Memory
July 14, 2009
It was beautiful. The wholesome, careless fraternity. The open and carefree sensuality. The way jealousies and insecurities and all of those questions just slid off like oil on water. I remember the band of friends; casual and smiling, safe and happy. Arm in arm, we'd spend long days climbing in the thick, gnarled trees, lying in the rich grass, or swimming down by the pier. The sun was warm and hospitable, shimmying over the beveled, glittering surface of the river. Everyone smiled with white teeth and warm hands, sat together in groups on the beach and trickled through the season one long, warm day at a time. I miss the way we'd lie about together, heads on chests and hands on shoulders. And the way the sweat was never stinging or slimy, never clingy or suffocating. Instead, it was sweet and pure, glistening golden in the yellow sunlight, the very essence of summer captured drop by innocent drop. It's funny how I can't pin names on faces anymore, or for that matter, can't really even make out the faces. We were the best of friends though, that I can guarantee. The haziness itself is somehow vaguely endearing.
I remember the lovers, too, warm and smiling and soft like the second set of dreams on a late Sunday morning. The way they floated in and bobbed on by with no more ceremony than a leaf blundering by in the breeze. Sex was just physical attraction between friends, passionate and fleeting. Something done smiling and simply, just because we wanted to. I remember a white bathing suit top polka dotted red, gold-orange hair and that bouncing smile. We'd go off together, just the two of us. Taking that long walk out to the sand bar and around the bend. We'd press lips and bodies on the sand, then smoke cigarettes, skip stones, and plunge back into the blood warm water.
Distant memory is a golden thing, worn smooth and silky by the relentless crash of time. And for that I can always be grateful, that is, for the happy accident that I'm forever looking at it from some great ways away. Like most things, there's a sweet spot, a perfect range at which its best qualities come glowing forth, and all its awkward imperfections stay shrouded away forever.
Tags for this piece: relationships summer virginia aging memory