The Things We Carry With Us

With the holidays just behind us I've been thinking a lot about family traditions, how many of ours have disappeared over the years. I've been missing things like family Sunday night dinner and church on Christmas eve. As time has passed and I've gotten decidedly more agnostic, a divorce, two remarriages (my parents', not mine) a cross country move, an international relocation and an eventual return to the city where I grew up, all compounded by family spread out across the continent have resulted in a firm wall of time having been erected between me and the family traditions of my youth. These days we don't even spend Christmas in the same city two years in a row, so Christmas traditions are hard to establish.

Lately I find myself searching for those few, slim connections to my youth. Aside from my family, there are only a few people who've known me since I was young. It takes a lot of effort to carry things and people with us through the years, and I've moved around so much that I have shed a lot of things along the way. So many people have come and gone, some for the best and some I miss dearly. The people who are still there are the ones I've loved enough to carry through the years, but who have also loved me enough to pick me up and carry me when necessary. I feel lucky to have them.

All this has gotten me thinking about the other things that have been important enough to heap into suitcases and bring with me through the years. There is a copy of the Velveteen Rabbit my Great Aunt gave me years ago, with gorgeous illustrations. There is an ice cream cone shaped whistle from Dairy Queen, from the night we went in after hours with a friend who worked there, and made our own sundaes. There are a lot of old pictures, and a few old letters. There is a tulip pressed between the pages of my University Year Book, that reminds me of my last day as a student and how wide open life felt that day. Perhaps the lightest thing, the one that has gone with me absolutely every place I've ever traveled, is music. I don't remember when I first realized that a great song could make my heart swell just like falling in love does, but for years now it has been my comfort, my warm blanket, my sunny summer day, my cruel lover, my compassionate friend.

When I was around fifteen my mom and her then boyfriend, now husband, took my brother and I on a trip to Toronto. We saw a lot of amazing things on that trip, and I decided that someday I was going to live there. The thing that stands out most from that week was a concert they took us to at the Molson Amphitheater. This is one of my all time favorite summer music venues. It is an outdoor stage, set in a bowl of seats, which you can pay top dollar to have, or you can pay less to sit in the grassy area above the seats. You can bring a blanket and a picnic and lie on the grass watching the stars while listening to one of your favorite bands. That week we saw Blue Rodeo, who are in my opinion one of the quintessential Canadian bands of the last 25 years. I was in love. I can remember sitting in our family room playing "Dark Angel" on repeat on the stereo. Not their best song, but what can I say, I was something of a melancholy/romantic teenager. At least I grew out of it... what's Greg Keelor's excuse? Just kidding Greg, I love you.

I had some guy friends who were in a band - one of whom I was totally head over heals for - and we used to go watch them play at a local coffee house (hey, it was the 90s, that's what we did). Listening to them play "Side of the Road" is still one of my favorite memories from that time.

Two years later we moved to a small Ontario town just 45 minutes from Toronto (the closest I ever came to living there, which is ok). My parents built a beautiful house in the middle of the forest at the end of a dirt road. I can remember pulling up to the house after night out with friends, on many occasions, the house glowing and warm, and Blue Rodeo playing on the stereo so loudly I could hear it from the driveway. It was the sound track of our lives back then. I knew my family was inside waiting for me.

Fast forward nearly two decades, a million miles, and more changes than I could possibly put down on paper - and one of the few bands my husband and I both love equally is Blue Rodeo. Our first dance at our wedding was "Rebel" (it's more romantic than it sounds). Last night we went to see them for the third time (together). I realized while we were sitting there, holding hands like two kids in puppy love, that they are the one big tradition I have carried with me all these years. Someday my kids will pull up to the house, late at night, hear Blue Rodeo blaring on the stereo, and know that their parents are inside dancing.