a trip down memory lane...

Last week I took my usual summer trip back to Alberta to see the family. I feel like I did nothing the entire time there and I'm not going to lie, it felt good :o)
But man alive my small town is changing. Suddenly there's a Subway there. SUBWAY!?! crazy. I can't even handle it. There's a new school being built by my house, housing popping up all around... it's really just blowing my mind...
I spent the first few days crying over MJ's death (call me crazy, I still feel like i'm in mourning) and laying on my Mom's lap while she rubbed my back and played with my hair... yes... I'm 25 and I still need my Mom's lap... I got my hair cut, Mom and I went shopping, to the doctor, got a pedicure with Mom... hung out with my brother, his wife and their new puppy... and then saturday... saturday was a fantastic day full of memories... a day that I wasn't really prepared for but did not fight against either... we went up to the lake for the day...
For about 18 years now, my family has been camping at Pine Lake. We just went up for the day, all of us, minus our puppy, Lady, who is on her last leg of life and can't ride in the car anymore... so mom, dad, jeff, liv and i (with Kokoda, the new addition to the family) headed up for the day. it wasn't the nicest weather, but i won't complain, at least it didn't rain! it was the 60th anniversary happening, so there was a brilliant fireworks display and a supper... but i'll get to that.
we got there in the early afternoon and unpacked and just hung out in the trailor for a bit. played some cards... read a bit... and that's when the conversation happened. my Dad, wanting to leave our campground for good... talking to someone on the phone, looking up other places we could camp... leave Green Acres... the place where I spent my childhood summers, the place where my heart was broken, the place of first boyfriends and new best friends... the place of so many lost memories and ones that i begged to cling onto...
with the fear of leaving in my mind, i made my brother take me on the usual boat ride around the lake... when you look at something as if you are seeing it for the last time, you see it through different eyes. Your eyes long to keep the colors, the movement, the shape, everything, in a still frame in your mind... the colors are brighter than they normaly would be, richer... as if the memory will somehow, eventually, dull the colors back to the reality of what they truly were.
I walked around 'the loop' as we called it... the part of the campground where all of the guys that we liked were... I went into the Coffee Shop and down to the doc... I even saw Jordan. Jordan is a mentally challenged beautiful man who is forever trapped in a boys body... he's got to be in his 30's now and doesn't look a day over 21... when I was more of a regular there, before I left for college and eventually moved across the country, he thought that we were married. He always got extremely excited to see me and we would have fun little conversations throughout the weekends. He gave me a picture of himself once and I still carry it around in my wallet to this day. He is really quite wonderful.
That night we went to Bob and Diane's trailor for a pre-firework fire. it was quaint. Cosy.
The fireworks were the best i have EVER seen at the lake. just brilliant. There was some music playing as well. It was quite hilarious, it went from Disney (When You Wish Upon A Star, and the music from the Electric Parade that happens in Disneyland) to Michael Jackson. I sat there on the grass listening to MJ, in front of the Coffee Shop, as a young German Shepard pup tried to hide behind me from the sound, completely lost in a dazz of memories... struggling to capture the moment. that one still frame. and i believe... right now... that i still have that moment. in my minds eye i can see the fireworks, i can hear the music, feel Kokoda nuzzling me, the wet grass beneath me... and though the edges of this memory are slightly fuzzy... I will fight to keep it... because it was one of the happiest moments of my life... full of peace and truly content.