Brideshead:

Not last summer, but the one before, I ran away from Vegas. I had spent 8 miserable months in the city, my journal from those days read like a Plath novel. It was such a distinct kind of sadness. Even now (though I still have a firm distaste for this city) I do not feel even an iota that I felt then. So when the school term ended I fled to Big Bear, and now looking back, nearly two years have lapsed, I see that summer as an end of an era. I went for the summer and ended up staying well into October. I was so scared to leave, because even then, I knew if would never be the same once I did. I knew that would be my last summer "returning home" from whatever excursion I was on; whether it be Portland or Costa Mesa, or La Mirada, or Idaho, or Victorville...somehow life would always land me right back there for the summers.
Vividly, in my head when I think of my last summer I see the beautifully faded flower wallpaper in my room at the Pools, I see the way the light streamed in through the lace curtains every morning, I see Amber and I drinking beer in a canoe, out on the lake as the sun fell. I see Jen and I walking to get coffee in the rain. I see Tyler and I in the infirmary pretending to learn Latin from an old 70's text book. I see many nights spent at Nottinghams, over laughter. All of my memories from that summer feel magical, more magical that any other time I've had. I was reading Anna Karenina that summer, I was still under Steinbeck's spell from having just finished East of Eden.
That was the summer before Tyler left for Vietnam. I made him read East of Eden, which he appreciated as much as I did, if my memory serves me. I remember him pestering me about reading Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. He told me I would love it. Then he left for a two year stay in Vietnam. The day he left Big Bear I told him, " to keep his feet dry", because that is what Lieutenant Dan told Forest when he arrived in Vietnam as a solider... obviously pertinent advice. It's so funny I remember that conversation so clearly. That summer feels like a life time ago and yet I still hold it so dear to my heart.
I began Brideshead Revisited a few weeks ago, and Big Bear is my Brideshead. Waugh is a genius and I am (as I was once before with East of Eden) having my heart broken by a novel. For some reason it is drudging up that summer. Maybe only because it was the summer it was suggested to me. Maybe because the whole book is filled with longing (a feeling I am always inclined towards), or maybe it is Providence.
Waugh uses the phrase "Et in Arcadia Ego", as the opening to his novel...which essentially means, "Even the good things must die."....even the magical summers.
I will end happily by saying the future is bearing down on me pretty heavily these days, and I look forward to it in excitement...maybe more magic to come.