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I was right on the cusp of 13, old enough to feel the early whispers of passion, eroticism, and a young teen’s childish notion of romantic love. Those whispers were as magic and wondrous as anything that ever came before.
I was doing my best in that year to ride out those electrified feelings that were firing in my brain and below my waist, like the fast spinning balls on a Pachinko machine. I couldn’t stop thinking about girls in general and Wendy in particular. She sat across from me in music class, back when they offered such worthwhile learning opportunities in public school.
The classroom was laid out in a semi-circle and we always took the same seats. I enjoyed an unobstructed view of Wendy’s long, chestnut hair and the few freckles haloing her exquisite face. We would catch each other staring from time to time, and she would offer a subtle smile. But I lacked courage and never returned the friendly gesture. I would just quickly look away. This went on for the first few weeks of the fall semester.
It was a time of profound preoccupation with how I might connect with members of the more mysterious sex. It seemed the only way I could successfully relate to them was via my imagination. Self-pleasuring had become a daily routine, as consistent as brushing my teeth, once in the morning and again at night. My awakening sexuality was demanding almost every ounce of my attention, leaving me little left over.
But it was also larger than sex. Those stolen glances at Wendy and the daydreams they evoked were making life the best thing ever! Every day was an invitation into brand new and powerful feelings that were some of the most enchanted and life-affirming vibes I had ever enjoyed.
The Fall Dance, scheduled for the first week in October, was a yearly tradition at our school. This would be my first school dance and my young, primate mind could not stop envisioning its prospects. My excitement at the possibility of being able to finally start turning those first few pages of that most enigmatic of tomes called Woman was both irrational and amazing. Of course, I had no idea whether Wendy was going or not. I was too cowardly to strike up a conversation with the girl who had grabbed hold of my heart without even uttering a single sigh. Talk about exquisite pain! Magical.
But everybody was going to the dance, and I had high hopes she would be there as well.
I walked over to my friend Steve’s house. His dad was going to drive us to the school. Like boys that age will do, we talked about the girls who might be attending. We objectified their anatomy in the most dishonorable manner and basked in their sacredness at the same time. We were like Prometheus, hoping to steal a spark of fire from those goddesses. But I never told Steve about Wendy. I didn’t tell anyone. I knew I couldn’t come close to describing the depth of what I was feeling for her. And I didn’t want to open up the possibility that Steve would say something crude, pulling down my magical visions from the celestial heights and tossing them into the mundane boy talk of titties.
Steve’s dad dropped us off in front of the entrance to the gym where a bunch of our classmates were milling about, unsure of how to act in the unfamiliar territory. Segregated groups, based on gender, naturally formed and we found ourselves with some other fellas who were in some of our classes.
Five minutes later, just before the gym doors opened, I spotted Wendy with a few of her friends. I was suddenly afraid. It was starting to get real.
The gym was decorated with streamers, balloons, and dim, yet colorful lighting. But what truly transformed the space that night was the incredibly loud sound system. One of the students from the Spirit Committee had made a mixed tape of the latest Top 40 hits.
The first half hour all I did was to steal glances at Wendy, like when we were in class. She was wearing a little more makeup than she did during the day. She looked awesome. And the longer I did nothing but stare, the angrier I became at myself.
Then “Radar Love” by Golden Earring played. That was a song of empowerment for me. No more speed I’m almost there, Gotta keep cool now gotta take care… This was the moment, or it wouldn’t happen. I walked over to her, leaving Steve to wonder what I was up to.
“You’re in my music class!” I yelled over the music as if letting her know something new and exciting.
“Yeah,” she returned.
“Wanna dance?”
“Sure.”
And then we were dancing. Imagine the love child of Salvador Dali and Helen Keller bopping about, a mixture of moves both hard-edged, gooey, and chaotic, all at the same time. Sweat started dripping. I kept my head down as my white-mans-overbite chomped to the badass bass line. I was uncomfortable, anxious, and feeling glorious.
It felt like “Radar Love” played a really long time. I shared some air-drum moves to the drum riff, hoping to show off my skills. All I wanted to do was impress this keeper of the most alluring of gates. Then the song ended. I quickly asked if she wanted to keep dancing. “Sure,” she said.
That’s when the slow piano started. I immediately recognized the opening notes to Chicago’s, “Colour My World.” If you know this song, you know it’s a slow dance song. There is no other way to dance it.
She put her hands on my shoulders and I put mine on her hips. There was at least the width of a stretched-out hand between us. And the solar flare energy between our bodies reached out and cautiously mingled. As time goes by I realize just what you mean to me…
I have enjoyed a great life and plan on continuing to do so! I have done some incredible things and hung out with some truly great people. I have lived and traveled all over the place. But I have never been able to recapture the magic, the authentically raw power of that slow dance.
These many decades later, as the prospect of old age becomes much more real, I find myself asking, “Can I retool my mind in a way where I can experience that explosive magic again?” Not like falling in a teenage version of love. I am in love. And it’s a depth of love that no 13 year old will ever know. But can I find those waters of innocence that host a very particular excitement towards the unknown, beyond the edge of the map, and take a swim again?
Did I just naturally mature out of the ability to have that intensity of delight, giggly anxiety, and magical uncertainty, or did my society train it out of me? Have I become jaded, numbly accepting society’s lessons of what it means to be a grown up and the importance of knowing things?
We are not empowered to cultivate the type of magic that seemed to happen so naturally with those tremendous firsts we experience as children.
But, what if we could enjoy that vibrant energy on a regular basis? What if we could rise above our knowings and societal training a bit and recall what it meant to have mostly all questions and hardly any answers, to have the thrill of discovery firing in our minds at a fever pitch? Maybe this is the gift of awakening to a beginner’s mind that Zen masters talk about.
So, I have a plan. I am going to embrace a beginner’s mind. I’m going to give up the importance of having all the answers and discover the importance of having many more questions, questions that I can dance with just for the joy of it. I will work towards training myself to become untrained, to let go, to re-engage the excitement of discovery, to give up my hard and fast knowings and instead, lead with a beginner’s mind. This seems a powerful intention.
Wendy and I didn’t really get together after that dance. We smiled and waved at each other a bit, but that was it. These many decades later I still have a place of honor within my heart for her ability to carry the weight of all my dreams and visions of who we were that night, and I hope she is living with all the happiness that a benevolent and generous goddess deserves.
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Photo credit: YouTube/”One Less Lonely Girl” by Justin Bieber