WHERE IT ALL WENT RIGHT

Reminiscing is mental comfort food without the calories and the twisty turny stream of the subconscious has carried me back to elementary school as of late. Grades K-5 I have only brief flashes of recollection-- peeing myself in reading circle, some fat 4th grade teacher and watching the World Series in some afternoon classroom. Or maybe it was a Space launch, or both. No matter. Regardless, the sixth grade smacks of one huge experience involving a perch, a scalpal and a girl. How do those things all make it into the same memory box you ask? Well, I fell in love with a girl named Amy over the dissection of a fish in Biology class. The pheromone gods were not even smiling on us that day. Olfactorily speaking, the formaldehyde + pickle + alcohol scent of that days lesson stayed in the foreground. But, despite the stench of science, something more incredible than the Big Bang, some heretofore non existent emotion was virginally birthed on that day leaving me covered in scales and guts ( the fish) and a feeling of warmth, caring and love ( Amy). The sparky tool that lit the Bunson burner also ignited and excited the flame in my soul as well.

Over the next two years, we became "girlfriend and boyfriend" in the strictest definition of the kid version of those words and somewhat surprisingly were held to a lot of the same rules and expectations that peer pair partners of any age would be. You could only roller skate with each other, you were forced to occassionally abandon your male buddies on the playground and eschew football and pretend to watch with glee the hopscotch , jump rope or baton twirling activities the girlies enjoyed at lunchtime. The fellas ribbed ya but those guys who had GF's took it easy and kinda understood--as if quietly acknowledging it wasn't a pleasant but a very necessary sacrifice and it could be their turn tomorrow with blacktop chalk in hand non verbally communicating "Yes Dear" at 12 years of age. And of course the opposite sex rumor mill drama was in play too::::Lori Falls let Tony Tassett feel her up at an R rated movie. I heard Neal Mecklenburg called Candee Lawson last nite and by the way did you give Diana Kern a pack of Starbursts because if you did we might be breaking up??? ( For the record, as to the last accusation, I was indeed innocent.)

No one has captured me since the way Amy did. It was like she was the archetype of goodness, the physical representation of all that is innocent and right. Absolute Purity in a Catholic school uniform. Some have come close, some have opened new doors of experiences smacking both of romantic passion and debased debauchery and 2 or 3 others have been momentously loved. But adored? Revered? Cherished? No. Those verbs were hers and hers alone.

Fast forwarding over the ensuing 35 years or so I can report that Amy still visits me in my dreams 3 or 4 times a year. It is always experienced as if you had found the thing that you held the most dear in your heart and as an infinite treasure you thought was lost but that you have now been reunited with.
We laugh and feel close. We dance to pop hits of the 70's and look into each others eyes as we sing sappy love songs confidently knowing that no one else gets it the way we do or has what we have. A shared secret and sentiment foreign to everyone else on earth.

Awake, I linger on the dream recall, smile and wish.