 Posted
9/20/2012 1:22:00 PM
Did you have a ‘that’ summer? I had a ‘that’ summer when I lived in Banff my second year of Theatre School. A group of the senior students moved out to live in Harvie Heights. Ron with Pam, Monica with Marlene, crazy Leonard with himself; he was brilliant but crazy and I shared a cabin with Janet Burke, a girl enjoying her visit life away from home, which happened to be in Nova Scotia.
It was the summer we believed we could all do anything; we would all be terribly successful, everything was within our grasp, and frankly, life would be our oyster. It was the summer of great romance, huge crushes, music that mapped a lifetime, broken hearts, political discussions and incredible theatre productions. We had dinners together, drinks at the Grizzly House, fell in and out of each other’s beds and worked on each other’s projects. There were gales of laughter and rivers of tears. We behaved as children and took our first adult steps.
Janet introduced me to Roberta Flack and fell in love with a very talented artist named Davey. So this morning when I heard the strains of ‘first time’ I was immediately thrown back to 1972-73 and in that rapid minute where you live a lifetime, it dawned on me I had no idea where anybody was or what happened to us all. But I could feel the hope we all had when we parted company, each compadre bent on changing the world and being all we could be.
I can’t speak for any of the ‘that’ summer group, but I think I have spent a life trying to get back that feeling. Like heroin addicts chasing the dragon, you’re always trying to find that invincible feeling, where every emotion is the highest, most passionate, most meaningful. I have often wondered if you were someone who never had ‘that’ summer, was your life easier for not having to chase that elusive euphoria. I knew people who thought we were cool and maybe the truth is we were riding a wave that was soon to crash against a shore, never to be ridden again.
I had all these thoughts in a moment this morning, a moment with my whole life.
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