Can music save your mortal soul?
And... can you teach me how to dance real slow?"
- Don McLean
***
It was 1990-something.
Maybe 1991?
I would be guessing, really, on the exact dates.
That was the year we ran the student leadership conference, Embrace '92, in the middle of pretty much freaking nowhere.
Ironically, probably awfully near where I've spent the past few months of my life.
***
I was fearless back then.
I can remember being asked to attend a Student Council conference, but that didn't really mean anything to me at the time.
I packed up my stuff (far less than I travel with these days), and jumped on a GO train to Yorkdale Mall, where I switched onto a yellow school bus and was shipped up north to Lake Couchiching, along with hundreds of others.
"Couch", (Cooch) we called it.
When we arrived, we were segregated into "Girls" cabins and "Boys" cabins, where we spent the next few days of our lives together.
Something seems to happen when the outside world is cut off and you are held in a fishbowl - away from everyone and everything that is of comfort to you.
It is all consuming.
There was a trust and cohesion formed with this team that cannot be forced or explained to anyone from outside; all based from how immersed we were into this program.
The leadership exercises and activities we took part in during that week, developed us as leaders probably well beyond what we ever could expect in all the years that followed.
We ate breakfast together, lunch together, dinner together, talked together, brainstormed together and organized activities together.
That damn bell rang for a meal and we all moved military-style to make our way to the main food hall.
I couldn't tell you what month it was, although I'm sure someone else will remember.
But I do remember American Pie.
***
There was a theme night - I don't remember if there were others, but I think this one was a Country one.
Funny now with how trendy country music is today, but at the time country meant Cowboys and Indians, Dolly Parton and 9-5.
We went through the items we brought and the girls had plaid bandanas and the guys in jeans and belt buckles and off we went to our theme night dance.
I want to say I was in Grade 11, but maybe it was 12. I suppose the years don't really matter.
I was so seduced by the emotions and energy that Couch offered, I never wanted to leave.
I was riding a high I had never experienced, that was soon to be followed by a crushing energetic hangover when I left.
But at the height of it all, there was unity with music.
***
I suppose there are always defining moments in time when the world melts away and time is frozen.
This one was a DJ cranked with American Pie.
Every single one of us singing in unison all of the ridiculous words to this song, without any understanding at the age we were at, of what the lyrics meant.
"Did you write the book of love and do you have faith in God above?"
I can see me now in that room.
Laughing, belting out the words, all of the beautiful souls I was so blessed to spend time with around me. Our silly outfits. A bubble of positive energy and trust.
"So bye, bye Miss American Pie. Drove my chevy to the levy but the levy was dry. And good ole' boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing this will be the day that I die."
***
I cried all the way home.
I cried the next week.
I probably cried the whole week after that.
I attended dozens of conferences and nothing could ever come close to this.
We ran so many successful weekends with cool venues and activities and people in them.
Nothing was Couch.
It never could be.
It was one of the most incredible whirlwinds of my life.
***
I always dreamt that professionally I could reach the same high.
WHY can't I develop this with a team?
Why can't I run trust circles and exercises and form a bond and cohesion that's so strong, it becomes a force to be reckoned with, that everyone wants to be a part of?
It, in theory, should be no different.
***
I truly and honestly did not even see it coming when it did.
I would even go as far as saying I resisted any possibility.
The pain from Couch never really disappeared and I worked through many years with walls of safety built around me to shield from any future grief.
I entered my career with a mindset of achievement, not a mindset of trust, and worked endlessly for new titles and fighting for success.
And after a drastic reset and reflection, I went back into the workforce blind and with all my expectations removed.
I thought I had it all figured out.
Schedules set, barriers up, shields out front.
And then I was completely dragged under by the strongest current I'd felt in twenty years.
When I least expected it, everything I experienced in my teens resurfaced.
Slowly but surely, I became part of a team that is capable of much more together, than alone.
We spend so much time in our work week with people that we did not necessarily choose to spend portions of our life with.… and if we are really lucky in our career, we may stumble across a really great group that makes it all worthwhile.
Where the people on our team raise our own standards and push us to new levels of excellence, where time is lost because we are on the same page, and where work and play becomes blurred lines of reality.
***
"It's your turn."
I really should've picked Shania Twain.
Or American Pie out of sheer respect for what it meant to me.
But at the time of my modern day YouTube karaoke night, I had nothing but smiles and gratitude for my current existence.
"You guys pick".
***
I looked around the room as the songs were picked one by one, with a heart full of thanks that this is my job and these are the people I get to call my team.
When we open brand new Food and Beverage outlets at a casino, there is a team of at least a dozen of us morning and night for two weeks straight, plus some, to train and prepare for the open.
We are vacuum sealed into our objective and the outside world drifts far away during that timeframe as we spend all day working, evening recapping and late nights celebrating.
There are times I live with swings of emotions from the shifts back and forth between being on the road and coming home and trying to adjust quickly from one to the other and hold any semblance of balance.
Many could argue my job is meant for someone single and 25, but I love it - and likewise, the people I work with.
I have found a way to spend my days in a replica of life at Couch.
***
We don't get to dictate our timing.
But funny enough, when we create a vision of what we want and truly trust and believe in the possibilities -
…. life seems to have an awfully funny way of working it all out.
