Just Like Cyn & Nancy

I love Adele. Let’s go ahead and set some parameters for this article. I don’t love her more than Bobbie Gentry, but it’s close. One of my favorite Adele songs has some gorgeous lyrics that contain, but are not limited to, this selection: “You look like a movie/You sound like a song/My God this reminds me, of when we were young/Let me photograph you in this light/ In case it is the last time/ That we might be exactly like we were/Before we realized/We were scared of getting old/It made us restless/It was just like a movie/It was just like a song.” When Adele gets to this point in the song, I think in technicolor. I see my Aunt Joan’s pseudo beehive hairdo, my Aunt Karen’s long straight early 70s hair, my grandmother when she still was still a redhead, and my mom as a bottle blond. They’re all sitting around an aluminum Christmas tree, the kind that came with the wheel that rotated the primary-colored cellophane wedges. Everyone is happily smiling for the camera. But, there’s a wistfulness in the picture – not quite a polaroid, but the old ones that were printed on dense cardboard with the generous white borders. The folks in the picture never envisioned a world where no one would get pictures developed again. They couldn’t see laptops or magical cell phones in their minds. They just had a sense that change was a comin’. And, come it would.

Recently, on a reservationless vacation in Idaho, my husband and I took an impromptu day trip to a lodge. The Redfish Lake Lodge is Instagram famous. Everybody posts a selfie from the dock with the gorgeous glacier water and a glimpse of the Sawtooth Mountains in the background. Somehow, we wound up there on the last day of the season. They close up shop over the brutal winter, reopening post Memorial Day each year. We chatted with a gift shop clerk, a college student unsure of whether she would be returning for the 2022 season, pending her graduate program. “What else is pretty around here? Send us somewhere amazing, Katie,” we said. “Go to Hailey,” she told us. “My best friend grew up in a turn of the century Adirondack style lodge home. They turned it into a BnB. You have to see it.” And, that is how, within 24 hours, we wound up in Hailey, Idaho, most famous for being that Midwest town that Bruce and Demi Moore bought back in the 90s. Giftshop Katie was right. That BnB was magical. We were newbies to the concept. I assumed deep introvert Dina would LOATHE shlepping around a house where other people would be shlepping alongside me. Oh, contraire. Between the gorgeously appointed parlor with its puzzles, games, and penny tiled half bath, and the grand living area with a massive fireplace, chess table, and 24/7 pastries that materialized from the heavens, I felt like the main character of an Agatha Christie novel sans the murder part. Suddenly, I needed to know everything about everyone. Like an early 70s Christmas photo, I was full of promise, yet aware that the moment would soon pass.

They were sitting on the leather couch and loveseat, respectively. We were greeted with a chorus of “oh, come join us” and “well, aren’t you two the cutest.” They were early septuagenarian 1st cousins, named Cynthia and Nancy. Cyn, as she called herself, grew up in Los Angeles but lives in an exclusive Vegas resort community these days. Nancy is from Hailey, where they were both born. She sold her incredibly successful toy stores a few years back, but still works in one part time. Cyn comes home to sleepy, artsy Hailey every chance she gets. Nancy’s adult kids are in town, too, so Cyn booked a room at the BnB this time. And, that is how we spent every evening we were there, chatting with the cousins about the past, the charming, lovely past. Immediately, we understood these ladies hadn’t financially suffered. Cyn went to an affluent So Cal high school. She knew Robert Redford and Jack Nicholas. She’d partied with Warren Beatty and had bus hopped with the Rolling Stones. As we shared my favorite Cabernet one evening, she tossed her Ann Margaret style curly hair back and howled with laughter about her young shenanigans. Nancy is, still, Hailey’s reigning theater guru. Prior to her foray as a toy store owner, she was a drama teacher, touting all the Willis girls as former students. Their mothers had been sisters, they said. Nancy’s mom was named Cynthia. Cynthia’s mom was named Nancy. They did not grow up together. Due to a rift I did not attempt to uncover, Cyn’s mom had married and left Hailey forever, never to darken the door again. But, the memories proved to be too sweet for these cousins to withstand. So, they became close again as adults. And now, they meet annually where they hike their favorite trails and drink their favorite wines and reminisce about the days when they looked like movies, sounded like songs. And, my God, it reminds them of when they were young. Thank you, no last name Katie from the Redfish Lake Lodge giftshop. What a gift you gave us.