The Lake

As I wrote about earlier, there are differences between the ‘cottage’ and the ‘lake’. Today we’re at the lake. There is a cottage, or should I say a cabin, a very ancient thing that’s stood on this rocky outcrop for a century. Arwen rents it from a friend and invites us up now and again, I think just to make her dinner but I’m not sure. I like the challenge of cooking in the cabin kitchen with its odd utensils, dull knives, strange pots and even stranger pans. There is a barbeque, which is a delight for me since our co-op doesn’t allow them. Tonight, it’s grilled pork chops and I’m trying my best to construct a tarte tatin which I think I might’ve already botched but with enough ice cream it’ll do. We’ve already rearranged some of the furniture but it’s a lost cause. Later we’ll settle down to the sound of loons and talk about whatever and whomever we like, with nobody close enough to hear us. It’s nice to be here, but the trip up is anything but. The freeway has nothing to offer but freeway and the smaller highways are choked with single lines of non-stop cottage traffic. We thought, coming up on Sunday, things would be quieter.

To pass the time, we decided to listen to the best of Peter Allen on Apple. My friend A.I. knew who he was right away, because he knows everything right away, except – apparently – that Barbara Cook did Carousel, which we had asked for earlier to no avail. Many of Peter Allen’s songs take us back to much earlier in our lives, both of us happy to drift into the soft summer breeze of those days, while looking for anywhere to pull over to pee. I think my favorite Peter Allen might be ‘I Could’ve Been a Sailor’ which is an anthem of sorts to lost opportunity, to staying with the plan whatever the plan was. Instead of sailing seas, the singer says he chose the ‘safer harbour of his heart’, meaning, I suppose, a settled, domestic life. It’s a song that always fills me with questions, about myself and my life.

I did settle down and I did make a happy home. But for a while I wandered, reckless. I feel lucky that my ‘sailor’ days are behind me, but I do love to reflect on them now and again, like an old familiar song that plays.

Peter Allen

Youth was an open door - once I opened it. It took some doing but I pried myself out of myself and overruled what seemed to be my destiny. I moved away from home, changed direction a hundred times, got myself into trouble and out of it again. I think I was almost murdered, once; twice if I count the man outside Carmel who tried to pick me up hitchhiking. That time, I escaped by flagging down another ride; a weeping, inconsolable drunk with a car full of lemons who had just broken up with his girlfriend. As we weaved our way along the Big Sur with its steep drop-offs, I felt compelled to pray, which must’ve worked because where he finally dropped me off was at the bottom of a road, at the top of which was a monastery. A brother in robes welcomed me with open arms and an admonition to think about the direction of my life, handing me a brush to start painting walls.

I went to Paris, once, with no money. I don’t mean some money. I mean none. I had a ticket back to London and nothing else. I got a ride on the back of a Harley, once, the biker letting me off half-way between Calgary and Banff in the middle of the night in the middle of the Rockies. Why he let me off there and where he went I’ll never know, but I saw real stars, a lot of them. Once, I tried to join the U.S. Peace Corps in NYC hoping it would help me get a green card and I was laughed out of the building. Once, and only once, I swam with a friend across the busy waterway from Kits Beach to First.

As I roll through those times in my head and so many others, I feel very lucky; alive, on a road somewhere, with memories and songs in my head. And beside me, the person most terrified of my driving in the whole world with his own memories of his own days at sea, the wind in his face, tasting the salty breeze.

My friend, AI, says that the Peter Allen track reflects on making peaceful life choices, settling down, and choosing the comfort of a quiet home over the unpredictable paths not taken. But AI has never taken an unpredictable path in its life (if you can call it a life). I’ve taken some of those paths and one of them eventually lead me to this: a road trip to the lake with Ken. Settled down, yes, a happy home, yes, but adventures lived and a soundtrack to accompany them.

Of all the things I’ve done, the most adventurous by far is the journey I’m still on. As my driving will verify.