The Free Radical

I was all set to write something about the Pleiades– I’m a Taurus, after all– something about our galactic progenitors, one of the seed tillers of our ancestry. I even sleep beneath a depiction of the Seven Sisters I painted on my wall ten years ago…

But then the Ancient One in me said “Nah! Tell this other one instead.”

Okay.

The Most Ancient, The Most Sacred

Even before the voice of the announcer came over the radio to say that the King was dead, I had been holding back a flood of tears. I was already devastated; my heart was torn. And now the King was dead too. I knew it was a big deal.

Damn right it was a big deal!

This story properly begins two weeks previously.

I was sitting excitedly in the back seat beside my older brother in the family car. My Mom was in the passenger seat as Dad drove. We were on a crazy mountain dirt road, climbing through thick cedar and hemlock forest. It was the kind of backcountry road that hinted strongly that four-wheel-drive and high suspension might be preferred. We had neither. By the way my Dad was cringing and swearing with every bump and scrape along the bottom of the car, you’d think that the road had actually busted out the side window and was now pummeling him in the face. We knew to keep quiet and just hope that Dad would keep on going.

We were getting near to my favourite spot in the whole world!

Tucked away in a remote spot high upon a forested mountain, near Ainsworth Hot Springs, there is a tiny little lake. We knew it as Loon Lake; I’m sure there are many “Loon Lakes” in just BC. This was our Loon Lake. Or rather, it ‘belonged’ to our friends and neighbours from back home in Calgary. They had been spending their summers here.

We made it! Dad parked the car and we all sprang out. I think Dad got down on his knees to see if anything was dangling beneath the car in any sort of suspicious manner, as we dashed off to the lake.

It was right there. Just down a little steep embankment, there was the lake! It was narrow and long, with a swamp at either end, making it nearly impossible to walk around to the other side. We looked across to the other side where a few small boats were tied up at our friends’ dock– the only dock. This was pretty much their own private lake.

My Mom did her little distinctive yell across the lake to announce our safe arrival. We were immediately answered by a copycat yell and the launch of the rowboat to ferry us across. And that was shortly followed by the tandem kayak, piloted by my brother’s best friend. My childhood best friend and near constant companion was on the other side, waiting, along with his two younger sisters.

Their rather modest summer home was an old one-room log cabin, to which they eventually added a loft. There was no electricity, no running water; there was an outhouse located thirty meters up from the cabin. They were a family of six, and we were a family of four… one room and a loft, that’s cozy.

Fortunately, my parents and my brother weren’t staying long, just a few days. And when they left, they took along my brother’s best friend too. Perfect. I was being left with my best friend at their private lake for two glorious weeks!

I was eleven, a big kid for my age. Of course I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the last hurrah for my fleeting innocence, my childhood’s end. I can laughingly look back on those weeks now and look upon them as the reward for a childhood well lived. I was a good kid; I deserved this!

We swam; we camped; we fished. We took the kayak into the swamp to catch snakes. I learned how to sail the little sailboat to the island at the other end of the lake. I snorkeled for the first time and noticed that fish are about as fast as lightning when you go to grab them. We gathered three abandoned rafts from their wilderness moorings around the lake– the products of former generations, perhaps the previous owners of the cabin. We tied the three rafts together into a long narrow barge and struggled like sons-of-bitches to maneuver our contraption, whether paddling or swimming in tow, or just going with the wind and trying not to care where we’d end up. We filled the rubber dingy with lake water and then populated it with frogs and minnows; we had our own little aquarium. We had stories read to us by kerosene lantern. We had bonfires and roasted everything. We had no agendas; we made it all up as ideas came to mind. “Hey, let’s go do this!” Okay.

Can you imagine? Have you lived it? It was the most perfect time. It was life at its most natural easy grace. People tell me I have a terrific imagination. Well, I have never imagined anything better than those two weeks spent at Loon Lake. I can’t improve on that… and I didn’t have to do anything; it was just given to me, an infinite gift… sacred space enlivened by the most ancient of all– untrammeled nature, the first civilization… and I belonged, gloriously!

And when those two weeks ended, I found myself an eleven-year-old boy traveling by himself, right up at the front of the Greyhound, right behind the driver. His shitty little radio was perched atop the dash, spewing the news of the century… again. This time, the King was dead. Big deal. Stupid Elvis!

Meanwhile, my heart was stretched all the way back to Loon Lake, behind us, well beyond the scary back of the bus. Children’s hearts are elastic, but I knew that eventually I’d have to let go.

I wanted to cry; I wasn’t even sure that I knew why. A few people made their way up to the front of the bus. They looked like they wanted to cry too. “Is it true about Elvis?” they asked the driver.

It was true; something had ended. We all wanted to cry.

But I had a treasure tucked away. I was eleven years old, and I KNEW I had lived.
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