By Katherine Fawcett
South-East Calgary, 1977. Lake Bonavista was a sparkling new suburb featuring baby poplar trees supported by guy-wires, hip split-levels and fresh brown bungalows, fake-wood-panelled station wagons on new-asphalt driveways and kids on pogo sticks or roller skates. Grassy sod strips were rolled out like red carpets to peasant-bloused, wooden-sandaled moms and moustached, jean-cut-off-wearing dads. These bright-eyed migrants from the hallowed, oak-tree-shaded streets of Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg and Edmonton were energetic, adventurous and optimistic; visionaries in a province that many people still considered the Wild West.
Although word “synergy” was probably never uttered, people were collaborating every day. Over orange, globe-shaped barbecues and beer in stubbies, they were sharing ideas, exploring possibilities and creating opportunities together in this city of dreams.
At least, I imagine they were.
I was 10.
My sister was eight.
She and I, along with a possey of Bonavista tweens, collaborated on everything we did. The creative, the economic and the sporty. We brainstormed poems together about elves and gnomes. Our Dance Show featured synchronized leaps from love seat to chesterfield to La-Z-Boy. Forts were communally built, then rebuilt, then furnished. Songs were sung – to the tune of one girl playing Chopsticks on the piano and the beat of another girl’s tap shoes.
But the greatest example of our collaborative efforts was Lake Bonavista Circus Day.
Circus Day was a meticulously-organized neighbourhood event that involved planning, marketing, choreography, costumes, make-up, merchandise and ticket sales. On the big day, we’d tie our shirts up halter-style and do our hair like Julie on Love Boat. We’d decorate the swing-set, the dog and the little brother in garlands raided from the Christmas Box, make popcorn and Ghost Gum and sell home-made tickets door-to-door. The flexible girls performed buoyant cartwheels and back-walk-overs. Someone’s older sister did magic. There was juggling. There was stilt-walking. Clowns, dancers, animals tricks, and hula hoopists. Everyone worked together to create the greatest outdoor show in the whole cul-de-sac.
Circus Day was a community effort, and we couldn’t understand why anyone would ever want to do anything alone.
But somewhere around puberty, those ideals faded. Sure, some connections intensified as hormones kicked in. Conversations deepened—some of us even got our own phone lines—but working together on common creative projects like circuses and tree forts was replaced by more earnest, private endeavors. Singing together while riding bikes was replaced by serious, private music lessons. Diary entries were no longer read aloud at sleepovers. Poems about zoo animals, beautifully illustrated by a friend’s magic markers—morphed into thick, sappy poems written in solitude, fed by hours listening to a.m. radio, and never, ever shared.
Today, this habit of solitary creation has become highly ingrained. It is how the majority of my work—and play—is done. However, I often yearn for the collaborative energy of Circus Day. I suppose that’s why it feels so good to bounce ideas around with my writers’ group. To jam with other musicians. To cook meals with friends or to paddle together on a dragon-boat team.
Now, if only we could all make daisy chain necklaces together, crank up the Bay City Rollers and swing upside down from our knees on the highest rung of the monkey bars. And of course, we’d count on our groovy parents to buy tickets for the show.

Katherine Fawcett is a Pemberton-based writer and musician. Her new book, a short story collection, will be published by Thistledown Press in spring 2015.