My One and Only Yous
Essays on the Divine emotion #1
[I’m going to post a series of essays I wrote about old loves, in chronological order. The essays were really fun to write, and I thought maybe you would enjoy reading them. Some are very short, such as this first one, and some are longer. Some are light, and I guess some are downright wrenching. Taken together, they really do present a view of my life. If you think back at all the people you loved romantically, isn’t it true that they create a unique kind of window into you?]
IT STARTS EARLY
I’m seven. At reading time, we get into a circle. The teachers sits just across from me with her big knees and her cardigan sweater held onto her shoulders with a jeweled chain. Three kids down from the teacher sits Billy Hall, sunlight on his comb marks. He is the one I love. He enjoys a place of rare responsibility and privilege: every morning, he gets to write on the blackboard the time at which our class will work in our special groups. He is in the Falling Leaves, and I am in the Busy Bees, so no chance there. Black-haired, red-cheeked, dimpled Cynthia Reed on the playground every day, everyone -– including Billy—crowded around her, no chance there. I walk to school, he rides the bus; no chance there. We eat lunch at our desks, and from mine, I can see only the back of his head and a corner of his plaid lunchbox.
I watch Billy when he writes on the blackboard, and on my notebook paper, I write, Mrs. Billy Hall. That’s me, Mrs. Billy Hall. “Did you have a good day today, darling?“ Mashed potatoes dished out with a big spoon plop onto his plate. I touch him on the shoulder like my mom does my dad, which always seems like she is giving him a kind of communion, sending something from her hands straight into his heart. When I take communion and Jesus comes into my heart, I feel like he is wiping his hands on a rag and saying, “What can I help you with today?“ And I say, Billy Hall.
I just know it will all work out. I just know it. You pick up an apple and the skin is red and the inside is white. The fact that I will be Mrs. Billy Hall is like the fact of the white flesh of the apple. You can’t see it at first, but then it is there. This might be the first and last time in my life that I ever have such surety. And look what happened. I am not now, nor was I ever Mrs. Billy Hall.
[That’s it for the first one. I told you it was short! The next one will be about how I was in love with Bluto and not Popeye.
In other news, I wanted to let those of you who live in or near Milwaukee know that I will be doing a reading from my new novel, EARTH’S THE RIGHT PLACE FOR LOVE , at Boswell Books (2559 N. Downer Ave., Milwaukee, phone 414-332-1181) April 17, this coming Monday night. The reading starts at 6:30. I would like to say that I will have drinks for all, but that would be a big fat lie. Still, I wish it were true. I can see us all raising a glass and toasting one another. We every one of us deserve it, don’t we?)
Sweet story about your first love. Mine first boyfriend was Billy Roy. We were three-years-old and I only have my mom's word on this. My real first boyfriend was Bobby Fink in first grade. He got in trouble for punching another boy in the stomach in the lunch line because the boy asked Bobby if he could kiss me. haha Our parents were friends. One evening Bobby and I "got married" during a neighborhood party. He pushed me around in a wheel barrow (guess that's how you get married in first grade.) Alas, we went our separate ways. Then years later when we were about thirteen, my family was invited to spend a weekend at his family's lake house. Awkward is an understatement!! Somehow we both survived the weekend.
In the first grade I was in love with a boy named Chuck. I think all the girls were and they were all much prettier than I was so, I knew he would never notice me, plus I was the fat girl. He kissed a girl named Lori in the cloak room and she let all of us know. I was broken hearted but continued to love him from afar. He moved the summer after 1st grade and ended up at a new school. I didn’t have another crush until Roy Rogers and that was a big one. Dale was a problem and I wasn’t quite sure how I could mother his children, most of whom were older than me, but that didn’t stop my daydreaming. He was so handsome, those crinkly eyes and his smile. I may still be a little in love with him.