She was tall and gentle, and I like her because she’s like me. Quiet, but a mischievous smile about her face, cheeks swollen with delight, like she knows something. Not so much the color in her eyes, though remarkable like gems, yet I always find myself driven to her, the jokes, a shoulder punch on occasion; whenever she spoke my nickname, I stood at attention. Often, I look past the new fire station, at the left turn down the hill, past the shady grove of trees, and I see her house on the corner. What could explain this bashful aversion with straightforward manner when I saw her? A muted infatuation, nay, a reverent affection at times I could feel my heart in my throat, the blood rush, audible in my ear, other times, a blushing warmth knowing at times, she noticed.
Many times, others, it felt, could engage her, charm even, and while I could boast a comedian, she favored them over my awkward demeanor. To leave the household at the age was laced with stringency, responsibility sits on the shoulders of a firstborn. I retrieve my brother most days, by piggyback once junior high let out, and await my sisters’ arrival via school bus. Those days, kids could visit the local house of pizza or the park down the street, sit on the courts against the fence, or warp the utility bin behind the field house, the recreational lot of land in full view. Most days, I could be found at the library, devoid of a delinquent’s influence, I read and read, and surged and thought my crush often. Perhaps, the solitude of an only child holds room for growth and development unique to the individual. That small town was my whole world, idyllic, innocent, days grew the kids like trees, tall and together rooted. My heart, no; I managed the affair and sealed my heart, at least a portion remains in the groves on the south shore.
Existence is mysterious; thus, this author of confusion remains uncertain of what dispensations of his time to unearth, and testify to, scribbling tomes and recording imagery of the past. Is there room to return? Perhaps not, but today with the reverence of a sabbath, I revisit those days, that town, these memories, as I begin again; to seek meaning and give these objects in my life permanence. Hesitations to touch subjects so far removed, so charged like offshore power, the resource is an internecine project. Almost too long since acknowledgement, like an over-ripened fruit, forgotten times sit rotten. Images are but a visual aid to experience, supplementing memory where it falters. Photography is an exercise for the forgetful. But I could never forget the blessing of a birthday celebration at a budding age, sixteen. Photography is an exercise for the forgetful. Invitations went far and wide, to span cross timelines, junior high and high school, Holbrook and Belmont, a bash of braggadocious bounty. This festivity needs more justice, much of the story does, but she arrived demurely as ever. No image could capture the cleft of her cheeks, swollen dimples, the subtlety of her form in a dress, white to match my suit, in black trim. I would’ve no sooner asked her hand in marriage, such is the fervor in the springtime of youth. I miss her, I miss that day, I live for these moments.
