First Love

I met him on a Sunday. I was eight years old. I remember spinning around in my Sunday best hoping he would notice. I remember Tommy Wiessner looking at me like he was jealous. I remember liking it. Tommy gave me a red satin heart shaped box to keep sacred things in. I have it to this day, almost thirty years later. Stephen and I were cosmic. We were magnetic. We made butterflies appear in stomachs. We were speechless and nervous and awkward. We were first love.

Our love lasted ten entire years. I will never forget segregated lines. I will never forget being a grade ahead and being offered one more grade. My father didn't feel it would be good for my social life. All I could consider was Stephen Carl Thompson. We had a class or two together. There was lunch and assemblies. There was recess. I will never forget the day when a water spout started travelling off the Bay and over the land for a short time which seemed to last for an eternity. We were seamed together and scared as though we were constructed as one being. We may have held hands. I honestly don’t remember. What I will never forget is the moment that water spout felt so close, the wind whipping so strong and the fibers of our very soul shook to the marrow of our making. We were petrified. Just in the nick of time, the spout fell apart and it was the most amazing thing to watch! I loved him.

I remember swing-sets and ninja moves. I remember Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He was Raphael. I was April. I remember his window facing the playground. I remember every late night that my Mother spent upset that my father was not yet done in his office. I remember those same nights meaning more heat, more time, more lust spent staring at Stephen’s open window. I remember my youth.  I remember eye contact meaning everything. I remember the sweaters we had that were negative opposites of one another. So similar. So familiar. So correct.

I remember the letter I wrote composed in Spanish. My Spanish was not as good and Sandra’s translation not as accurate. That letter required my parents to pull me out of school and homeschool me for almost three years! In the letter I quoted songs. I did the best I could with the Spanish I had learned. I was not good enough. The mistranslation cost me my freedom. I was monitored. What was worse, I was taken away from Stephen. I saw him at church and how grateful I was that my Pastor father was so incredibly active but my mother even walked with me to the restroom. I fumed. Lost I felt without him.

Little did I know how much worse it could be! When I was fifteen he and his family returned to their roots in Alabama. I mourned for him. I missed him more than I knew my young heart could handle. There were phone calls and letters. None of this would ever suffice. I transpired against my father’s wishes. I purchased a plane ticket at seventeen. I was fresh out of high school. I arrived in Alabama not having any idea what to expect.

We walked many miles. We talked about many things. We planned a wedding on a leap year, on a day that could only come around every four years. He bought me a gold ring. I liked silver. We moved back to Tampa. He lived with my Uncle. We mis-carried a child. We loved. We fought. We kissed. We talked. We wrought iron dreams in streets paved with anger. We wondered at the meaning of our young existence. We offered persistence to stories not yet written. We strived for greatness. We waited and stated things that were meant to be forever, however forever was not yet understood by either. I regret nothing. Even when he moved back home, I was alone and aching for his kiss. I knew however we were meant to live separate lives. We danced over stars and underneath overpasses. We even had adventures underneath streets and in cemeteries. We were fearless. We were not permanent.

My first taste of forever danced and dissolved. I missed him desperately yet moved on. We kept in touch over the years and I later knew he married, had children, loved. I have dreamed of him on a regular basis every month of my life since the first day I laid eyes on him.  The year he died in that tragic car accident with his young son Nathan, I had just released my first album, After the Rain. After the Rain was the title track of the album and happened to be a song I wrote for him when I was fifteen and he and his family moved away from me and back to Alabama.

I dream of him still and believe I always will. I know he and his son are running in the sunshine in another place, another time Sublime energy is forged with the knowing of your first love. I was glad he could be mine and know that his love will stay with me for the rest of time. So much of my experiences in love have been shaped by the anticipation, the eye contact, the dreams and the stories that Stephen and I shared. The music, the sunshine, the laughter and even the waterspout! Ninja moves on hillsides waiting and trees I climbed in yards no longer there. I remember it all. The melodic intonations of the baby grand and the secrets we sometimes forgot to share. I will never forget. Love is sacred. I am love. Memories are eternal. Long live Stephen Carl Thompson. Long live first love.