What happens when you decide to break away from your usual pattern of capturing shows on a weekend night and decide to go out to the middle of nowhere and party at a lake cabin on the 4th of July? Surely some long-living memories should come out of it. They just might not be the ones you were hoping or planning for.
That's not to say I had any expectations going into a trip up to a buddy's cabin on the 4th. It's just that even though my life has followed a steady upward trend, I still feel completely naïve at times. Perhaps it's a lingering effect of my less-fulfilling past, a sense of things I have not accomplished, or my hopeful obliviousness to the future.
Long story short, I went to a party at a cabin on Sugar Lake, about 70 miles out of the cities. Made a few new friends, had a good time, watched some fireworks while on a boat, felt out of place on occasion, but still enjoyed myself for the most part. Almost a pretty cookie-cutter experience on the surface, but it's what lies beneath that makes our memories (in fact, all of us as people) unique and interesting.
My over-thinking mind finally got a chance to just let loose around 2 AM though. By then, everyone had basically headed in for the night, while I remained ever-awake and restless. (I was up till 5 AM at another party the night before, hence the need to do something.)
With no one left to talk to, I walked out to the end of the dock and sat down on the bench, gazing across the water at the few specks of campfire light that still dotted the edge of the lake. A boat would occasionally rev in the distance, and one of the passer-by crafts proudly blasted the aforementioned "I'm on a Boat" song as it tore around the lake in the wee hours of July 5th.
(This is from the daytime, but it's a view of straight across the lake from the bench, which faces west.)
But for the most part, it was a calm, undisturbed moment for me to sit and ponder in. I looked to my left and saw the (almost) full moon shining in its glory, and remarked at how amazing it was to think that it could make the night seem bright, yet serene. To my slight-right was the northwest, and beyond the trees I saw the faint glow of what was probably St. Cloud far off in the distance. Above it was the Big Dipper, and when the water was completely calm you could actually see it reflected in the lake as well.
I was all alone at the lake, but strangely I knew that someone else was watching all of this with me too. I texted a friend who I was reminded of and I knew had to be experiencing the same thing I was at that moment of serenity.
I stared at the lake until I grew chilly, then grabbed a jacket and went back out to the bench. After some more gazing around the lake I decided to lay down and stare straight up at the stars, something I don't think I had really done in years.
A million thoughts continued to flow through my mind as the moon began to yellow and finally disappeared below the trees around 3:45 AM, leaving nothing but the stars to light the night momentarily. And for a moment, for the first time since I don't remember when, everything seemed to stop.
Alone, with nothing but the stars. This... was... peace. A fleeting feeling, but one that shouldn't have to happen but once in a great while.
I sat back up and pondered what to do next. There was no reason for me to go to sleep, but I didn't want to sit around for another 5 hours until people started waking up. So I decided to leave the lake at 4:30 AM and drive back to the cities, with no destination in mind.
Whenever I make an extended trip, I always pop in an album or two to accompany the journey. On a whim, I chose to start with the new album from The Alarmists, The Overhead Left. Instantly my mind was blown (what I like to call a "mindfuck", in that it fucks with your mind) by the immediate relevance of the opening lines on "Flutter and Fly".
A summer day, but you feel cold... cold
Another day that you grow old... old
And I forget, the things I'm told...
Well you know time will take it's toll...
So simple, yet a near-verbatim summary of a lot of what I was experiencing on that dock only minutes before. Once I reached the 694/494 loop via I-94 at about 5:15 AM, I chose to go down the less-traveled (for me) 494 and popped in Solid Gold's Bodies of Water. For some reason, it made perfect sense to listen to it at the crack of dawn, and I jumped off 494 to MN 55, cutting east towards downtown Minneapolis.
The morning mist was pretty cool on parts of I-94 & 494, but once I got into Golden Valley on MN 55 it really started to make me geek out at how amazing it was going down misty roads I had never been on, seeing things like the downtown skyline from a new perspective, and just being awake with literally no one else on the roads at this beautiful hour.
I meandered around downtown for a while, making a point of it to pass by The Music Box Theatre on 14th and Nicollet where exciting things may be happening soon (I had never knowingly seen it before), and eventually decided to cut over to the U of M campus. It was time for a new album when I got there, so I put the self-titled album from This World Fair.
Another mindfuck hit me with the This is not my destination / It's only where I'm used to standing line that opens the first track, "Can't Stop Falling". I went to the U for the better part of 5 years, and while it did help make me who I am today, it's definitely not something I foresee being really that important to my future. It's just that I still can't seem to get away from it either...
I decided to head towards St. Paul, and took University Avenue the whole way from campus all the way past I-35E. I was intrigued by all that I saw on the parts of University that I don't frequent east of the Midway area, plus the fact that it runs right behind the State Capitol is pretty sweet too. I continued east, deciding that it would be cool to check out different parts of roads that I knew but hadn't seen beyond certain points.
By this point, I was nearing the end of the album. The final track of TWF's self-titled album, "Count To Ten", includes a powerful repeating line during the outro:
This isn't what we wanted
We're back to where we started
This particular line gave me chills down my spine one time while driving back the day after the Cake/Ari Herstand show at Concordia College in Moorhead back in April 2007. But at about 6:30 AM on this trip, I found myself passing by the house of a close friend's place, which was where I had started my day on the 4th, literally right as the line kicked in. Total mindfuck once again.
I was amazed to actually find someone still awake at the place this early the day after the 4th of July, and hung out for a bit before leaving to drive back to Albert Lea. My wide-eyed curiosity then finally began to fade into sleep-deprivation, which is definitely not a good thing when you've still got over an hour left to go on a drive. Slammed a Dr. Pepper at a rest stop and finally made it back home around 9:30 AM, right in time to crash until about 5 PM. Though I had only been awake for about 21 hours, it felt like I had experienced twice that between all the driving around and time spent at the cabin.
Life is about making memories that last until better ones come along. And in this case, I expect this one to last for quite a while...
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