Blairstown
Last night, lying in bed before falling asleep, while thinking about completely unrelated things, I had a sudden, vivid, powerfully intense image burst into my mind, and with it one of the sharpest pangs of sadness and nostalgia that I have ever experienced:
Turning right onto the gravel drive, following as it curves down the hill past the little basketball court, past Cabin 6 tucked back to the left, around the wash house and toward the lake; the lawns dotted with people setting up tents, lugging sleeping bags into the cabins, little kids chasing each other and laughing, older kids clumped together talking in low voices...
I may have thought, in some vague way, of Blairstown at some point in the past several years, but nothing even close to this visceral, detailed, powerful flood of feelings: that first view of the lake, the mingled voices in the air, the feel of pulling the dark red sweatshirt with the frayed cuffs that I always wore over my head and running down the steps of the cabin, the excitement of finding each of my friends as they arrive, comparing the lists in our folders to see who's in the same Adventure Group, the same carpools...it came so suddenly, seemingly from nowhere. I had been thinking about nothing I can connect to Blairstown, to PFS, to camping. At the time I was vaguely confused; I let the images and the sadness flood me for a minute, then gradually it ebbed, I went back to my other daydreams, and finally fell asleep.
But this morning I logged onto facebook and there, a little ways down my newsfeed, was the new status of "Pfs's Pfs page": Blairstown.
Oh -- right. It's late May. They're heading to Blairstown this week. So how random was my sudden flash of nostalgia, really?
PFS lyrics:
I was born in the path of the winter wind,
And raised where the mountains are old.
The springtime waters came dancing down,
And I remember the tales they told.
The whistling ways of my younger days
Too quickly have faded on by,
But all of their memories linger on,
Like the light in a fading sky...
River, take me along
In your sunshine, sing me your song,
Ever moving, and winding and free,
You rolling old river, you changing old river,
Let's you and me river...
Run down to the sea.
Turning right onto the gravel drive, following as it curves down the hill past the little basketball court, past Cabin 6 tucked back to the left, around the wash house and toward the lake; the lawns dotted with people setting up tents, lugging sleeping bags into the cabins, little kids chasing each other and laughing, older kids clumped together talking in low voices...
I may have thought, in some vague way, of Blairstown at some point in the past several years, but nothing even close to this visceral, detailed, powerful flood of feelings: that first view of the lake, the mingled voices in the air, the feel of pulling the dark red sweatshirt with the frayed cuffs that I always wore over my head and running down the steps of the cabin, the excitement of finding each of my friends as they arrive, comparing the lists in our folders to see who's in the same Adventure Group, the same carpools...it came so suddenly, seemingly from nowhere. I had been thinking about nothing I can connect to Blairstown, to PFS, to camping. At the time I was vaguely confused; I let the images and the sadness flood me for a minute, then gradually it ebbed, I went back to my other daydreams, and finally fell asleep.
But this morning I logged onto facebook and there, a little ways down my newsfeed, was the new status of "Pfs's Pfs page": Blairstown.
Oh -- right. It's late May. They're heading to Blairstown this week. So how random was my sudden flash of nostalgia, really?
PFS lyrics:
And raised where the mountains are old.
The springtime waters came dancing down,
And I remember the tales they told.
The whistling ways of my younger days
Too quickly have faded on by,
But all of their memories linger on,
Like the light in a fading sky...
River, take me along
In your sunshine, sing me your song,
Ever moving, and winding and free,
You rolling old river, you changing old river,
Let's you and me river...
Run down to the sea.
posted by Ashila at 11:07 PM
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