pg5

Our first date, official in my mind, but more like a “buddy-outing “ to her at the time, was a simple dinner and a movie. When you have the girl of your dreams upon your arm, most rationalizations of why you are at that particular moment in time are obliterated in a bath of glowing emotion… and some raging hormones. I had borrowed my fathers car, a ‘78 Opel Manta Ralle, and arrived in my best rags. I have an Aunt Marge in California who sends us the most outrageous Christmas gag gifts, along with the heart felt ones. This year, she had sent, among other things, a bouquet of plastic flowers with a power cord attached. This cord was for the lights in the flowers.

I arrived at the house, and killed the engine before turning into the cul-de-sac she lived on with just enough momentum to roll into the driveway of her house on the corner. I leapt out of the car, with my truly ridiculous bouquet, and plugged it in to the outside outlet before knocking on the door. That was the scene, me in my new-wave best, holding a bunch of brightly-lit flowers as Jennifer’s mother opened the door. Her mother gasped once, and then began to laugh hysterically. At the same time to door swung open, Jennifer was cascading down the stairs as if she were floating. Nowhere in my mind is there a vision or a memory that can compare to how beautiful she was, descending the stairs, that night. She was not dressed fancy; she was not labored with jewelry or make-up. She was just the vision of the most human-creature ever to breathe. There is a type of vision that occurs very rarely in life, and I am convinced that it is a form of multi-dimensional sight. The one you are looking at appears in complex detail, and glows with a color about her that is not based on light. It is the type of vision that you can feel is being pointed right back at you, and would pass right through if it were not meant to be yours.

She came to the door in her socks, a detail I had failed to notice in my stare until she gave me a gentle hug, with a tiny hidden kiss on the side of my cheek. In that fraction of a second the embrace lasted, I began to feel bathed in the very essence of love, flowers, romance, and sexual tension. I felt dizzy, explosive, and happy; for I was bathed not only in her presence, but also in a scent that would linger on my cheek, and my mind, for more than just that night. She wore a perfume called “Design”, which had rubbed into my cheek, my shirt, and my heart. (The name of which I would learn later, as my grandmother had a bottle of it that I stole) To this day, It is still the most intoxicating smell I can not afford to be near, lest the one I love be nearer. “For me?” she asked, with that incredible smile and throat full of hidden laughter. That was the moment her mother took the picture: the presentation of the electric-bouquet, with the gentle presence of forever. By this time, we had been friends for quite a while, and knew each other very well. We always had fun together, always seemed to mesh. Perhaps this would all change later on down the road, but in that moment, where I still retreat to in my mind when times are empty, we questioned nothing about ourselves and dared to let our hearts point north, instead of our pain.

When the evening ended, and we were, once again, in her driveway, she kissed me. Although there had many kisses in my life before, none had been in this genre. This was a fraction of time paused for the pourpose of speaking to each other the one word language failed. In those moments of the most innocent of “I love you”, I knew then, in my soul, who would be by my side.