bits and pieces, here and theres:
My grandma Mulhall knows Gary the Bear, and has a wooden beartag just like mine, though not from Evans Lake, of course. "You know the Bear?" She nods in surprise. "Isn't he great!" I say, as I run upstairs to find my staff beartag. A few false starts, pulling out old nametags that weren't made by the Bear, but finally I find it, my treasure. Staff and workparty at Evans Lake camp get nametags made by Bear. Campers and counsellors-in-training just make their own. As workparty a happy ritual is to spend the very few idle hours sitting on the porch of the rec hall, sanding off a wooden round so that Bear's permanent markers won't blur when he draws on it. BROOKE Evans Lake 1996. I was so proud. I mention to gramma that I also have a big Top Camper plaque made by Bear, but we don't have time to look at it.
As I wake up, I wonder idly what Bear is up to. He was a gym teacher during the year and one of three camp directors in the summers. I've heard that he's retired, and I know there's a new head director at Evans Lake.. Matt, wonderful matt.. and even that gossip is old old old. I somehow can't believe that Bear would give up the camp without dying first. He was increasingly crotchety as the years went by, but the campers never saw that. He was full of energy at campfire, full of knowledge about Evans Lake and the surrounding demonstration forest and trails and hikes. He had a canoe called Lady, and whenever Mrs. Abe wasn't around, he'd tell the kids how Lady had nice curves, how he loved stroking in Lady.. 10 year old kids lap up sexual innuendo like chocolate. He made the bear tags, he'd take us snowshoeing across the lake at wintercamp, he loved spaghetti. God I miss that camp.
I dreamed too of being in a school. A young boy with short light hair was solemnly radiating joy in my presence at me. That's the best I can describe it. His face I remember alternatingly as two boys I know: Ryan, Wallace; but I know it was neither, and yet I know also that it was somehow someone I know. It reminds me of a dream I had many years before, where I ended with my head securely held in the lap of an unknown person. Though his face never resolved and though I didn't feel that way at the time, I have over the years become certain that it was a gordon I know. I sometimes wonder if perhaps there is some connection we can make in dreams that eludes us in waking. (but not like the creepy Eckankar cult does it..) Ahh, well. Anyhow, this boy was inuiring after my class schedule. I had a hazy uncertain time of remembering what classes I was taking. I didn't know, but I spent some time trying to deduce what I wold have registered for. He beamed at classes we would have together, nodded sagely at classes he had and I did not. I felt certain I would, not that day, but on some day, hold his hand and never let go, and watch the shining years go by together. In the beginning of Tuck Everlasting there is a passage that stands out always in my mind in the introduction, about the blank white dawns of August, and that's how he made me feel. Strange and peaceful. Strange and at peace.
I dreamed, too, of gordon: he was hanging upside down and playing the flute. I asked him why and he told that if he didn't from time to time, all the music would get stuck in his feet.
Good dreams.