This was another one of Marilyn’s events – back in June! Celebrating freedom is always a good idea, no matter what kind of freedom we’re talking about. Although in this case, it was clearly about the summer, and the liberating feeling that comes with it. And of course, the kind of freedom that only a strip club can offer.
When was the last time you truly felt free?
For me, summer always brings back that feeling in a kind of magical way.
Once you’ve passed the big 5-0, memories start to catch up with you. They come like waves at Lake Balaton’s shore – sometimes just fragments, other times vivid and sharp, as if it all happened yesterday, even if it was 30 years ago. I think it depends on what brings the memory to life. Summer, in particular, is a deeply nostalgic time. One familiar song on the radio or a glass of wine on a terrace, and I’m instantly transported back to the mid-’90s, when hangovers didn’t exist yet – there were only nights, and the “here and now.”
It must’ve been around ’95. Summer was in full swing, and I was barely out of my first flat, living half-asleep, working part-time, figuring out the city life. But as soon as the first real hot weekend hit, there was no question: off to Balaton. It wasn’t a decision anyone had to make – it was just the norm. I know, these days it’s all about Croatia, but back then, for young people, the Hungarian Sea was the destination. You just went wherever you were invited and let things unfold from there.
We rented a little wooden cabin in Zamárdi with the guys. Nothing fancy – it barely kept the rain out. But nobody cared about the accommodation. What mattered was being close to the water, the girls, and the bar. You could rearrange that order however you liked.
The daily plan was simple: sleep until noon, spend the afternoon at the beach, maybe have a beer at the pier – but the real life began after dark. There was this place – I think it was called “Wave” or maybe “Seagull.” I don’t even remember clearly. What I do remember is that we ended up there every single night. There – and next to a certain Vivi, who… well, she was summer itself.
Vivi wasn’t your typical blonde bombshell. She was more the chatty, smiling, dangerously cute type, whose words hit you like a spritzer – feels light at first, then suddenly knocks you out. One night she literally bumped into me on the dance floor. I said something like, “This must be fate,” she laughed, and from that moment on, there was no stopping us.
That’s how it started – and that’s all it took. No weeks of texting before a date, which 90% of the time ends in disappointment. This was the good old offline world.
We danced through the night, sharing half of our life stories – the other half we left for the next day, though neither of us really kept that promise.
At dawn, we walked down to the lakeshore together. There was still some buzz – not like during the day, but a few couples on blankets, a few sleepy fishermen by the water. We sat on the dock with our feet in the lake, the air thick with the smell of fried fish. Then Vivi looked at me and said:
– “You know this is just one night, right?”
– “That’s exactly why it’ll be worth remembering thirty years from now,” I replied.
There was no drama the next day, no emotional goodbyes, no phone number exchange. There wasn’t any social media back then to look each other up later. All we had was the memory. But it stayed with me – just the way it should: perfectly.
Lake Balaton (or any waterfront in summer, really) hasn’t changed much since then. We have. I don’t jump in at 4 a.m. anymore – I’d rather sit on a bench, watch the sunset, and eat my lángos without cheese and sour cream, because my stomach can’t handle the extras these days. But whenever that real summer scent hits me – that inexplicable scent of summer – I think of that night (and a few others too), and how many summers there were when tomorrow simply didn’t exist.
These spontaneous weekend getaways are much rarer now. I’m not as impulsive as I used to be, and it’s not easy to round up a group of friends on short notice. People change. At fifty, going out for the weekend doesn’t necessarily mean you’re out to meet women. Not that it’s a problem if the night ends that way – and sometimes it still does. I don’t regret a second of how I spent my younger years. If I had a kid in their early twenties, I’d probably tell them the same thing: live those years freely, because they never come back.
Youth isn’t about your age – it’s about the feeling that anything is still possible. And what better way to define freedom than that?
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