FIRST
The Temptation of Adam and Eve, Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo
This week’s word: FIRST.
Stories about your first kiss, the first time you ate gelato, the first time you found money, the first grade, and the first time you knew you couldn't go back.
6 comments:
If at first you don't succeed...
My fiancé and I are "re-daters." I know what you're going to think (even before you prevent yourself from saying it). Marry an ex? Pure mayhem.
But here's the thing--we've already seen each other at close to the worst. Our break-up (in college) was a rushed and teary-eyed affair right before I headed off to an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. Harsh, I know. I had to catch a ride to another college town at the crack of dawn, and while it seemed like a fairly “season-defining” game at the time, it’s the thing I regret most in our relationship. Now, he'll always fear the mango color of our team uniforms. But I consider that hurdle crossed. I look awful in mango and will never wear it again.
Imagine the first person you dated. If your first boy/girlfriend is the same person they were in the 8th grade, well, you’re better off without him/her. My fiancé/exboyfriend and I are actually a better match for each other now than we were back then. Attuned to each other’s frustrations, but grown-up enough to realize that hissy fits pass and in the end, there’s only one full-sized bed in our apartment.
So, if at first you don’t succeed. Try, try again.
I don’t necessarily endorse this philosophy across the board. When it comes to illnesses, or standardized testing or failed economic schemes on a grandiose scheme. But breaking up, as hard as it is to do, can make you stronger.
My first time finding paper money:
I was exploring riprap jetty at a harbor along the California coast. I must have been 8 or 7. I was small enough to craw down under big rocks where wine bottles and baguette heels fell. In one crease, big enough to crouch, the light illuminated a greenback with Andrew Jackson’s face on it. Yes a dirty twenty dollar bill, mine for the taking. Ah if only I were back in wine country again! A place where 20 dollar bills must slip out of aristocrats pockets like trash.
Side note:
I found a dollar bill today and the thrill is still the same as it was back then.
My first time finding paper money:
I was exploring riprap jetty at a harbor along the California coast. I must have been 8 or 7. I was small enough to craw down under big rocks where wine bottles and baguette heels fell. In one crease, big enough to crouch, the light illuminated a greenback with Andrew Jackson’s face on it. Yes a dirty twenty dollar bill, mine for the taking. Ah if only I were back in wine country again! A place where 20 dollar bills must slip out of aristocrats pockets like trash.
Side note:
I found a dollar bill today and the thrill is still the same as it was back then.
“First Real Gelato”
Two years ago my mom “won” a trip to anywhere in the world for $10,000 by working her buns off at work and making her bank a boatload of money. We’ve always been close, so she took me. We went to Italy.
I planned a glorious trip: we would start in Venice and give ourselves plenty of time to sleep, recover, then get up and discover as many flood-plain passageways as we could; then on to Tuscany (by car) for stays in Sienna, Florence, and a handful of day trips; then to Rome (by train) and the Amalfi Coast, where we were already making silent plans to stay put like “Talented Mr. Ripley” and look for reasons not to come back home, which we presumed to be plentiful. This, we were sure, would be the highlight of our trip.
We never made it down South. It was cold and wet in Florence when we heard the reports: the Tiber River had flooded and Rome was a mess. We kicked ourselves for visiting Italy in November.
For me, funny moments make trips. That first night in Venice was a Monday, and Italy is all but shutdown on Mondays, for some reason (God?). We managed to find an open trattoria near our hotel, and just as the house wine arrived my mom leaned over and put a little blue pill in my hand (not Viagra). The Ambien, she said, was going to help us fall asleep early and eliminate jetlag. Unthinking, I washed it down with one, two, three glasses of crushed grapes. My mom kept up. Like old Mrs. Bluth, could she have mistaken the half-closed drowsy eye on the bottle for a winking eye? I recall the confusion over how to pay the check, the rushed goodbye to the other travelers, and the walk back along skinny canal #567 we punctuated with dips and somersaults and jumps – freestyle walking – and my first real gelato. Was I dreaming it? It was delectable, of course. I don’t know Italian, but I spoke their language that night. We connected through half-frozen vanilla cream, and I learned what all the gelato buzz it about. That's amore' right there.
Just checking if this dang thing works...
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