A Memory of Barbara

I love the beginning of September. Usually it means the beginning of a new school year, and that speaks of potential and possibilities. The weather is usually really nice - sunny and bright, and not as oppressively hot as the rest of the summer was. The beginning of September now also reminds me of one of my favourite memories of my friend Barb who died in 2002.

It was the beginning of September 2001, just before university started again. Barb and I had plans to go to a literary festival being held just outside of Guelph on the Sunday. The night before, I got together with a friend of mine from high school that I hadn't seen for a long time. I was newly single, and he and I ended up staying up together and making out until 8am the next morning, when I knew I had to leave in order to get ready to be at Barb's house on time. I had a brief nap at the breakfast table when I got home (brief in this case being 10 minutes long) and then I drove out to Paradise Lake.

When I got there, Barb came out to meet me in the driveway. I couldn't wait to tell her what I'd done. At the time, randomly making out with someone was a new experience for me, and we had a good girlish giggle over it. That was also the summer that Barb was having her own forbidden flirtation/fling with one of her male friends, so we had a lot to gossip about.

We got to the literary festival and set our lawn chairs up along the main street to wait for the parade that was to kick off the festivities. Instead of watching the parade, we just talked about boys. It was ridiculous. Here we were, two intelligent, bookwormish scholarly nymphs at a literary festival, and all we did all day was gossip. The memory still makes me smile.

Later in the afternoon, between speakers' modules, Barb and I wandered away from the proceedings to a wheat field. I believe that the wheat field was actually en route to another section of the festival, but she and I just stopped there by the field and laid down on our backs. The day was brillantly sunny, and it was one of those clear days where the colours seem to pop with extra clarity. I just remember the brilliance of the contrasting colours as we laid there - the golden yellow wheat, the cerulean sky, the green green grass, and Barbara's brilliant rusty-red hair. We laid there watching the clouds and planning our futures while other festival participants walked by us and wondered.

In my head I remember this day as being pure and beautiful and joyful. Barb and I were perfect friends that day, complicit in our ridiculous behaviour at the literary festival that we'd so been looking forward to. After she died, I remembered this day, and I realized that I was now the sole bearer of this memory. For months afterwards, Barb and I would look back on this day and laugh at ourselves, giggling at our immaturity and at the fun we had. I no longer laugh when I think back, but I do always smile and feel content. For one day in my life, at least, everything was OK in my world.