Augartenfest

The sun shines gently in a pristine blue sky, lending its blessing to a weekend summer festival in a beloved city park.
Crowds browse among flea market stalls and food vendors, enjoying the refreshing sweetness of cold beer. Children frolic and shriek in excitement as they test out the playground equipment, somehow rendered special by the festivities taking place around it. The smell of grilled meat hangs in the air, much to the salivary anticipation of various dogs trotting along with panting grins beside their owners.

Music rings out from several stages dotting the park. One blares contemporary pop as preteen dance troupes strut their stuff on stage before the adoring smiles of their parents.

One stage features the kind of band that is ubiquitous at outdoor summer festivals: a group of local musicians just talented enough to provide danceable covers of favorite hits. They stick mostly to the Schlager genre, German-langauge pop from years gone by, laughable yet popular with young and old alike.
On a makeshift dance platform of wooden decking next to the stage, a lone middle-aged woman in a bright red T-shirt twirls to the music in waltz tempo, her arms around an imaginary partner. The expression on her face, elongated and softly rounded by Down's Syndrome, is one of pure joy. The band plays a faster number and she enthusiastically be-bops from side to side, concentrating raptly on the band and the music.
An occasional couple joins her on the dance platform, sticking out a number or two before retiring back to the wooden tables and benches of the beer garden, but she dauntlessly continues her solo enjoyment of the music.
Her performance instills in me a sense of admiration and envy, a longing to be so free from self-consciousness, to be able to surrender myself so completely to the simple pleasure of a good beat on a beautiful day.

But the band finishes their last number and I slowly wander away, blending yet apart from the crowd as I make my lonely way home.