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As I walked home alone along the quiet shores of the lake on the old country road with no street lights to speak of, I looked up into the night sky trying to find the place where it was slightly less dark, somewhat more light, that place of just enough lightness that arose between the trees over the lonely road.
To this day, my sister and I talk about how we used to stumble our way home in the dark when we were children at our nan’s summer home in the country beside the lake. My childhood spent there were some of my best years and certainly some of my best memories.
Especially memorable was the boy the crystal blue eyes and white-blonde hair who was infatuated with me. His name was Richie.
While I was stumbling through the dark trying to pick my way home over old roads and cobblestones, he would follow me in a parallel line and distance himself about 20 feet away in the wood. I always knew he was there what with the odd twig snapping in the quiet of the moonlight or his occasional “OUCH” when he walked into a sharp rock. What a lovely memory and it still makes me smile to recall how he felt the need to protect me on my way home and then whistle softly up at my bedroom window and whisper my name like Romeo bidding for Juliet. It was so innocent and never a more beautiful boy did ever exist for me. When I would finally appear at the window he would ask if I got home okay and I would nod my head and shyly smile down at him. He would wave and run off into the wood quietly and quickly.
He was my childhood love and I shall never, ever forget him. He was all that was innocence and beauty all wrapped up in smiles and quirkiness and a shyness matched only by my own. I waited for him beside the lake each day with an eagerness and anticipation I have not known since. To me, he was Christmas and New Year all wrapped up together just waiting for me. When he didn’t come, it broke my heart. Still, I waited day after day only to be let down again and again. Only every so often did he come to the lake to find me. I never knew why he didn’t come for me each day, I never asked him. Oh but when he did come, it was heaven. We would sit on the log alongside the water and fish for hours, never speaking, just holding our fishing rods and each others hands and smiling.
He was my secret and I his.
When i was 18, I went back to the lake for a visit. Along with me was my then boyfriend, David. I saw my childhood girlfriends and introductions were made all around. Then, suddenly, as if from some dream….
He came racing across the sand, tan muscles and blonde hair flying behind him and laughing as he tore off his blue jeans and launched himself into the icy waters of the lake. My heart stopped. I stared. I didn’t blink. Oh. My. God. It was him. Before I could get my head around it all, there he was in front of me, kneeling down on the blanket, smiling, water dripping off his lean body and eyelashes. He was saying something but I was so stunned I never heard what it was. He gathered me up in his arms and hugged the life out of me and kissed me over and over on the cheek. He gripped my shoulders with a worried look as if to ask if I were alright. I finally exhaled. I smiled. I could not help the tears because I was so very happy to see him. My childhood love.
All these eyars later, I can’t remember the conversation itself, only how I felt and how he felt. We were so very happy to see one another, so happy there are no words for it.
Shortly after our meeting, just a few months later, Richie was killed in an auto accident. It was a very long time before I knew about it but when I found out…..it was awful. I wept. I still weep when I think about him. Such a stong, young healthy boy and suddenly, no more. It could not be. For many years after when I would visit the lake, I would drive past his house in silent remembrance for my gallant protector and first love.
To this day, I keep his memory in a very special room in my heart which I built especially for him. It keep all the things of our childhood that gave us happiness.
When I have that feeling of someone watching me or wake up in the middle of the night feeling a presence around me I never worry because I know that my silent protector is watching over me.
Always.
Ode to Broken Things ~Pablo Neruda
Things get broken
at home
like they were pushed
by an invisible, deliberate smasher.
It’s not my hands
or yours
It wasn’t the girls
with their hard fingernails
or the motion of the planet.
It wasn’t anything or anybody
It wasn’t the wind
It wasn’t the orange-colored noontime
Or night over the earth
It wasn’t even the nose or the elbow
Or the hips getting bigger
or the ankle
or the air.
The plate broke, the lamp fell
All the flower pots tumbled over
one by one. That pot
which overflowed with scarlet
in the middle of October,
it got tired from all the violets
and another empty one
rolled round and round and round
all through winter
until it was only the powder
of a flowerpot,
a broken memory, shining dust.
And that clock
whose sound
was
the voice of our lives,
the secret
thread of our weeks,
which released
one by one, so many hours
for honey and silence
for so many births and jobs,
that clock also
fell
and its delicate blue guts
vibrated
among the broken glass
its wide heart
unsprung.
Life goes on grinding up
glass, wearing out clothes
making fragments
breaking down
forms
and what lasts through time
is like an island on a ship in the sea,
perishable
surrounded by dangerous fragility
by merciless waters and threats.
Let’s put all our treasures together
– the clocks, plates, cups cracked by the cold –
into a sack and carry them
to the sea
and let our possessions sink
into one alarming breaker
that sounds like a river.
May whatever breaks
be reconstructed by the sea
with the long labor of its tides.
So many useless things
which nobody broke
but which got broken anyway.
The worst thing I have ever done on a date?
Hmmm. Can’t remember doing anything awful so what about the dumbest thing someone has done to me on a date?
I had a blind date with “Don”. Don was quite a bit younger than I, just the way I like them, and turned out to be a very interesting fella. After a very troubled youth and many brushes with the law, he turned his life around and became a drug counselor. We met for coffee and it was supposed to be just an hour or so but we ended up in the cafe talking for four hours! For me, being stimulated from the neck up is a sure fire way to get on my good side and this guy had me at hello.
The conversation is still, to date, one of the best first date conversations I’ve ever had. He was smart, witty, sensitive, not in a soppy sort of way, and was completely committed to helping people in trouble. I was so impressed with this guy that I agreed we continue our date on a long drive through the countryside. We talked and talked and talked. Though I tried, I couldn’t find anything suspicious about him and there were no red flags to speak of.
One topic of discussion was about sex. I told Don that I never have sex early in the dating process because I tend to attach emotions to sex and it creates problems that wouldn’t be there if sex were removed from the equation. It clouds my ability to think clearly. My libido has a mind of it’s own when it’s allowed out of the cage. We talked about this for a while and I felt comfortable that he understood I wasn’t giving him any anytime soon.
So, now it’s very early in the morning and time for me to be dropped off home. He walked me to my door, I give him a hug and he promises to call me. As I walk through my front door I think “Wow. That went rather well! I can’t wait to see him again” and I’m smiling like a girl. Phone rings. OH MY GOD IT”S HIM!
Me: Hello?
Him: Hi 42. Told you I’d ring.
Me: ::laughing:: I know, I just didn’t expect you to call so soon!
Him: I know, Couldn’t help it. Hey I have a question….
Me: Ask away…
Him: When are we going to consummate this relationship?
Me: Erm…pardon?
Him: You’re an intelligent woman, you know what “consummate” means
Me: Indeed I do.
Him” So?
Me: You’re asking me a serious question or are you taking the micky?
Him: Nope, serious.
Me: After everything we talked about? After how I told you I feel about sex early on when I’m dating someone I barely know? Are you SURE you’re not just trying to have a go at me?
Him: No, I want to know when
Me: ::completely dumbfounded:: I’m sorry I sound so confused but I really…I am! I thought it was clear that sex is not on offer with any bloke until I know him well enough. Is there something about that you’re not clear on or something I need to explain further?
Him: No, I get it. I understand how you feel but I want to know when we’re going to have sex.
Me: It would seem never. Please misplace my phone number immediately.
~~~~~~~
To date (sorry for the pun), this is the funniest dating experience I have ever had. I gave him every opportunity to withdraw the questions and pass it off as a silly joke that went badly but as you can see, he wasn’t joking.
Absolutely ridiculous! (( but still VERY funny))
Stealing. Hmm. I was quite good at it as a kid.
The most memorable thing I have ever nicked was a tiny deck of playing cards. They had the Peanuts characters on them (Snoopy, Charlie Brown) and they were adorably small. It was a local stationers shop and I used to like going to nose around and look at all the pretty paper and calligraphy pens. Those shops always had the nicest smells didn’t they? I was fascinated with the paper, especially the scented paper. In my 20’s, before the advent of email, I kept a large stock of beautiful writing paper and pens. I languished in the art of writing letters taking care to make sure each line was beautifully crafted. I loved to write back then.
What was I saying? Oh yes, the tiny playing cards.
I was with my childhood friend, Andra, that day. She dared me to steal the cards. At first I said “NO!” and was insulted that she would even assume I’d consider something so horrible. Eventually, she wore me down with her teasing about how I was “chicken” and insisting that she was going to tell the shopkeeper on me anyway so I might as well go ahead and do it.
So, I did it. I mean, what the hell, right?
We left the store and as I snuck the stolen booty out of my pocket and was admiring the lovely little cards, Andra suddenly announced that I had better go back into to the store and put them back on the shelf or she was going to tell my mother on me. WHAT?! That little bitch!! After arguing with her for what seemed like ages, I had no choice but to go back into the shop and, under suspicion of a very curious shopowner, slip my stolen item back on the shelf and make a quick exit. AND..Andra made me do it alone. She refused to come with me.
Not 10 minutes later, as I walked sullenly with my head down, my little partner in crime gleefully shouts “Look what I got!” as she pulled what seemed like a million dollars worth of candy from her pockets. That little snit stole all that candy! She ate it in front of me too without letting me have any. So much for Andra.
By the way, the largest thing I ever stole was a 40LB bag of kitty litter though I wasn’t a kid when I stole it. It was planned actually. I sat it on the bottom of the shopping trolley and there were so many people in the queue that the cashier didn’t notice it. I wonder, how many of you have done the same thing?
A very nice fellow over at Bete du jour has asked everyone to talk about their most shameful moments.
Oy vey…where to begin.
When i was a little girl, I had issues about using the loo. I never liked to pee so would instead, wet my pants. Literally. I remember being very aware that it was wrong and I absolutely remember being embarrassed but I can’t pin point exactly why I would wait until the very last moment when I had to go so badly that I just couldn’t get to the toilet in time. Once, I refused to stand up when my mother ordered me to because I had to pee so badly I could not move for fear it would run down my legs. So mother, being the lovely kind woman she was, pulled me up by my arms only to to have me pee all down my legs. Of course I cried immediately and she yelled at me for being stupid. What else would a kindly and gentle mother do?
I can also remember sitting in the sand at the playground and urinating through my tiny denim trousers and then caking the sand on the wet spots thinking it would not only hide the fact that I peed myself but also dry it. Kids, so innocent in their reasoning eh?
Until I was nine years old, I wet the bed on a fairly regular basis. I remember an overheard conversation with the family doctor saying I’d grow out of it. Eventually I did but in the meantime I avoided sleepovers and birthday parties and always had to go to school with extra underwear. All my teachers knew me as “Pissy Missy”, a common nick name given to me by my parents. Even now I feel the old anger welling up in me. What the hell is wrong with these people anyway?
I have never told anyone about this, dear reader, you are the first. In fact, I haven’t thought about it for many, many years. Funny that.
