Friday, June 23, 2006
Dawson City Blues
Thought alot about Dawson today...
Hung out in a hot tub with people ranging in age from 19-22 and was instantly transported back to that age myself which, of course, means being transported back to Dawson.
Taking part in the songwriters camp, I keep coming back to the one song of my own that I can't let go of...the one I wrote when I found out Jamie was dead. And where there is Jamie, there is Dawson.
Right before I opened up my computer to blog the folks upstairs started in on a rousing rendition of Sweet Home Alabama. In all its muffled glory, I couldn't help but smile a sad smile. The song that sent us home every night from the Midnight Sun...ah, that song can take me back faster than almost anything else.
All day I have been there in my head...standing on the Dempster Highway beside the ruined truck, our camping gear spread for miles...ordering Dawson Dogs at 3am surrounded by my crazy friends, writing poetry on the dock in the rain protected by the wing of a float plane, making love in tents, dancing and dancing and dancing and dancing...backstage at the shows and missing Kirklind, Derick showing up at the Downtown Hotel in the middle of the night for no other reason than that I asked him to, freedom from any sign of a 'real' world, parties and parties and parties and parties...the heartbreak of that truck crash or watching Kirk's truck pull away on the ferry for another long week away or Jamie kissing me mysteriously goodbye one night...knowing now that I will never see him again, will never get to hold Kirk again, will never be in Dawson again - not like I was back then. It is a chapter that ended long ago and still, every now and then, I still ache in my gut with how much I miss it, with how much I mourn my youth, with how resistant I still am to letting it go.
But we all know by now that letting go has never been my strong suit.
Hung out in a hot tub with people ranging in age from 19-22 and was instantly transported back to that age myself which, of course, means being transported back to Dawson.
Taking part in the songwriters camp, I keep coming back to the one song of my own that I can't let go of...the one I wrote when I found out Jamie was dead. And where there is Jamie, there is Dawson.
Right before I opened up my computer to blog the folks upstairs started in on a rousing rendition of Sweet Home Alabama. In all its muffled glory, I couldn't help but smile a sad smile. The song that sent us home every night from the Midnight Sun...ah, that song can take me back faster than almost anything else.
All day I have been there in my head...standing on the Dempster Highway beside the ruined truck, our camping gear spread for miles...ordering Dawson Dogs at 3am surrounded by my crazy friends, writing poetry on the dock in the rain protected by the wing of a float plane, making love in tents, dancing and dancing and dancing and dancing...backstage at the shows and missing Kirklind, Derick showing up at the Downtown Hotel in the middle of the night for no other reason than that I asked him to, freedom from any sign of a 'real' world, parties and parties and parties and parties...the heartbreak of that truck crash or watching Kirk's truck pull away on the ferry for another long week away or Jamie kissing me mysteriously goodbye one night...knowing now that I will never see him again, will never get to hold Kirk again, will never be in Dawson again - not like I was back then. It is a chapter that ended long ago and still, every now and then, I still ache in my gut with how much I miss it, with how much I mourn my youth, with how resistant I still am to letting it go.
But we all know by now that letting go has never been my strong suit.
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