The first time I kissed a girl and the first time a girl kissed me with any kind of enthusiasm was when I was 11 or 12 and we were playing spin the bottle. I still remember the girl and the kiss but a lot of the details have faded. I think we were in a big tent in a yard, where I can’t remember, when I’m not sure, who else was playing I don’t remember. But I remember it was Emily and we were playing spin the bottle. I still remember the confused feelings, excitement and dread, then the relief when it worked out becoming a memory that I still have after more than sixty years. Although I suspect the memory has become idealized or archetypal. As it should be. Ultimately a person’s life is informed by one’s memories, what you choose to remember, how the memories interact and form the stories of your life. You create your memories and your memories create you.

The endless stream of memories are the waters time receives.
The hopes and fears, the truths and lies are the eddies and the tides.
The heartfelt dreams we conceive are the currents our desire weaves
As we’re swept along to larger seas that no one mind alone perceives

Ripples the River of Years by jch 1989

 Burgeoning adolescence is a heady time. The body is changing, giving your mind new desires to pursue. I was sneaking looks at my Grandfather’s National Geographic and swimsuit and underwear models in Sears catalogues. I was intensely curious.

 I had experienced the “sensation” that sublime feeling of overwhelming pleasure. For me it had happened when I was practicing hitting a tetherball. The ball and rope had gotten tangled up at the top of the pole. I shinnied up the pole and untangled the rope and ball. My legs were wrapped around the pole. I loosened my grip and slid down and an intense sensation overcame me. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move, my mind was stunned. I just stood there my hands gripping, my legs still wrapped around the pole. I don’t know how long I remained frozen by the sensation. Time had stopped. Eventually I took a breath, let go and sat on a nearby bench. I had never experienced anything like it. Most of the intense sensations I had felt in my life had been painful. Instead I had felt joy, surprise, awe, laughter, but nothing like this nothing so intense. It was a life changing experience. I was hooked. I explored ways to recreate the feeling. I climbed the tetherball pole again and slid down. I slid down bannisters, humped anything I could straddle. I never reached the peak of intensity I first experienced. I came close but not the same. The first time of anything is always special.
 Pleasure and desire communicate through the body in many guises. I was attracted to different people in different ways. The first girl I was attracted to was when I was 11 and living at Travis Air Force Base. She was in my class. Her name was Kathy and she was (in my eyes) a beautiful blond. I liked her and showed it. She was nice to me. Since I didn’t have a clue about what to do or how. I have no idea how she really felt about me. My thinking about women’s attitude about me was heavily influence by my beliefs which I eventually understood had little or nothing to do with a woman’s or girls true feelings, if even they were aware of what their true feelings were. Nonetheless Kathy (I used to know her last name) has a special place in my memory.
 My beliefs came somewhat from my experience and my reaction to my experiences but most from what I heard from other people (grownups, relatives, parents, siblings, classmates, gossip) and my feelings as I tried to sort things out.
 I had seen the reaction when my bandages were removed. I noticed what different people did when the saw me. There were types, those who stared, slack jawed unable to look away, like I was some kind of car accident to rubber neck at. Others had more control and would sneak peeks. I noticed that young children noticed nothing different about me, as if everyone sort of looked alike. It was only at a certain age that they could see I was different. Some were curious and would come up and ask me what happened. Some were afraid and would run away. I learned a lot about people from their reactions to me.
 Women reacted much the same as men until they were faced with the possibility I might like them and I might want them to like me. Almost all the girls faced with this situation reacted the same way (at least that’s what I thought at that young age). There was the moment of realization (he likes me; he wants me to like him-what should I do?) where they sort of freaked out. So I concluded that most women were freaked out by me. Seeing that reaction caused me to back away. It took me a long time before I realized that this was an initial reaction to a situation they had never been faced with and that they needed time to work through their feelings. Some were freaked out but most were taken aback by a new situation that they didn’t know how to react to. As I  got older I learned that many women were interested even intrigued with or about me (emotional reasoning is completely different from male thinking) and if I hadn’t rejected them because I thought they rejected me things would have been very different in my life. I didn’t realize it then but a lot of women had been fucked over by men and they were looking for someone different. It takes a lot of processing to sort through the feelings af attraction to bad boys or always falling for the same guy who would break your heart and never do what you needed to complete your life. And when the person you need appears you don’t recognize him. I always felt a lot of admiration for any woman who showed she liked me. It takes a lot of courage to not be afraid of what the gossipmongers might say. American women are brought up in a weirdly competitive way with inflexible social rules that they are taught and come to believe that they have to conform to. In retrospect I think many of the women around me would have been willing to explore a relationship if only I had had the confidence in myself to allow it. All of the difficulties that I had with women (and that I attributed to females themselves) were in fact my own creation, easily handled with the right attitude.
 I have been attracted to a lot of women. And it may seem that all women of interest rejected my advances and wanted only to be friends at best and had no desire to be intimate with me. But that’s not true. I met Debbie in college. We would get together and just talk. I enjoyed the conversations. I find intelligent people fascinating and Debbie was one of the most fascinating. I was in one of those periods where I had given up on finding the one who would help satisfy my desire for the sensation. And this is where my beliefs condemned me to eternal frustration. I believed that women thought just as men. And that all women desired attractive men, just as I was attracted to nice looking women and not attracted to unattractive women and certainly not women with blemishes, defects or deformities like mine.

 Limited thinking limits thinking. And as a corollary if a woman was attracted to me there must be something wrong with her. The deepest holes we fall into are the holes we dig ourselves. Well Debbie felt the urge one night and I just froze, just like what I accused most women of earlier when they freaked out at my advances. Now I recognize Debbie had presented me with an opportunity to realize my deep-felt dreams of the sensations of intimacy. An opportunity lost to my own unconscious limiting belief. It took a long time for me to see what I was doing to myself and that more than a few women who were interested in me suffered at my hand because of unconscious attitudes that would freeze them out despite my conscious desire  for contact and intimacy.
 It wasn’t that I had never had a girlfriend it’s just that I had forgotten that it was possible. My first girlfriend was Gloria. She went to the local high school (P G High) while I went to a private all boys Episcopal college prep school. I don’t know how we got together but we did. I had friends at the high school and we were skateboarders and P G High was a great place to skateboard. We spent a lot of time at the beach body surfing and eventually learning how to surf and that’s probably where I met her. It seems like a dream in retrospect. We liked each other and started spending time with each other, then dating. We went to school activities, sports events and just hanging out together playing records and fooling around. I took her to the Junior Prom. It was a memorable night. We dressed up. She was awesomely beautiful as I pinned the corsage on her. My father lent me the Mustang for the evening. The dance was nice. I like to dance but I’m not very good. As I explain in Shit Happens from age 7 to 14 I had two operations a year which meant I missed a lot of school and that affected my experience of learning social skills. Anyway after the dance we drove around and finally stopped at a spot off the road overlooking Bird Rock. There we proceeded to drink the bottle of Sloe Gin I had gotten a 21 year old surfer friend to buy for the occasion. We started making out and drinking the sloe gin out of paper cups. Such is youth. We lost track of time It was 12:30 am when I realized what time it was. I panicked because I was supposed to be home by midnight. I had to drop Gloria off at her house before heading home. I slammed the Mustang into drive and the car lurched forward. A half filled paper cup of Sloe Gin slid off the dashboard and spilled onto the carpet. I freaked. I’ve got to clean that up. I said. Gloria laughed. Calm down she said. We were racing down a curvy road as I hurried towards Gloria’s house. Then going around a curve I lost control and the car spun around and then off the road. I was now really in a state. I got out of the car to check things out. The car looked OK except we had ended up in a patch of ice plant. Gloria calmed me down and I managed to get the Mustang back on the road heading for Gloria’s house. I headed home. I stopped a couple blocks from the house. I had brought some fireworks for the prom. I had some firecrackers left. I don’t know what I was thinking but I exploded a couple of firecrackers over the carpet to hide the smell of the Sloe Gin. Then I drove home, parked the car. Everyone was asleep, I sighed in relief and tiptoed into the bedroom, undressed, got into bed and promptly fell asleep.

 What I liked about Gloria besides the fact that I thought she was beautiful. She was skinny with reddish blond hair. Sometimes I would just sit and stare at her. But besides that she was her own girl and acted consistently with her feelings.

 It’s the quality in women I find most alluring, one of the reasons why I find women more interesting than men. Men on the whole lack this quality (Men typically are out of touch with their inner feelings and tend to act according to how others want them to act or how they think others want them to act). An instance of the difference between men and women’s behavior: a male is driving a car with two women and another man as passengers. He’s driving too fast or recklessly as a way of showing off to whoever else is in the car. A man will say nothing afraid of appearing weak even if he’s scared. But a woman, a real woman, won’t put up with that shit, she’ll yell ” slow the fuck down”.  The driver sheepishly slows down.

 I was initially attracted to her because to me she was beautiful looking. A goddess. The more I looked the more beautiful she looked. Call it love, puppy love if you will. But looks are not enough. You buy a new Playboy magazine every month. I didn’t understand until much later what was going on between us. Why to this day she has a special place in my heart. What sucked me in and fascinated me was what she did or actually what she didn’t do. One thing was that during the time I got to know her she completely ignored what I looked like. She would look at me without judgment, without pity, sadness, revulsion, awkwardness or the many other emotions and feelings that I ran across when interacting with other people of all ages. I hadn’t learned how to recognize an emotion in someone else and not react instinctively or reflectivly. It took a long time to learn the best course of action was not to react at all or to react humorously or creatively. The actions and reactions of these emotions can really complicate relationships. I talk about true love at the end of this page and I believe the way couples deal with the actions and reactions of emotions will determine the course of the relationship. Best if they can be ignored altogether. We broke up for no reason I remember. I do remember being so upset that I went to her house and snuck in while she was gone and took back all my 45 records I had brought to her house to play and make out to. The stupidity of hormones.

 The summer after my junior year I went to UC Santa Barbara as part of a program where high school students could take college courses and get college credits. So Gloria and I moved apart. Thinking about her now reminds me about how special she was to me. I wonder where she is now. I hope she is happy.

The meaning of love:

 I know families whose members are always telling each other “I love you” just before hanging up the phone or going off to school or work. My family was different. I can’t remember the words being spoken while growing up. Now my brother and sister make a point of saying “I love you” at appropriate times. I’ve added it to my repertoire. It took me a long time to get a handle on the word “love” and what it means and what it does and is and especially what I think it is and can truly be in the world.
 The word love is an important word. Understanding its meaning would seem to be essential for all human beings. Everyone should know and agree on the definition and should be able practice its meaning consciously, deliberately and correctly.
 The definition is clear to me. In simplest terms you love someone when you put their welfare ahead of your own. For example I love my brother and sister. I’ll do whatever I can to take care of them, protect them and save them from harm. Love is unequivocal. It can’t be bargained with, bought or sold. As a definition it is clear, succinct. doable.
 Not that it’s supposed to be, but it’s not inspirational. To me the definition seems kind of dry, rational, not much fun for such an important word. For years that was my definition. But is that all love is. I knew there was more to love than that. Thinking about Gloria reminded me of how simple good relationships can be. How can I best explain it?

 I had a dog once. His name was Oz. I loved that dog. That dog loved me. Oz was always happy to see me. Oz accepted me as I was. I could have been the biggest fuck up in the world and Oz would still ike me, be happy to see me. Even at one of my lowest points when I was living in condemned buildings in Berkeley, Oz was there. He would curl up next to me at night. It was through Oz that I came to understand what love really was and could be. When I learned that Oz died the shock hit me like a bolt of lightening. All I could do was jump into my car and drive around crying. I hadn’t realized how deep my feelings for Oz went. Ascribing human feelings to dogs is risky business. After all can a dog’s devotion be called love, or is it just a genetic manipulation of wolves over time becoming what a dog is now -domesticated to be devoted to men or humans. So I can’t really say that Oz loved me or that his devotion to me could be construed as love but there are qualities in Oz’s behavior that I would like to have in any and all lifelong or long lasting intimate relationship. In fact the qualities would form the bedrock on which a full human relationship would rest. The qualities are threefold: one selflessness., total freedom from or absence of selfishness, there is no withholding of affection in order to get something from another, two, the quality of constancy, always present, reliable without any doubt of being, and three, the quality of energy, that burns inside a person and radiates out, can be felt, shared and transferred between lovers. The energy manifests itself in actions, behaviors, just a a dog wags his tail and jumps around, happy to see you. Feeling like that about another person and being reciprocated once established form a foundation upon which a couple can create an amazing, surprising, satisfying and fulfilling relationship. The relationship of two adult beings who are always happy to see each other, whose mutual pleasure in each others company is nourishing and enlivening, who accepts the other as they are and who will always be there, always in love. A relationship without fear or jealousy, without withholding or duplicity, dissatisfaction or annoyance. Each concerned more for the others welfare and happiness than their own. I don”t see many relationship based on these qualities. I see wariness from having been abused or abandoned in prior attempts to connect with another person. I see negotiation in relationships. I see compromise and acting with lack of confidence or awareness.
It might not be possible in today’s culture of selfishness and competition, the Judeo Christian Protestant ethic arrogance that assumes superiority based on accumulation and consumption, an attitude that can’t conceive that a dog’s love is a higher state of being. Learn about true love and practice it by getting a pet. Once you understand move onto loving another person.