangars, admiring men in swimsuits, the girl with cat ears, the St. Pauli fan with a lightsaber, the glowing umbrellas and jellyfish, the night's light spectacle. Lizards, dragons, rockets. There's a lot, it's magical. Everyone is in high spirits, some fall asleep in the middle of it all, others dance themselves sore. In the castle in the air, masked women from the Norwegian band Witch Club Satan scream a few hundred people dizzy until sweat drips from the ceiling.

When we stumble into the hotel and stammer a number, the night porter says happily: "Finally, someone who hasn't forgotten their room number!"

On Sunday afternoon, the sky over Lärz is playing Kabolz. To the nudist beach or to the village pond? We stroll past the covered trance dance, about 100 people hopping along to their guru's "hoo-hoo-hoo." The circus is quiet, there are long lines at the cell phone charger and the restrooms, and a toothbrush lies on a tree trunk. Behind bushes, a jetty juts out into the artificial lake; a silvery fish leaps into the water; my friend is the first to go swimming. I blink into the dark gray clouds and already step into my swimsuit.