Resonant Years

A few months back, when the pandemic wasn't as pandemicky, I was out walking with a much-younger friend when the topic of "resonant years" came up. I gave the example of 1967 because that was the year my country, Canada, celebrated its centennial. It was also the year of the Summer of Love, when the first North Americans born after World War II reached the age of majority (lowered in the U.S. from 21 to 18 in 1970 -- except in Mississippi) and were "free" within the bounds of the law.

"You were only five in 1967," my friend said. "What could you know about it?"

"I know it through memories, pictures, some of those memories linked to pictures, and vice versa." I said. "But I also know it as a student of history, through those older than me who made films and music and who wrote books during that time, about that time."

"Is it the same, though?"

"No, but when it's gathered together and examined with the same purpose it can be."

"The same?"

"Yes."

"What isn't a resonant year?" my friend asked.

I thought for a minute, then offered the year 1982.

"Funny," she said, "that's the year this book I am reading is set in."

"What's the book?"

"Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis. Have you heard of it? There's a movie version."

"Sure have," I said. "The main characters reached the age of majority in 1982."

"Do you recognize them? Are they for real?"

Yes, I told my friend. I recognize them. I was familiar with Los Angeles during those years, as well as its West Vancouver showroom, where I also had family. 

"Why are they so shallow, so hemmed in?"

"I've thought a lot about that over the years, and I wonder if it's because their lives have been so thoroughly unimagined for them, to the point where malaise becomes a kind of default affectation, a shaded place where one hides from the ever present sun, its heat, those Santa Ana winds --"

"Do you believe that, or are you just writing again?"

"It's all writing. Every word of it. Always has been, always will be."