Night Wind

There was a birthday this week. Not mine, that's on almost the other side of the year. It was the birthday of the first girl I was in love with.

Yeah, we all say that. But I mean truly, madly, desperately, achingly, ecstatically in love. The kind of love where you wake up in the morning and you don't want to open your eyes, 'cos in the dreamworld she left her picture there, behind your eyelids.

The kind of love where you dreaded the start of school in the fall 'cos you couldn't spend every sunny day together from morning til night.

The kind of love where you would trade the whole day for five minutes together.

Her name was Jill, and she lived on the edge of Brownsville in the late sixties, not exactly a safe place. Those were high-strung times.

I remember the night I met her. I went to a party at a friend's house in early winter, and I walked into the bedroom to toss my coat on the bed. This girl was sitting there, brunette, tall, hair in a ponytail, blue eyes wide. I looked at her and said, "Hey, what did you smoke tonight?" She looked at me and said, earnestly, "An entire Marlboro!"

Thought to myself, I HAVE to know this girl!

Couple weeks later, I took her to the Fillmore, to see Iron Butterfly, backed by an unkown band calling themselves Led Zeppelin. That was the night I fell in love for the first time.

Tonight I'm thinking of all the nights that followed, And all the days.

Thinking how we did all the Brooklyn things. Like lie in the sand on Manhattan Beach watching the sunset and the stars rise.

And the day you wore your first  two-piece, and you were so scared.

And the first night we went to dinner on Emmons Avenue, Randazzo's Seafood, while the Saturday night parade roared by.

But I remember the  other times too. 

Like sitting on the bluffs over Lake Ontario.

Like hitch-hiking on a two-lane blacktop in New Hampshire.

Like playing with a lion cub in Manitoba.

Like swimming in the lagoon in Montreal.

Now it's fifty-something years later. And the greyness is over our shoulders and gaining on us. And I've not seen you in forever.

All my love, J.