Ten years ago this past weekend we drove from downeast Maine to Falcon Ridge for the Dave Carter memorial that took place on the festival mainstage. We hadn’t planned to go to the festival – I used to go in the early 90s, but hadn’t been in awhile, and we had tickets to see Dave and Tracy in Maine a few days later. But Dave died the week before, Falcon Ridge was the place Tracy was going to go to start the process of commemorating him publicly, and I knew I had to be there, along with all the other people who mourned. Dave and Tracy were hugely important in my life in the few years before Dave died. But it is also true that, at that point, I was no longer playing music publicly or writing songs, something I had done previously. I still played and sang occasionally in my living room, but didn’t play any Dave Carter songs, because I knew that no one could perform them as well as Dave and Tracy did. And I managed to see them in concert quite a lot (and, of course, keep the CDs on repeat in my CD player), so I was surrounded by Dave’s music. I also didn’t really know Dave or Tracy especially well. I’d thank them after a show, or give feedback on the sound check beforehand (because I was always early, to be able to be up front). But I never stopped to have a real conversation, because I couldn’t imagine why these amazing people would be interested in talking to someone like me. This past weekend at the festival, ten years later, there was a collective observance of that anniversary. Tracy did a solo memorial set on the workshop stage (complete with two unreleased Dave songs, one of which I’d not only never heard but didn’t even know existed). The other one I had heard once before and when Tracy asked, after playing it, if anyone had ever heard that song, and I raised my hand, she said something like “well, of course, Beth. . . .” (and then sang the one she knew I hadn’t heard). I also hosted the Dave Carter song circle, now in its 11th year. I took it over maybe 5 years ago when the original hosts stopped coming to the festival, and I knew that it was a tradition that had to continue. It’s an amazing experience, and people come up to me on the festival grounds to ask me when and where it will be – I’m recognized as the keeper of that particular tradition. And I’m well-enough known in the music community as a Dave Carter fan that when the band Pesky J. Nixon was asked to join Tracy on a song for her mainstage memorial set they emailed me to ask for the chords. That Saturday night performance (the final one of the night) was billed as Tracy Grammer and the Butterfly Conservatory, the name of a band Dave envisioned having some day. Tracy had asked a variety of festival musicians to learn one of Dave’s songs to either play with her or play alone in the set. (And some folks, like Rod MacDonald, asked on their own to play a song.) And then Saturday morning Tracy sent me a message asking if I’d like to join them on stage for the finale of that show and letting me know when the rehearsal was. So I showed up for the rehearsal (although she commented that I probably didn’t need it), and those of us assembled ran through the Sumerian descant (both under the last verse and then at the end) for the Mountain, and the choruses and ending for Gentle Arms of Eden). And then Tracy got me a backstage pass so I’d be able to get to the stage when I needed to. I watched most of the show from the audience, but went into the stage area about halfway through. And on the song before, went to the actual backstage to gather with the people who were going to be singing in the final two songs. Musicians I knew came up to hug me hello, and Katryna Nields asked me for a last minute reminder of the Sumerian melody. And then we all went on stage. I reminded myself to enjoy the experience. And it was amazing. To be on the Falcon Ridge mainstage, first of all. To be singing Dave’s songs, surrounded by fantastic musicians, led by Tracy. On the Mountain when we sang the descant all together at the end, slowly, the first half in unison and the second half in full harmony, I felt surrounded by a wall of sound. On Gentle Arms of Eden (which we did, at the end, in a mashup with Cecelia) I ended up in the second row of musicians, next to Katryna who put one arm around me and the other around Nerissa and we sang that way until the end when we clapped to the Cecelia part. I couldn’t see most of the audience but I could hear the hillside fill up with music as everyone sang along. It was by turns comforting and joyous. It’s been an unbelievable 10-year journey. I miss Dave and the songs he would have written, but I’m grateful for the ones he did write and to be embraced by the community his music created.