The first time I acknowledged the heart breaking grip of love I was eight. My mom had taken me with friends of hers to a beach house they had rented; there were at least three more kids. All my memory can recall of the previous night is loud music, furtive sips of beer from any neglected glass and a growing sense of grogginess. I'm sure I made a fool of myself and I can still hear laughter, so much laughter; but it doesn't matter because the next morning, when I woke up on the living room couch the first vision I realized was her face carved up against the bluest piece of sky I've ever seen.
She did all the talking and I did all the marveling; I feigned astonishment upon hearing her recount of what I knew all too well had happened the previous night. My mom had dutifully gone to work and I had the whole day to be close to her; to inhale her scent beneath the smooth skin and to lose myself in the depth of her hearty laughs.
Suddenly I wanted my mother to travel to new lands, to places unknown, to remote corners where buses and cabs were not seen. In a few hours I imagined my newly found love and I defying the law of gravity; capriciously swaying in mid air like stray feathers; that lapse was the one where my mind traveled the farthest and my heart skipped the most beats. I was in love with her eyes, her hands, her eyebrows and everything about her. I was able to anticipate her coming and going from one room to another; and when we went to the beach I wanted her to nearly drown so that I could save her, carry her in my arms to safety, resuscitate her out of death and keep my cheek against hers in an endless quest for warmth. Funny I had no "sinful" thoughts.
The first time I fell in love I hadn't yet heard the songs of my life; I hadn't gone a thousand times over the lyrics of Stairway to Heaven. All I can vaguely remember is a cheap bolero played by some machine in a dark corner I didn't care to look at.
The first time I fell in love she didn't even notice; she was hardly aware of my mere presence and I'm afraid she never thought of me as other than a funny occurrence; a half drunk boy trying to impress her the next day. The first time I fell in love I went shamefully unnoticed and as I saw her slim figure shrinking in the distance my eyes filled with their first dew of longing, I felt my first yearning as if I had to be prepared for a long journey in which there would be more goodbyes than hellos. Her image never came back from the distance; it remained as part of the landscape until so many other slim figures grew smaller beyond the thick air of my memories and deprived my first love of its majesty. Every now and then, particularly on rainy days, I think of the first time I fell in love, or didn't I ?
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