I am a Soca Baby

So, I have just put the pictures from this years Notting hill Carnival up on my flickr account and am taking a moment to wax lyrical about it. I was musing (as I often do) about why I love it so much and I have to say that my Notting Hill Carnival devotion began at the tender age of two years old. Although saying that, it actually stems from my parents and their parents and eons of cultural heritage, but personally it began when at two years of age my mother took me out to soak up the atmosphere and watch the the floats go by, the myriad of colours stimulating my two year old mind. Needless to say from that moment on I was hooked. Some years later at four years old I went out in my first costume. I was a blue jumpsuited sea creature thing and I loved it. Loved the freedom of dancing to the music and the solidarity of everyone around me losing themselves to the beat as well. I could imagine no religious experience greater. Since then I don't recall missing a year.

There was one time I decided not to go in costume and experience carnival from the other side of the rope. The bodies pressed against one another and the frenzied heat, sounds and smells all coming at you at once was a little hard to take. Not to mention the exhibitionist in me was longing to be behind the trucks shimmying away and entertaining while tourists snapped pictures of me waving my flag in the air.

For me the best way to do Notting hill Carnival is to join up with a float and go in costume. I may be biased though, because I am in it for the music, the soulful calypso of Soca. The food is great, the company grand, even the soundsystems know how to do their thing, but for me nobody does carnival like the soca floats and no body appreciates it more than the people that pay almost £100 to trek a three mile route to thumping bass infused music: the masqueraders. My fellow costume players. We are all there to have a good time, we aren't there to fight or to sell or to get into trouble. We are there to dance, to whine and to carry on bad. That is where my devotion lies. When I go to Carnival (and not just Notting Hill, I've been to Luton, Rotterdam and Trinidad) I go to forget everything and to worry about nothing but filling my soul with music and a good time. It also doesn't hurt that it helps burn those calories.

I can face the rest of the year and start the new one with the knowledge that there is a time when none of it matters, when I can celebrate and am surrounded by those who feel the same and I am lifted by the hope that this year, this carnival, it might not rain.