Well, part of one, anyway.
Thursday evening, I was mall-walking with my friend Lorri, just getting out of the house to do anything with a friendly face. At the little info kiosk outside Art Coop, she noticed a small flyer.
Fabrikate Fest.
Saturday evening.
Groovy costume contest.
Chill with Gertie the dragon.
Lincoln Square Mall.
It felt improbable in the way good things often do. It also sounded very Urbana. The skeptic in me figured there would be maybe ten people. I let it drift.
But wait, a dragon?
Most local folks know of Fabrikate and the fantastic bags and textiles she brings to markets. What matters to me is the care in her work, and the way I’ve watched her craftsmanship grow more confident over time without losing its warmth.
A few years back, when she was just getting started, she said she could make me a custom wallet, fabric printed with red and yellow flames to match a bowling shirt I wear when I go skating. I kind of forgot about it, and then my friend Beth followed up with Kate and made it happen. It’s a cool wallet. One-of-a-kind. Thoughtful. Still in my pocket.
Okay, let’s do it
Later that night, I picked up the flyer I’d originally abandoned to my nightstand, and gave it a read. The Urbana Parade of Lights had been cancelled, and these folks were just trying to bring a little fun to winter. It struck me that this was the same kind of small, improvised joy I’d been mulling over myself. People showing up in expressive ways just to see and be seen.
It felt strange to talk about ideas for self expression and not support this one. So I started designing a flower costume.
Next-level design
Not just any flower costume. An outlandish, Björk-inspired explosion of petals, stamens, butterflies, something I didn’t fully understand yet, but felt compelled to chase. By midnight Thursday, I had the vision mostly sketched out.
Friday was spent gathering materials, some intentional, some accidental. Felt, a glue gun, floral wire, dried moss, a butterfly kite, burlap ribbon, the perfect green skirt. I was excited in that deep, focused way that makes everything else invisible.
I built a burlap collar to attach flowers around my body, then started in on the hat. The party decoration flowers I hoped would save time, but they did not work out. I abandoned them and started cutting and gluing felt flowers by hand.
Back it up, Paul
By 8:30 p.m. Friday, reality reared its unwelcome head. I had to get up at 4 a.m. for Market. I’ve built costumes and sets in a hurry before. I knew this would turn into an all-night project.
Health often looks like stopping before I want to. So I folded the flower costume idea gently away. I toyed with a few last-minute avant-garde alternatives, but nothing landed. I wanted to be a crazy flower, or nothing.
They still needed people to make the dragon work. So I decided that would be my part.
Dragon day
The market next morning was good, but felt a bit brutal. I hadn’t staffed as well as I should have, so I ended up doing a fair bit of setup and teardown solo.
After unloading back at the farm, I went home. Coffee. A peanut butter sandwich. Then a 50-minute nap in my cozy chair, the kind of nap that doesn’t solve everything, but keeps you from falling over.
By 4:30 p.m., I was back at the mall, where the dragon was being assembled. I recognized a few faces. Most were new.
Inside the costume, I was one of the legs, second in line.
Allen was ahead of me, kind of like the collarbone of the ordeal, and Ed was outside, leading the head on a stick. Behind me, a couple more sets of legs.
I also started out supporting wings. Somewhere along the route, I felt a pop and a scrunch. The next thing I knew, Kate was removing the wings, and we carried on as a terrestrial dragon.
Still, a dragon!
Making community happen
Part of what excited me about this wasn’t the costume. It was the care behind it. This dragon had originally been meant for the cancelled Parade of Lights. Instead of letting the moment disappear, Kate found another way. She made room for play anyway.
This matters to me.
I carry a quiet vision of small, human-scaled pop-up parades centered around the Urbana Farmer’s Market, something I’ve been calling the Green Street Parade. I imagine it starting in May 2026, when the outdoor market wakes up again. I don’t yet know how I’ll juggle the Sola Gratia table, a Field Notes presence, and the parade. It will almost certainly require collaboration, which I’ve publicly claimed I’m terrible at.
But standing inside that dragon, moving through the mall with other folks, stitched together by fabric and consent that felt like theater, I felt a workable kind of hope.
This was fun.
This was possible.
People could get used to it.
I imagined that after a few more such pop-up parades, more people might find ways to express themselves that let their shyness fall aside, until these events went from infrequent to of course there’s a parade this week.
On Saturday night, I was part of a dragon.
And for a little while, that felt exactly right.
More stuff about the event
Here’s a link to the event on FB, so you can see more photos.
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