Posts tagged " true love "

On First Love

October 7th, 2016 Posted by Tabula Rasa No Comment yet

We all think we remember it, that first love, I thought I remembered mine, but I’m starting to believe that our first true love stories may happen much earlier than we realize. They happen before we are even conscious of what love is, which is what makes these stories so real. Pure.

There’s a boy and a girl, I’ll call them B and G, they met a year ago in preschool, he was barely potty trained, barely spoke a word. She, a little older, ran away from him, then immediately to him. They shared an interest in trains and bulldozers, they shared a classroom, they shared the sudden flood of knowledge that only kids their age stay afloat in, grow from.

He began to speak, order her around, she bit his hand, then his arm, but he didn’t want to let her go, and with the guidance of his mom, forgave her. They each chose a bicycle, and at recess, rode with noone but eachother.

The summer split them apart, yet each asked for one another every day.
“Mommy, I miss G,” he said every night.

G came to school earlier than scheduled that year, the morning after a long flight, jet-lagged and exhausted, but demanding to go. They saw eachother and hid behind their moms’ legs for a second, then let go, and headed to the play dough station.

Their moms try to bring them to school at the same time each morning, so one or the other doesn’t stick their head out the car window looking to see if the other has arrived, so that one does not sit in the corner quietly until their friend finally comes in, and at the end of each day, they choose to embrace. The kind of embrace where you have no idea what it means, don’t care if anyone is watching.

It’s raw, unfiltered, forgiving, endless, unafraid, unknowing.

That’s what love should be, that’s what it really is before our egos outgrow our hearts, before we forget what it means to forgive, before we believe that one companion is not enough, before other people’s voices begin to have the power to influence our minds.

I find myself having silly, immature, romantic cliche thoughts. I imagine them as teenagers, still bound by this unconscious love, and wishing that we could all, as adults, feel like this forever. Hoping that maybe at least they will. So this raw love, it must still be here, buried somewhere, enticed to unearth itself as I watch two little people live what we all would die for.

Pieces: a novel

“Pieces” is the winner of the silver medal at the 2017 Independent Publishers Awards (IPPY), and a finalist at the USA Best Book Awards and International Book Awards.

When Clouds Embrace: a children's book

All proceeds from the sales of "When Clouds Embrace" will go to Giving for Greece, a foundation that works to help the hundreds of unaccompanied refugee minors in Greece.