I seem to be taking my husband to the Positivus Festival.

by Anna · Published July 2, 2012 · Updated August 27, 2013

One of the things that surprises me about my life is that I’ve been to the Positivus music festival in Salacgriva, Latvia more than once. I’ve written extensively about the festival. I’ve seen American and European acts there, I’ve slept (briefly) backstage and I’ve been out way past the time when the sun came up. (Then again, since the sun comes up around 4 a.m. during the festival, it isn’t too hard to stay up past dawn.)

This year my husband Paul Sicard said he wanted to come with me to the festival. I was a bit surprised to hear this.

While @psicard has met plenty of Latvians–and we’ve had plenty of Latvian houseguests–I’m curious what he may see this year that will strike him as unusual.

While a lot of Americans have passed through the festival as acts, I only know one other American who has gone to Positivus as a plain ol’ guest without any official ties to the festival.

Last year at Positivus, I met Tama Carouthers, 25, from New Orleans, who was traveling around Europe when she decided to come to the Positivus Festival.We met just as she was finishing painting her Royksopp fan flag, and was waving it in the air trying to dry the paint.

“It’s unique. I love the Latvians, the blond men. It’s a beautiful festival, a beautiful vibe, ” Carouthers said.

“This place, it’s pretty, its so pretty.” Carouthers told me, as I followed her to her tent last summer to stash her newly made Royksopp flag. Along the way we attracted a bit of notice by speaking English with American accents, accents that are still unusual in that part of the world.

Of course, my Kansas-bred, Tallinn-based journalism-professor friend Scott Abel came to the Positivus festival in 2009. Yet since he ended up conducting Moby’s Latvian press conference on the fly, I don’t think that he counts as a typical festival guest. Still, I have a vivid memory of walking down to the beach at Positivus with Scott, and drawing a crowd just because we were speaking American English. We soon went and hid backstage, because it wasn’t much fun to be a festival attraction because of our accents.

Is it 1911…or Positivus 2011?

So, I’ll be curious to see how my husband reacts to this festival, and how the Latvian public reacts to seeing (and hearing) the two of us together.

In some ways, I think that for the Latvians, Positivus is one of the spaces childlike play –but as practiced by adults– isn’t forbidden, but rather encouraged. Clearly, the festival is a place where a lot of Latvians get their needs for fun met.

My husband is a quiet former Bostonian, who is known for his kindness, rather than his cutting loose at a party. So I’ll be curious to see how he reacts when he sees a lot of Latvians–and a goodly number of Estonians and Lithuanians– who are still out having fun during breakfast hours.

Click through for pictures from Positivus 2011, which I hope will give me husband an idea of what to expect this year.