to Janet Land, whenever this may find you

Forty years since Eagle landed on the moon. Forty years. There is a part of me that wants to rage at how fast those years have gone. At how carelessly many of them were spent.

Oh well, raging does little good.

When that first pair of humans touched down on the moon in 1969, I was in the back seat of a car with Janet Land, travelling down a dirt road near the Sooke potholes outside of Victoria. I think we were in Dan Mercer's car, but am not sure about that. The radio signal was poor, but we pulled over and heard the landing account and then listened when the station segued into, Good Morning Starshine.

What a wonderful thing, to have been born in the fifties and to have come to adulthood in the sixties and seventies.

Janet Land. Hmm, five foot nothing, blond hair, fair skin, the most beautiful eyes imaginable and a lovely voice. My first love. Well, I'm not certain that the infatuation I felt was really love; but sure as hell it was the closest thing to love that I'd experienced in my eighteen years.

I was about as naive as could be as high school came to an end and, for me, being with sweet Janet was nothing short of being struck by lightening. I clearly remember the blend of grownup desire leavened with the fears instilled by parents who equated anything sexual with sin and hell and all over-laid by my sense of being a six foot two, hundred and thirty pound dork.

It is a strange thing, how certain memories fix in our minds.

When I heard the news report of the anniversary of the first Apollo landing that moment in '69 rushed into my mind and the anchor was my memory of Janet.

We didn't date for long and late that year I moved to Alberta for work and that was that until one day in the early '90's when I was at Victoria General Hospital to visit my dad who was going in for emergency surgery and, who walked off the elevator that I was waiting for but Janet.

We talked for a couple of minutes, me preoccupied with the urgency of dad's condition, and said our goodbyes, and headed off in opposite directions. Maybe five minutes.

Five minutes when all of that stuff from '69 came flooding back.

So, I had this memory when I heard this news item a couple of days ago and I felt an overwhelming urge to call Janet and say, hi. To say, do you remember. To say, I do. To say, I hope that life has been good to you. To say, thank you.

I actually looked the number up in the Victoria book. Only one Janet Land, if that is still her name. Could be her. Could be... But I didn't call. I am blessed with that memory of that moment and that in itself is enough of a gift.

Whenever you might come across this, Janet, from forty years on, I thank you for the presence you left in my life.