As a teenager I made extra spending money by doing gardening chores for some of my mum’s friends in the countryside around the town of St. Sauveur-des-Monts, Quebec in the lower Laurentian mountains. One friend of hers in particular gave me lots of work keeping her “Canada lilies“ under control. I had to dig up these obstinate orange monsters and divide them and replant the halved plant and dispose of the other half in a designated compost heap a short wheel barrow trip away. Mrs. Henderson had perhaps two dozen of these plants whose root systems were huge and intertwined. Cutting the roots with a spade was a particularly satisfying feeling and I am happy recalling this memory.
My story is not about plants, though, it is about teenage lust and paralyzing self-loathing.
Next door to the Henderson’s was another friend of my mum’s named “Hope”. Hope was a single mum and had several kids. One of those kids was Kathy. Kathy was a year younger than me and because of zoning went to a different high school. I only ever saw her from afar at the Bell theatre in Morin Heights or at community events like Canada Day or la fète St. Jean Baptiste.
One day as I was working on the lilies I saw Kathy out of the corner of my eye setting up a chaise longue on the balcony of their chalet and discretely kept watching as she slathered her limbs and torso with sunscreen as she prepared to sunbathe in her bikini less than sixty feet from me. She looked perfect. Blonde, already tanned, nubile. I was smitten in that dumbest of ways because we were really just strangers and I lacked the skill and/or confidence to do anything about it.
In those days, I had a six pack and often worked shirtless. I continued working and needlessly flexing certain muscles in hopes of luring Kathy into my orbit. Talking to her was out of the question because she was a Goddess and I was not. As I write this I am being re-traumatized by the pent up anxiety I experienced at the time. I had desire to meet this girl, but was missing the information that even though a goddess, she was just a teenager like I was and was sending off the signals that she was approachable. I feel like such a coward admitting my social impotence here. I was clueless and felt worthless.
I returned several times to the property to continue gardening, but the weather never seemed to reproduce the perfect conditions of that first day, and Kathy did not reappear. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
In the fall, I headed off to University in another province and got on with my life as did my pals from this era. Eventually Got married, raised a family, etc.
Thirty years or so later I was back in St. Sauveur attending a funeral for the mother of one of my friends and ran into Kathy’s mum “Hope”. We struck up a conversation and I nonchalantly asked how Kathy’s life had turned out. I let out that I had had a crush on her that summer. Hope exclaimed “YOU had a crush, boy oh boy, Kathy had an overwhelming crush on you that summer and couldn’t figure out why it appeared that I had no interest in her!” Doh!!!!
I have often used this story in my teaching to children. Essentially, we never know what someone else may be thinking. It isn’t a great idea to put others on a pedestal so as to make them seem unapproachable.
Vignettes and Bagatelles 
Holy f..k! Your story is my story. Your story is every teenager’s story. I carried my lust around like lugging a cannon ball; heavy with self doubt and teenage angst. I was once in the library at recess in high school, the same as yours in Montreal. I was in grade eight and the coolest guy in the whole high school was there reading a magazine. What was the coolest guy, who floated through the halls and rode a motorcycle, doing in the geekiest place ever? He was two years older than me. Perhaps to escape the fawning girls? He had a Steve McQueen vibe. Naturally I went back the next day – a bit braver than you – and he was there! And he was there every day for the whole year. I know this as I went there every recess. But like you, I was much too timid to approach him. Instead I sat at the table beside him sneaking glances when I dared. He was not there the following year as he moved to Vancouver. I moved to Vancouver many years later. When I was THIRTY, a whole 15 years later and waiting in a mall sitting on a bench, Mr. Cool walked by and went into a store. I recognized him at once. The lust flickered. Less than a minute later he came out of the store and approached me and said, “You’re Louise Zabinski.” WTF! He knew my name? What was happening? I was the dork who went to the library at recess for a whole year just to look at him. “I recognized you immediately. I had the biggest crush on you at MRHS but I was too shy to approach you, lacking in confidence. I used to get a thrill following you across the footbridge I thought you were the most beautiful girl in high school.” You’re f..king kidding me? Opportunities lost. A love that was never meant to be. Sean Freeman was his name. He lived at 123 Wickstead near you on Dobie. Perhaps you knew him. My mum would drive me past his house late at night. I had it bad.
LikeLike