Summer Rocks My Socks: Part 1 - The Family That Carnavals Together, Stays Together

Every year on the last Sunday of May at exactly 8am our block is filled with loud bass booms and fast paced beats streaming from the giant speakers mounted on the back of pick up trucks and flat beds parked at the corner.  This invasion of sound officially announces the start of San Francisco's Carnaval parade, an annual event which brings together over 60 contingents who fill the streets of The Mission with music, dancing & costumes celebrating traditional & contemporary artistic traditions & styles of The Americas & The Caribbean.  Considering that all of the contingents line up on the corner of our block we all quickly learned that our options were to either join in the festivities or spend every last Sunday of May whining & complaining about being woken up to some one's sound check.  So my family chose to dive into the Carnaval pool head first and now this event has become one of our families most important traditions.

The decision to become a Carnavalero and dedicate yourself to this annual event should not be taken lightly.  Carnaval can consume your body & soul (and not to mention bank account) so quickly it will leave your head spinning.  There are definitely moments when the amount of time, money and energy we put into this event seems a bit ridiculous.  When our family hasn't had a weekend off in 3 months because of rehearsals, when my hands are covered in burns from a glue gun, when there is a thick layer of glitter covering everything we own (including my kids!), when we are awake at 2:00am sewing feathers, tying rafia, or painting a float, "What the hell am I doing???" is a thought that runs across my mind with quite some frequency.  The reality is that participating in Carnaval is hard work, it is expensive, and from March until May our entire family gives up and sacrifices all other "non-carnaval" parts of our lives but here's why I wouldn't give it up for the world...

Being able to dance down the streets of my neighborhood to a soundtrack of high-energy drumming provided by my husband and daughters is such a powerful occurrence that could only be possible during SF Carnaval.  The energy that is generated by such a large group of people of all ages & backgrounds who are united in the single purpose of celebration, is so intense you can feel it vibrating in your bones.  For 4 hours you are surrounded by nothing but love and smiles and the the joy is so intense that it almost becomes a physical being.  It is such a privilege to be able to come together with our family, our friends & our community to create something that brings so much happiness to the world.  The images of Chuli shaking her booty down 24th Street, of Justice and her father standing side-by-side as they bang out a Samba rhythm and of my Mama and Rio dancing together are what make it all worth it.  It connects us to our streets, it opens the door to summer and it is probably the only activity that keep every single member of our family happy! 

I will continue to pour myself into SF Carnaval every year so that my family can have the opportunity to make music together, to dance together and to spread love into our community.  And that is definitely worth all the blood sweat and glitter!