In June 2010 I turned thirty. I spent the week before my birthday at home with my parents, making jam and going to see Christopher Plummer in The Tempest and doing a lot of yoga. After breakfast on my birthday, I barreled up the 401 back to Kingston, a town I'd fallen in love with, a town I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life in.
My best friend Freya drove down from Almonte and we drank afternoon champagne cocktails. My boyfriend brought me flowers. My oldest friend Danielle lived a few blocks away, and we strolled on over to her house and into a backyard filled with friends. My gift from them was a water bottle filled with wine spritzers, and we drank in the streets all the way downtown, where we went on the Haunted Walk of Kingston. I cannot recommend this tour highly enough, although you should probably be intoxicated when you go, because most of the ghosts are actually invisible and/or puddles of water on the ground.
Afterwards, we ate pizza and drank a lot of drinks, and then Freya, Tom and I stumbled home along the side streets North of Princess. Tom and I stayed awake nearly till the sun came up, listening to old records and talking each other's ears off. The next day we went camping on the pine-covered point of the property Tom had just bought. Danielle and I paddled the canoe there while the menfolk made their way on foot. Our little boat was filled with precious cargo, including a violin and a guitar for a late-night singalong. Tom had bought me a tent for my birthday, and we set it up on the shoreline. I jumped into Eel Lake, our lake, THE lake, and thought to myself, Well, this is it. This is all you'll ever need.
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