Constellation

It’s hard to believe that the 10-year anniversary of the Tragically Hip’s last performance ever in the band’s home city of Kingston has come and gone. Ten years. It still makes me feel emotional. I can’t explain the depths of what this band, their music, their impact on my life means to me. I won’t even try.

I remember the Carpenter and I watching that final performance from our living room, tears streaming down both our faces, singing along, wide-eyed and aware that this was one of those life moments that was bigger than music. Bigger than the band itself. As big as our nation. Authentically Canadian. Powerful. As relevant then as it is today. 

I’m thinking about that while I sink in the wet sand, wading into the cold water along the shoreline of the cottage I rent each summer in Bobcaygeon. The little town refers to itself as Hip Town, because of the Tragically Hip song that bears its name. 

Legend has it, Hip frontman, the late Gord Downie, used the town name because it rhymed lyrically, and the landscape of the cottage-country town made for a picturesque setting for the story of the song. For me, that song always takes me back here. I greet each day watching the way the mist evaporates swiftly off the lake as the sun rolls up from behind the cottages on the far side. 

I’ve never been so grateful for bad internet as I am in these mornings in this place. No messages to check. The peace before my fellow cottagers wake up, before the boaters pull on the engine chords, before the dogs rattle their collars for their first walk of the day. This is my time. Just me, the ducks and the lake, with a cup of coffee and a view that reveals itself to me slowly, patiently, every morning in Bobcaygeon.

For 23 years, we’ve booked the same week every year with friends who are part of the family we’ve created, affectionately known as our Cottage Cousins. The babies we used to herd on the beach, wrestling to apply sunscreen and life jackets, are now adults who take off to town, with plans of their own. Some of them don’t make the trip anymore because careers, school and partners have changed priorities – and that’s okay because the memories come back to us parents when we sit on the beach now, grateful that we made this special place a piece of their childhood forever.

Tonight, we’ll sit around the bonfire and someone will look up and point out the constellations. We’ll all bend back to look up at the navy blue sky sprinkled with stars, with an awe that makes it seem like we’ve never seen them before. 

And those lyrics will come to my mind, cliche though it sounds: “It was in Bobcaygeon, where I saw the constellations reveal themselves one star at a time.” It hits different when you’re actually sitting there, doing this very thing with people you love.

Ten years since that final concert. A little more than a year later, we all lost Gord Downie. Years later, I would lose a dear friend to the same illness, a friend who once stood next to me on this very beach, sat beside me at this very bonfire, looking up at those same stars, in Bobcaygeon.

Some places hold space for us to return to ourselves. This is mine.