The Songs of Childhood
“The song you heard singing as a child is singing still.”
This morning I woke up in the spare room, a room that faces east. I was restless last night, my hips and legs ached and I was worried that I was keeping my husband awake. I also wanted to stretch out to help ease the pain. So I headed to the spare room.
I love waking up in the spare room because of the quality of the morning light. I woke early this morning, just after 6 am, and opened just one eye to look out the window. Sunlight glittered through the leaves of the oak tree. The morning was already hot. I was reminded of the summer mornings of my childhood – no plans, no responsibilities – just endless days of playing, lazing, and reading. I was transported back to my childhood travels to the cabin by the lake.
Laurie is my oldest friend who I still stay in contact with. We met in grade three. We were both relatively new to the neighbourhood and lived only a street apart. We were instant best friends. Laurie and her family spent weekends and summers at their cabin on a lake in upper state New York, a 90-minute drive from our home outside of Montreal. It was not long before I joined Laurie and her on these lake trips. In snowstorms and sweltering heat, we would leave the suburbs behind and travel through villages and farmland towards our destination. After a quick stop at the country border crossing where we knew the customs officers by name, we would begin to look for the many familiar landmarks that meant we were nearing the lake. The cabin by the lake was a big part of my childhood and adolescence. Back in February, I wrote in a blog post that for too many years I planned my trips with the destination in mind, paying little attention to the journey. Thinking back this morning about our many drives to the cabin by the lake, I realized that the journey there – driven more times than I can remember - was a big part of my childhood experience. So today I thought I would share a memory with you.
“It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” - Ursula LeGuin
Laurie sees the lake first as we crest the hill, a sheet of snowdrifts and ice stretching beyond the bare trees. “There, there it is!” A turmoil of emotions hits my stomach. Laurie has won the ritual game of spying the lake first, not me. I despair at the sight of so much snow, knowing we will need to shovel the road, keep our coats on until the wood stove heats the cabin, and attempt to hover over the ice-cold toilet seat in the outhouse. But my despair is accompanied by giddiness, a whole weekend at the lake – from early Friday afternoon being picked up at school, until late Sunday night when we will be bundled into the car in our pyjamas for the ride home.
Everyone pitches in clearing snow off the lake to create a perfect skating rink. Laurie and I spend endless hours pirouetting on the ice while the boys race around on skidoos. We devour the hot chocolate and warm, freshly baked cookies Laurie’s mom serves us by a roaring fire. Our cheeks are windburned and our legs shaky as we head back to the cabin at day’s end.
We end the evenings reading and whispering about Laurie’s older brothers and their friends; lulled to sleep in our curtained bedroom by quiet adult voices, playing pinochle far into the night.
A few months later we get up before dawn to start the journey. We can barely move in a car packed full of the essentials we will need for the summer months stretching before us. We drive along country roads lined with wildflowers. We pass the apple orchard owned by our high school science teacher, knowing we will we return in the fall to pick apples. We slow down through small villages, each recognizable from a distance by towering Catholic steeples. Tom Jones, singing What’s New Pussycat, blasts from the cassette player, and Laurie and I giggle in embarrassment as her mother says he can park his slippers by her bed anytime.
We crest the hill and this time I am first to see the lake. “There, there it is!” This time we are met with glimpses of blue among gently swaying trees. The sun is barely up and already the heat hangs in the air. We reach the road that skirts the lake. The beach lies empty, except for scattered beer cans from the night before. Jane’s horse grazes by the fence and soon we will be riding bareback across the field. Jane stands on her porch, jumping and waving wildly. We hang out the car window, equally excited. The barn doors are open and tables are being set up – long rows to accommodate the generations of families who will be gathering that night for a barn dance. Butterflies flutter in anticipation as I dream about a slow dance and anticipate the possibility of a first kiss.
Snow does not block the driveway this time, and we coast all the way, around the bend, right up to the cabin by the lake. The air is still except for the sound of chirping grasshoppers. We have reached our destination.